Evening star., 1953-07-15
By Thomos R. Henry

Oy uUOWOS N G1eHIy
The world may be on the verge
of a revolutionary new kind of
agriculture.
This new agriculture might
someday make possible producing
half the essential protein foods
needed by the earth's Z billion
persons on a single farm the size
of the State of Rhode Island.
An even more startling predic-
ton is that civilizations total
food and energy requirements so
years hence-including all the
fuel for industrial power produc-
ton, heating, lighting, and
tranSportation-might be pro-
duced annually on less than a
fifth of the planets surface.
The serious possibility of such
developments was foreSeen in an
epochal report issued today by
the Carnegie Institution of Wash
ington.
Part Of the new farming, the
report says, might even be car
ried out on artificial moons
launched into space and moving
in orbits around the earth.
Crews of such satellites could, at
least, feed themselves and prob
ably provide their own require
ments of heat and energy.
On such a farm, it Is pro-
posed. the crop would be green
algae, probably of the genus
chlorela-the one-celled, ex-
tremely primitive plants that
sometimes make green scum on
stagnant water. The farms would
consist of great tanks filled with
water and necessary plant nutri-
entS, perhaps kept in an atmos-
phere enriched with carbon diox-
ide. The water would be continu-
ously circulating in such tank
so that the plants would be ex-
posed to sunlight every few sec
onds. the energy for circulating
the water being supplied by
using dried algae themselves as
fuel.
The object would be a more
efficient trapping of the energy
of sunlight through the green
plant pigment chlorophyll-the
process of photosynthesis upon
which all life on earth depends
in a far more effective man.
ner than this is done ordinarily
by nature. Green plants. using
certain wave-lengths of sunshine
as energy, convert carbon diox-
ide from the air and hydrogen
from water into hydrocarbons.
In this way the great coal and
Oil deposits of the world were
created in past geological ages.
The process must have been eX-
tremely slow. requiring count
less milleniums. BY the new
method it would be speeded up.
Would Mean Cheap Food.
The primary object would be
to provide cheap food immed-
lately for mankind. The algae.
the Carnegie experiments have
shown, contain particularly large
amounts Of the food element
Of which there is the greatest
shortage through most Of the
world-protein. At the same
time it is the element for which
the need is greatest. Proteins
are the building blocks of the
body. They are the most ex-
pensive kind of food. The biggest
source is meat. although they
are contained in considerable
amounts in some grains and
vegetables. A greater part of
the population of the earth can
not afford much meat.
The idea Of daily replacement
Of the fuel used by all industry
through the chlorela farms looks
to the future when the present
oil and coal Of the world is ex-
hausted. The crop would be
dried and burned as fuel. It
is to this source. several eminent
American scientists have pre-
dicted, that the world will turn
rather than to atomic energy
which always probably will be
very expensive. The idea has
gained considerable momentum
Of late.
The general possibilities of
chlorela culture have been ap-
for some years. About
a year ago the Carnegie Institu-
ton and the Arthur D. Little Co..
industrial consultants. of Cam
bridge, Mass. set up q pilot
plant to test the actual possibili-
ties. The report issued today
summarizes this work. as well as