This is why we need to live in Habitats

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Darren Brown"

> I would like to know what you think, could it work? Meanwhile I'll
> try to find the original work, I think it is written, so I'll have
> search under the house and look for it.

I like the idea. About 2 years ago I posted the following to UseNet
and it went over like a lead balloon and no one responded:

Just looking for people's opinions on how chemical processing will
change when we have orbital Habitats.

I was just delving into agriculture science in my web surfing and
eventually found my way to farm animals and how in the developed
world, the parts that we don't consume are sent to rendering plants
where everything not used is sent into huge vats and liquified
(anybody see Soylent Greeen?) It came out in this research that many
of the parts are sent to make foods (gummy bears, sausages,
margarine, Rocky Mountain Oysters, gum, mayonaise, marshmellows),
products (piano keys, soaps, cosmetics, shaving cream), industrial
products (rust inhibitors, cellophane, drywall, asphalt), and
pharmaceuticals (insulin, hormones.)

Also in that information was that Pheno-Barbital (which is used to
euthanize the animals) doesn't break down in this process and is
present in minute quantities in all of these products. I put this
information together with three other facts I picked up in the past
few years, 1.) that BSE (Mad Cow Disease) survives processes which
kill other pathogens; 2.) researchers are finding Scotchgard in
Antarctic ice; and 3.) that most recently they found Viagra in an
alarming number of community water supplies (good joke material
here.)

Now I happen to think that the economics of these rendering plants
happens to work because they are part of a complex economy which
demands all sorts of inputs. The Habitats won't have that option and
will have a lot of non-usable wastes, thus what are they to do with
their waste streams? The human waste, the animal waste, the
industrial waste. Of course, some can be recycled. On earth, these
waste streams are biologically broken down where possible, the
sludge then dumped into the biosphere, or incinerated (but not
to atomic level.) Now most of the literature I've read on CELSS has
predicted leakage, but my interpretation was that the leakage would
occur from process inefficicncies, not from not being able to use
the waste streams completely.

All of these troubling issues lead me to lean towards sending all of
our waste streams (no matter how benign we think they are) through a
solar furnace where everything is broken down to atomic level. While
energy won't be free, without the constraint of gravity, the capital
cost to set up a large solar furnace should be minimal. While we'll
still be governed by economic principles, we'll have the option in
orbit to process differently than they do here on earth.

And now I come to the crux of my question. Technically, I'm sure
we'll be able to create this comprehensive waste sterilization
process, and that would be the easy part of the equation. What I'm
unsure of is whether the industries that require these animal
byproducts, and to extend the scenario, other waste products, would
be able to economically work in an "atomic level" supply chain, and
then build their required molecules from there?

If our chemical processes all have to start with the elements, are
we going to be doing a lot of processing just to get back to the
molecular building blocks we sent into the furnace? I'm assuming
that most of these additional processes would require energy inputs
(which would be inexpensive) but I'm curious about how extenisve a
chemical processing infrastructure will have to be?

Even as we are importing items from earth, will we have to
storehouse those elements that have come through the waste process,
until such time as we can build chemical facilities to process them
into economically useful molecules?

Then, as our orbital civilization develops will we have chemical
plants that just make stearic acid (used in car and bike tires to
help hold shape among other uses), fats for our soaps, emulsifiers,
etc., or despite our access to cheap energy, will we duplicate the
processes of earth industries?