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Ecotechnology

Welcome: This page will describe how technologies that are derived in concert with the Language of Wisdom may represent an easily understandable illustrations of how the Language of Wisdom can function in real world hands on applications. These will be presented in two cases

The first case will describe the TimberFish Technology, an ecotechnology that can produce contaminant free seafood from food processing and food wastes.

The second case will show how these types of ecotechnologies can be the cornerstones of Local Sustainable Green Circular Economies (LSGs).

These two cases describe actual projects that we all can do in our homes, schools, and local communities. They provide hands on educational tools that illustrate the principles of the Language of Wisdom and how these can improve the quality, sustainability, and enjoyment of our own personal experiences. This will include our jobs, family and social interactions, and our recreational and creative activities.

The Epistemology of Ecotechnology subpage will detail the language structures that underlie these practical cases and how they all have similarities at both the applied and theoretical levels.

Case 1. TimberFish Technologies (TFT)

The TFT system has a four language interconnected structure that will be discussed in detail in the Epistemology of Ecotechnology sub page. The four languages represent a four level multitrophic design comprising;

• An atomic biochemical level using the language of free energy and maximum entropy,
• A microbial cellular level using a genetic algorithm language,
• An animal level using a neural network language, and,
• A human level using our natural, constructed, and computer languages.

These are related – interrelated by a metaphorical quaternion representation of the Golidlocks Maximum Entropy Principle (GMEP). See pages 94 – 95 in Chapter 7 of The Relational Symmetry Paradigm (RSP). This formulation has been developed concurrently with the physical manifestation and implementation of the TFT ecotechnology. It is the core business of TimberFish LLC whose mission is to demonstrate that it is an economically and commercially viable business.

A description of this ecotechnology was also included in The RSP. See pages 108 – 127. Some of that material is contained in the following discussion. It was originally included in the RSP to illustrate how the constant interplay of theoretical and applied language can generate the new ecotechnologies that are essential for us to survive as a species and as a planetary ecosystem. Our current thinking is that this ecotechnology must be implemented on a global business level to achieve this objective.

Here is our current business position.

TimberFish LLC. is a New York State corporation, incorporated on September 3, 2008, and doing business as TimberFish Technologies. Our technology is U.S. patented and is available for the rest of the world. We are not seeking investment but are open to the sale or licensing of the technology, participating in the formation of new companies with additional formation partners, participating in joint venture or licensing agreements, or performing project management and technical support for large scale sponsored projects.

Here is how TimberFish has approached this in the past.

Executive Summary:

TimberFish LLC. is an operating New York State company that develops, markets, and implements environmental biotechnology to produce contaminant free, locally and sustainably produced fish and shrimp from currently unutilized resources such as clean food and beverage waste streams. These can be combined with a wide variety of nonagricultural plant materials that can be sustainably harvested from diversified ecosystems such as forests, and used to grow microbes, which are fed to invertebrates, which are fed to fish and shrimp. The resulting seafood is contaminant free, locally produced, and the process is ecologically sustainable, and economically competitive in todays' market.

TimberFish can mitigate and reverse Climate Change by creating profitable businesses that locally produce contaminant free seafood from sustainably harvested forest material. This can economically incentivize large scale reforestation and new forest development. These new forests will sequester large quantities of carbon that currently exists in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, thereby significantly reducing such atmospheric concentrations that are a prime contributor to Climate Change.

Large scale development and implementation of this technology could boost our economy by generating many new jobs in all areas of the country and the world. It will also generate new food chains that are local, safe, and secure. This production of contaminant free seafood will also be accompanied by the production of renewable energy, soil amendments and potting soils, and clean water that meets tertiary treatment reuse or discharge standards.

The TimberFish Technology provides a profitable platform for the local and sustainable production of food in a forest based circular economy. In a general embodiment the technology can use food wastes, which can be combined with the wood chips from forests, to serve as substrates for growing microbes, which are fed to invertebrates, which then are fed to fish. This resolves another problem in that currently about 40 percent of all food produced is wasted.

