Waste into Wealth!

[Father Fletch]

http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html
http://www.changingworldtech.com/home.html

Has anyone heard about this process? It seems like it would be a great mcguffin for a traveller game. Neat tech if nothing else!
I can imagine it being mounted aboard a ship to handle ships waste-then fed into a carniculture vat to make the meals for the crew.

 

[lightsenshi]

What do you think chili is, anyways?

 

[Eric]

Hey, we`ve got those in the school cafeteria!

 

[Uncle Bob]

I can't think of anything clever enough to say, so thanks for telling us.

Thermo-Depolymerization Process...

 

[mad13142000]

It could be worse...
I just started reading Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon...The main character is an Ex-Navy Captain who gets a job captaining this RICH lady's yacht, and the fist thing that happens is the captain has an environmental tech killed while opening the sludge tank of the sulfur recycle loop and he gets a lungfull of hydrogen sulfide...So they have to stop at an out of the way starport to get it fixed...
hmmmmm...what a devious campaign hook...

-MADDog

<what an awesome Radiohead concert on MTV...>

-------------------------------------------------
"And from now on, I don't care if my tea leaves spell 'Die, Ron, Die'- I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong."

 

[Ran Targas]

^ This would be more of a problem on ships than you might think. A CHT spill is like bio-chem warfare! Even today, you evacuate and ventilate the space, test for toxins in the air, and use hazmat suits to clean it up.

Someone should add waste system to the starship damage tables! Certainly an incapacitating hit if the crew isn't in vacc suits or better.

 

[mad13142000]

It was pretty serious - One guy died and a second got sent to the autodoc because he hadn't properly sealed his envirosuit...Of course the system was separated and had its own airlock inside the ship...
Why does it seem that environmental systems have been shortchanged in Traveller ship design? Some sci-fi ships have HUGE spaces devoted to hydroponics plants and recycling systems...I know that they usually only run for a week or two before making a planetary liason...
??
-MADDog

 

[Father Fletch]

The original LBB had the comment on deck plan design which said that the given tonnage for a stateroom was half for actual quarters and the other half was support equipment and access ways and common areas. By that description you could postulate that for every full stateroom, (4 d-tons) 1/4 was environmental support equipment. Many of the better deck plans include some sort of life support machinery. I concur that life support should be a part of the design process, but I personally prefer to use some sort of hand wave that says ?10% of all the machinery aboard is dedicated to life support, regardless of the total number of passengers.? Certainly YMMV and you could bump or drop the percentage.
One of the reasons I originally posted this link is to give a RL example of things that could become part of Traveller.

 

[trader jim]

MADDOG - i have come to the conclusion that you are Totaly Cracked Right Down the Middle!!!...
Sure wish we could meet sometime!!!


HHHmmmnn... Trader Jims Waste Management Systems...could be an idea here!!!...maybe a PROFIT!!

 

[Ran Targas]

There's an idea for a Pentapod/Ancient device in here somewhere, maybe a strain of super algea that converts normal human exhilation, urine, and feces into pure oxygen and pure water. The algea grows in a mesh filled cube with organic hose connections that automatically adjust to the size of the input.

Not glamorous but practical for a ship trying to save money. And then ... when the algea is accidently irradiated and achieves sentience?!?

 

[kafka47]

Ran:

Good idea, except I fear it would degenerate into MegaTraveller II: Quest for the Ancients rather soon with players needing to cope with Super-plague.

I would rather have those pesky bacteria or nanobots working as they ought to but an interesting twist would be to place the bacteria on a planet where water and oxygen is poisonous to the local sentient species and slowly replacing the biosphere unbeknownst to all. The players can operate in such an environment and a local megacorp (perhaps, Ling or Sugsag) is using all local resources to stop the plague, as the planet is also home to a form of fauna that is an essential ingredient for a Combat Drug that cannot be synthesized. However, a rival Sol. Corporation sees the opportunity to route out the Imperial MegaCorp. and in concert with SolSec, who always felt the human population as second class citizens is engaged in a dirty tricks campaign cumulating in the way of discovering a way to expedite the bacteria's growth rate. Remember, Traveller is usually about “Wheels within Wheels”.

 

[Jame]

What about bioconverters? These can separate certain "natural digestion products" into water and other elements which can be used for just about anything.

 

[robject]

That's a twist on the background for _The Nitrogen Fix_, where our O2-CO2 atmosphere is a preliminary stage to the 'final' atmosphere of habitable worlds; namely, a nitrogen one. Darn near does in humanity, who are just advanced enough to geneer plants that can generate enough O2 to keep people alive, though dwindling, in constructed habitats.

It'd be pretty nasty if some evil Agency found it profitable and convenient to seed the top 100 Imperial breadbasket worlds with insidious nitrogen producers...

 

[trader jim]

Sure would, heheheheheh, what an "easy" attack!!!!

 

[Golan2072]

Both links are broken. Are they talking about the bacteria that eat glocose and generate electrical power (if you put in the right electrodes and raise them in the right solution) and one of their more advanced variants (eats starch/celulose)?

This method of power generation seems like the perfect power source for cybernetics. Cyber-battery eats glocose from the blood and generate power; Mr. Cyborg has to eat more than a "baseline" to stay functioning.

 

[Golan2072]

Is there any updated, working version of these articles? They are brimming with speculative tech potential...