could a manna machine actually feed us?19:36 Apr 24 2010
Times Read: 851
Production rates
The English engineers have described their machine in great detail, so that it's possible to calculate its production. They write:
"For Chlorella-type organisms to grow, the principal requirements are: water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and light. As regards the water, the upper part of the Ancient of Days comprises a dew-still, a cooled surface which could extract sufficient water even from the dry air of the Sinai desert; carbon dioxide and nitrogen are available in the atmosphere, and could be made available to the culture by circulating it through the "beard-hairs" in contact with the air via a semi-permeable membrane; and as for the light, the Zohar makes endless mention of the "cardinal lamp" in the interior of the Ancient One. The other requirement, of course, is energy. Based on a realistic Israelite population of 600 "families" rather than 600 "thousands" - the Hebrew word "ALP" can mean either - we came up with a figure around 500 kilowatts, which is within the capacity of a small modern nuclear reactor. The light source could have been a neutron-pumped laser, and electricity for the control circuits generated thermoelectrically.
In addition to the thick beard-hairs, or circulation coils, there are also "thousands and thousands, myriads and myriads" of tangled black hairs - electrical wiring, for sure.
From drawings and models, like the ones from Fiebag's "Ewigkeitsmaschine" or on Peter Fiebags Homepage we can get the basic dimensions of the construction elements. These elements are:
The "Mouth", an opening in the machine, like the radiator grill on a car, for air that gets being dehydrated. The air circulation is passive, the air speed around the machine must be enough for the exchange. The important dimension is the area of the opening.
The "Hairs", a sphere of gas exchange pipes to extract CO2 from the air, the exchange should also happen passively, only through the wind speed of the surrounding air. The important dimension here: the cross section area of the "hairs".
The "Brain", , the condenser dome on top of the machine. Important dimension here: the surface area.
The "Big Sea", the tank for the algae culture. The critical value here is the volume.
The "Army", used as storing device for the prepared manna (there were two, one was filled every day for the morning manna, one was filled during the week for the manna on the Sabbath). The volume is the important value here, too.
The dimensions of the important parts are given in the table below for Dale/Sasson's original 5 m machine, and a 1.8m version according to Fiebag:
System "Mouth" "Hairs" "Brain" "Big Sea" "Armies"
5 m high 0,5 m2 12,5 m2 1 m 3000 l 2 x 1770 l
1.8 m 0,065 m2 1,6 m2 36 cm 131 l 2 x 82 l
These are the values I will use for my calculations on the next page.
Population and demand of calories
Dale/Sassoon claim that only 600 families had to be provided with food. Strange, the bible clearly says that "600000 men at foot without the children" had to be provided for. Dale/Sassoon say that is because of a translation error. The hebraic word for "on thousand" is the same as for "family" - a claim I could not verify. Dale/Sassoon give no source for this interpretation, and I talked with several persons knowing old hebraic disagreeing with it, so I am very doubtful. Also the description "600 families without the kids" makes no sense at all. Also, 600 families can not be called "people" by any means. They would not have been able to do the deeds listed in Moses 3. And the structure of Dale/Sassoons family contradicts everything we know of ancient family structures.
Even if there was something true about 600 families we should use a definition common today in Beduine societies. They have at least:
Three generations:
2 grandparents (around 45-50 years old, child birth was early those days),
At least two parent pairs (daughters and sons of the grand parents, married and about 25 years old).
At least two children for each couple,between 5 and 7 years old.
This are at least 10 persons per family, or 6000 persons with 600 families. This also is the minimal number of persons I would call "people".
The next problem with Dale/Sassoon's concept comes with their calculation of calorie consumption. They give for a man 2000 calories, but only 1600 calories for a woman and 900 calories for each child - so they come to an average calorie consumption of 1260 kCal/Person.
I looked into several calorie tables (like Time-Life, "Die richtige Ernährung") and they give even for "medium activities" like house work (and a trek through the desert is harder than that) for a 1.53 m male (man, youth or child is all the same) 2000 kCal, and for a female of the same size 1850 kCal. Even a 1.20 m child needs more than 1200 kCal per day.