The technology can use many other sources of unutilized nutrients and other plant materials or derivatives, as long as they do not contain toxic substances. The TimberFish facilities could incorporate constructed wetlands to restore clean water sources for reuse, groundwater recharge, and wetland habitats. They also could include cogeneration facilities to produce electricity from the high energy wood chip residuals produced by the TimberFish process. The economics of the total system incentivizes new forest development, reforestation, and deforestation avoidance. This could generate sufficient additional carbon sequestration capacity to significantly reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Description of the Ecotechnology Process:

The TimberFish Technology (TFT) combines elements from Recirculating Aquaculture Systems, Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture, and Biological Municipal Wastewater Treatment. The resulting technology has been implemented in a complex and diversified ecosystem production facility that raises fish and other seafood utilizing plant material harvested from non- agricultural land and production residuals from the food and beverage industries as sole material inputs.

The TFT mimics the natural food-chain of fish and macro-invertebrates. It combines water purification and underutilized biomass to produce salable seafood and biofuels. The process is local, sustainable, environmentally friendly, removes solid and soluble pollutants from water; creates contaminant-free seafood; is not dependent on chemical use; and generates enhanced biofuels. TFT is economically attractive, providing a commercial driver for the global proliferation of environmental best practices including reforestation and deforestation avoidance.

The process comprises a series of interconnected internal recycle flows and sub environments that contain a large variety of organisms ranging from microbes, to invertebrates, and fish. It works by combining plant material with nutrients contained in by-product waste streams. The microbes are grown in this mixture and then become food for the invertebrates that are also resident within the system. The structure of the system is such that it is easy to provide these invertebrates to the product fish or other seafood that also reside within the system for their consumption.

The TFT system is designed to contain an extremely large variety of microorganisms and many different species of invertebrates. All of these can reside in various physical sub environments ranging from suspended floc structures and single cell aggregates to fixed film layers that will reside on the matrices comprising wood chips, grain hulls, and other grain and fruit non fermented residues.

The process control system for this process comprises four types of language that function at the chemical, microbial - cellular, neurological, and natural language levels.

A general schematic of the process is as follows.

We are currently reactivating TimberFish LLC. With a focus on three initial projects:

Project #1: Develop Sustainability Programs for colleges and universities.

These programs would provide a hands on educational experience that would show how an ecotechnology such as TimberFish can not only demonstrate, but actually implement sustainability at the local level. The program would comprise the installation of a mobile TFT unit at the college or university. Students could then operate the unit to convert some of the food wastes from cafeterias and dining halls into fish that could then be eaten by students and faculty. Here is a photo of the demo unit.

Once credibility and familiarity with the process was achieved the demo unit could be expanded on the site to treat all of the food waste produced by the institution. This could then be converted into a significant source of seafood for consumption at the cafeterias and dining halls. A more detailed description of how such a program could be implemented is presented in the attached draft proposal document on the TimberFish Ecotechnology.

Project # 2: Expansion of the existing TimberFish system at the Five & 20 Spirits & Brewing facility in Westfield, NY.

This facility was initially constructed in 2016 and operated through 2019 treating the stillage and washwaters from Five & 20 and producing seafood. The existing system comprises a concrete tank that is 70 feet long, 20 feet wide, 8 feet deep, with an attached 70 foot by 20 foot concrete pad containing five 8 foot diameter fish tanks with associate chip filtration systems. It is contained in a fabric hoop house building.

The wastes from the Five & 20 Spirits & Brewing are collected in two 2,000 gallon stainless steel tanks and are then pumped into the system. This initial system was designed to produce up to 10,000 pounds of seafood per year but due to a significant increase in loading from the Five & 20 facility most of the initial fish tankage has been used for additional wastewater treatment.

This proposal will upgrade this facility so that it can provide appropriate environmental control and operation to produce up to 100,000 pounds of seafood per year. This will entail the construction of a new building, the installation of four new 25 foot diameter, 20,000 gallon fish rearing tanks and associated equipment, the addition of five new 8 foot diameter fish tanks, and the construction of permanent worm farms, fish processing facilities, and chip management systems. The existing bioreactors, blowers, pumps, and fish tanks will be retained and integrated into the new system.

