Some models of sustainability: In Aug 13, 2007 I published a letter “A plan for sustainability” in C&EN news advocating waste disposal as a method of preventing global warming (the decomposing waste could be used as a carbon - neutral energy source). Accompanying my letter was a letter by Wilson M. Gulick, suggesting that a moonbase be used to study sustainability. In such a “closed system” non renewable resources would be rapidly depleted. This article got me thinking because earth based laboratories of sustainability had already been set up, most notably the biosphere in Arizona. More usefully, it was possible to buy your own biosphere for about $65. At that price one obtains a 2 inch glass seawater filled egg containing 4 visible layers, a small bubble of air, seawater with tiny shrimps swimming in it, a layer of green algae slime encrusting the sides and a brown basal layer of organic matter. The egg is nearly indefinitely sustainable, placed by a window the shrimps eat the green algae, reproduce and die. The brown layer of bacteria etc decompose the waste and dead shrimps, returning the nutrients ready for photosynthetic growth. After about 7 – 10 years the shrimps and green algae die and are replaced by a monotonous mat of blue green algae. It appears that the system is insufficiently diverse. How could understanding these systems be applied to a sustainable lunar colony? They are invaluable as they demonstrate that the brown basal layer of bacteria acts as the medium by which autotrophs obtain their food. The brown layer is not terribly well understood. It contains fermenters, oxidizers and reducing bacteria as well as probably a host of fungi and protists. The brown layer of decomposing waste & their “deconstructors” is, I believe key to the future of a lunar base and perhaps the future of our planet. However chemists are far more concerned with synthesis and biosynthesis than with decomposition. Maybe decomposition and its accompanying energy flow should be given greater inquiry.
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