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| Jonathan Trent @F4H2014 Who1 #314023 A specialist in microbes in extreme environments, Jonathan Trent works on global solutions to energy and novel project for sustainable waste-to-energy production, Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae (Omega). |
At 6:50 minutes, Jonathan talks about his transition from 'Ivory Tower' research to being a Google scholar working on what he calls 'sustainable energy for space-ship earth.'He presents his Rio +20 video on the industrial revolution and its effects on the planet. In a single lifetime, people's health and well-being have improved beyond measure.....yet 1 billion are malnourished, the planet is rapidly losing its biodiversity, increases in green-house gasses, ocean acidification, and other major changes to the planet are hallmarks of 'the anthropocene' - humankind's shaping of the planet's major systems.He feels the real question is: 'Can we shape our future?' In the US we represent less than 5% of the world's population, (vs 17% of the world's total in India and 18% in China) - yet we use 25% of the world's resources. Our current success in technology and humankind's ability to sustain 7 billion on the planet is based on an oil economy - an economy stemming from microorganisms that fell to the bottom of shallow oceans millions of years ago. But the resource is finite, and the approach is unsustainable. Jonathan's premise: microorganisms can produce new (and renewable) energy today.His floating algal mats are envisioned to convert waste-water to energy-providing biofuels. OMEGA, the practical solution modeled on this central idea, stands for Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae. Based on life support systems work done at NASA, sustainability comes from combining algal mats with aquaculture. |
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