The new building will enclose all the existing concrete structures used for bioreactors and seafood production. The new tanks and chip filters will be added adjacent to these existing systems. An additional five 8 foot diameter fish tanks will be included in the new system for staged fish growth for the larger production tanks.

The Phase 1 budget, including construction and O&M costs for two years will be $5 million. This will cover about $2.5 million for the building, tanks, and equipment, $1.5 million for salaries, and $1.0 million for G&A.

Project #3: Installation of a full scale operating facility producing 1.5 million pounds of seafood per year or more close to the existing system at Five & 20 Spirits & Brewing in Westfield, NY.

In this Project two new facilities and buildings will be added to the ones completed in Project #1. There will be two separate systems each housed in their own buildings. These systems will follow the design of the Project #1 system but the main fish raising components will comprise four 50 foot diameter, 120,000 gallon tanks. Each system will allow for production of 600,000 pounds of fish per year.

Each of these systems will have their own food waste and nutrient receiving systems, and will share raw and residual wood chip handling, potting soil production, and final effluent wastewater treatment facilities, but will otherwise be isolated from each other for biosecurity reasons. Water inputs will undergo a combination of ozonation and UV light disinfection prior to introduction into the systems.

A constructed wetland will be installed to receive discharge from these systems. Prior to discharge to the constructed wetland all effluents will meet our existing SPDES permit limits which conform to the strictest intermittent stream effluent discharge standards of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Areas around the constructed wetland will be converted into new forest. Access features for the sustainable harvesting of this forest will be constructed in a manner that maintains the aesthetic and ecological integrity of the forest. This will preserve the biodiversity of the forest itself as well as its animal habitat.

The projected budget for the separate fish production systems is about $9 million each. The chip harvesting and residual high energy chip residual management section and the constructed wetland and associated forests will add another $7 million, making the total Project budget about $25 million.

Once this system has been fully operational for a year a renewable energy component will be added. This will convert the high energy residual wood chips that are produced by the TimberFish process into electrical energy via a steam turbine connected to an electrical generator. All scrubber waters from the boiler that feeds the turbine will be recycled back through the TimberFish process. The resulting carbon dioxide gas emissions from the boiler should be clean and provide a substrate for the forests to grow new plant material.

https://timberfishtech.com/

https://timberfishtech.com/the-timberfish-system/

While TimberFish operates as a business in the US., it does so within the larger context of the investigatory program of the Language of Wisdom.

Consequently, it maintains its patent position in the US because of the belief that the US should pay more for the resolution of Climate Change because it has contributed more to the creation of Climate Change, both individually and as a nation, than the rest of the world. Hence here is the listing of the TFT Intellectual Property position and our intent to license and sell the technology in the US but make it freely available for the rest of the world.

Why Ecotechnology is important.

April 22, 1970. Lynn and I marched in the first Earth Day parade in New York City. We were part of the environmental movement of the late 1960s, influenced by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, global warming, and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (already at 325 ppm in April 1970). We were joined by a million others. We all knew there were problems, but felt optimistic and excited about solving them.

So what has happened since. We have spent a lot of money, and developed new technologies, wind, solar, corn ethanol, electric vehicles, and many more. This has made a few people very wealthy. We have also done a massive amount of research on causes and consequences.

See https://archive.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change

So where are we now? March 2024 425 ppm.

“The graphs show monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The carbon dioxide data on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2

It does not appear that what we are doing is successful. So what can we do about it.

Albert Einstein: A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. (1)

Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. (2)

Buckminster Fuller: If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking. (3)

The creation of such tools for ecotechnology is one of my main motivations for working with Math 4 Wisdom.

Case 2. Local Sustainable Green Circular Economies

To be added

The Goal

We have core needs - shelter, food, health care - and if we have systems to solve those problems, and people are thinking about them - and if we have a tangible working system - then we will not be victims of extreme wealth inequality.