If we do not assume that the Israelites were pygmies, and we take a male with 1.60 m, his wife with 1.56 m and the children with 1.20 m each, the average calorie consumption for Dale/Sassoons mini-families is ( 3 x 2200 + 3 x 2000 + 4 x 1200) / 10 = 1740 kCal! This would mean 10.44 Mio kCal per day for 6000 people (the normal family), and we can add about 30% if we assume that a trek through the desert counts as "hard work". Dale/Sassoon give 3.78 Mio. kCal per day, how do they get this value? Well, either they really think that the Israelites were pygmies (man 1.53 m, women and children are below the size of any table I have looked into, at least smaller than 1.40 m for the woman and smaller than 1.20 m for the children), or they give normal sized persons a starvation diet they would not survive 40 years, probably not even 40 days.
Even if we look at the downsized mini population of 3000 persons, with only 1200 grownups, the hunger diet of Dale/Sassoon does not work. If we use a "normal" calorie consumption of normal sized people, we need for this group at least 4.68 Mio. kCal per day, 1 Mio. kCal (about 25%) more than Dale/Sassoon tell their readers.
Algae and calorie value
A bio reactor is no perpetuum mobile which creates something out of nothing. What algae do is to convert water and carbon dioxide to produce sugar and oxygen from that. The following chemical reaction takes place:
6 H2O + 6 CO2 + energy = C6H12O6 + 6 O2
Further reactions also produce proteins and fat, but I will not discuss those reactions here. Since they use more energy per calorie, it even is an advantage for the calculation model.
Unfortunately, plants produce also sugars which cannot be used by our body, the so called poly saccharide like cellulose, from which the plants are made of. Algae like Chlorella and Spirella also produce large amounts of vitamins and protein. Spirella is therefore are called "wonder food". Even NASA is experimenting with them.
Spirella for example is produced on Hawaii in large basins. Dried "super"-algae consists to 72% of for the human body usable carbon hydrates and protein[ 1 ]. Sugar and protein have a calorie value of 4.1 and 4.2 kCal/g, the usable calorie value for those algae is a bit lower, around 3 kCal per gram, because parts of the last 28% consist of not usable or calorie less by products. Still it is three times more effective than other high protein foods like Soya. And this completely without unusable parts like leafs and stems plants have as "by products", and where only a small percentage of the whole plant is edible. In fact a food good for space exploration.
But Dale/Sassoon give 5.5 kCal/g for their algae! Since sugar and protein give only about 4 kCal/g each, the other 28% must deliver as much calories as fat, our most efficient energy source. That is impossible, because those algae are diet food - because of their lack of fat! with this inconvenient fact the manna machine starts to look bad...
There is fat in algae, spirella/chlorella substrates have about 7%, and not the necessary 28%. With this information we can calculate the calorie value backwards: 72 g protein and sugar, taken with 4.15 kCal/g as average, provide 298 kCal, 7 g fat 65,1 kCal, together 363,9 kCal for 100 g, a value well inside the interval of 330-370 kCal/100g I found on the internet. And far far away from the needed 5,5 kCal/g!
To see how much water, carbon dioxide and light the manna machine needs, we need a few more parameters.
From the chemical formula we can calculate the molecular weight of sugar:
Element Atom weight
Hydrogen (H) 1.008
Carbon (C) 12.011
Oxygen (O) 15.999
This is a molecular weight of 180 for sugar. To produce this we need 6 molecules of water, mol weight together 108, and 6 molecules of carbon dioxide, mol weight together 264. Or, to scale it to kilograms, we need for every kg raw bio mass 600 g of water and 1466.7 g of carbon dioxide.
The last point is the energy density. Photo synthesis needs energy in form of light. For each Mol of glucose 2286 Kcal or 9571 kilo-Joule (kJ) are needed, or 5262 kJ for each 100 g.
The production of proteins needs much more energy, so let's stick to the production of sugars to get a low estimate. Now we have enough data do make proper calculations.
COMMENTS
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MooniePie
02:55 Apr 28 2010
LMAO
I think I just tinkled a lil I laughed so hard.
ThothLestat
02:58 Apr 28 2010
*rolls eyes*
oh, this is gonna be fun.
Oceanne
03:00 Apr 28 2010
Shes gunnin for your job Moonie!
Hey at least the girl has a sense of humor?
~Smirks~
Claymore1
03:14 Apr 28 2010
Apparently she never heard the addage, "youth and vigor will never beat age and treachery".
And since when can a 44 year old woman clam to be a member/leader of generation x?
MooniePie
03:20 Apr 28 2010
I jus had to lay down some smacketh on her profile.
-bats eyelashes-
MysticalChild
05:26 Apr 28 2010
her profile will be inactive in a couple of weeks ;]
Kashka
06:34 Apr 28 2010
Oh wow. Lol
Claymore1
12:49 Apr 28 2010
In an interesting side note, she is advertising for a roomate in the forums. Now I want to know who in there right mind advertises for a roomate with a picture taken in a nast bathroom.
She doesnt need a roomate, she need health and human services to stage an intervention.
Oceanne
13:21 Apr 28 2010
Besides,why would she want to be on the throne here,evidently,she has her own.doesnt even go to far from it to take a pic of herself.
deathnitegrl
15:25 Apr 28 2010
LOL the way she presents herself is really friendly...NOT!
ladySnowStrixx
15:45 Apr 28 2010
hey !!She Says shes a teacher , can you imagine her teaching your Children? plus she can't make up her mind as to if she,s the mother or the Daughter.
Claymore1
20:48 Apr 28 2010
A teacher of what?
I don't think spelling is something she should get near.
Oceanne
21:28 Apr 28 2010
You know,I had felt guilty about making fun of what she had written.And thats really what it was about..not about HER as a person.Then I got a message containing a convo between her and someone else and saw just how snitty she really is.So now,I dont feel guilty at all really.
Read from the bottom up.
_
_______________________________________----
On 10:48:10 Apr 28 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
Saw your journal.........thought you'd get a kick out of this convo.........bottom up.............between me and you please:
Message To: lilmissmissy
Be careful.....he'll either ignore you or block you.
On 22:05:47 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
oh dont worry i tink i can get his attention
On 21:56:20 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
You mean Cancer? He's the Prince/Site owner. You don't want to contact him unless it's a problem with your account. He gets probably on the low side, at least 100 messages a day. Why would you need to contact him?
On 21:52:32 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
whats the easiet way to get inot contact with the princes
On 21:50:54 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXwrote:
I can help you if it is within my powers. I would be glad to help if I can.
On 21:49:36 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
lol so i think you can help me with something
On 21:44:58 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXwrote:
It's all good. I am 52 years old. I've been called every name in the book and some not invented yet. I will get over it. You.... on the other hand...... if you want to make yourself stand out, take my advice on the pic. I didn't think that I needed to warn you with my comment. There are ways to move on this site. I've seen them all. You can't bullshit a bullshitter. :P
On 21:41:20 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
you should of said im just warning you but your pic so my bad
On 21:38:34 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
You took it wrong. YOU got all offended by my comment. I didn't call you a bitch or anything else. YOU are the one with the nasty comments. I am beautiful too in my own way. If you're that shallow then I feel sorry for you. I meant NOTHING by the comment. Just warning you.
On 21:35:44 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
you didnt have to message me in the first place my pic wasnt doing anything to offend you you got what you deserved
On 21:33:21 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
You don't call a site Admin a bitch. I am just trying to warn you. Good luck with that. I am what I am. I don't try to make it better for others.
On 21:32:15 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
look bitch i dont give a fuck what you have to say im beautiful your not im hot hot your overwieght . so please get hobby fuck off
On 21:29:30 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXX wrote:
There is a standing joke around here about toilets in backgrounds of pictures. A real woman is not part of that joke. Just saying.
On 21:23:05 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) lilmissmissy wrote:
yeah i know thats why i didnt crop the pic . a real woman can out shine any background
On 21:21:28 Apr 27 2010 (-0 GMT) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXwrote:
LOVE the toilet in the back ground of your pic. Very classy.
deathnitegrl
21:47 Apr 30 2010
LOL she'll surely get his attention, not the way she meant to though, hahaha!