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We have thousands of miles of Interstate highway around here, most of which runs with a wide grassy median between the two directions of travel. Even if you assume, say, a twenty-foot margin to keep well away from traffic, in many places that leaves you with as much as a hundred-foot wide usable strip
of land.
What shall we do with it?
If we assume that the useful strip is, on average, a mere 20 feet, and that we have only 1000 miles to farm, that still gives us a whopping 2400 acres to farm. Raise soybeans, collect soybean oil, convert to biodiesel, enjoy!
Halfbakery: Mobile Grazer
Mobile_20Grazer
Or use them to raise cattle? I'll go with the fuel, I think. [jutta, Mar 18 2006]
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<off topic> I once knew someone who regularly camped out in some of the larger freeway medians in Western Washington. Not sure why he did it other than just to amuse himself by hiding in plain sight (sort of). |
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It was always fun to listen to his stories about avoiding state patrol and road crew folks. |
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There is something distincly unapetizing about eating soybeans cultivated on a highway. |
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bristolz: you knew Eric Rudolph?! |
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[jellydoughnut], the idea isn't to eat them; it's biodeisel production. |
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This would certainly help alleviate the competition between biodiesel fams and food farms for scarce land. Bunned. |
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Like [gisho] says. I've often looked at these strips of land and thought what a pity it is that they're too polluted with lead, asbestos etc. (leaded petrol - grrr, just don't get me started!) to grow food. Soybeans are appropriately low-growing, to maintain visibility where it's desirable. Good idea. + |
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Can your soybean harvesters drive at 70mph? |
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Would it be worth it? I mean you still have to drive the tractor and other farming tools in between the various plots stretched out along the highway. Wouldn't the cost of farming reduce the return to much? |
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[Tanned Black] A somewhat late welcome to you! Yes, I was surprised to hear recently that leaded fuel was still widely used in parts of Africa. When leaded fuel was still available here, I used to mix my own lead replacement fuel - unleaded petrol, about 5% denatured alcohol, and upper cylinder lubricant. My (pre-unleaded fuel) car ran better on this than on leaded fuel, and the cost was only very slightly more. The lies, greed and sheer head-in-the-sand mentality that allowed decades of this irrevocable, insidious pollution anger me. I also heard that elevated lead levels are detected in African villages hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city (whence the lead has blown as fine particles). |
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They're crossing the highway with tractors to mow all that grass, my idea could actually reduce median traffic. |
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Would it reduce mean traffic? |
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Depends on the harvesting mode. |
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Switch grass is looking promising as a source of ethanol. Much higher yields than cane, corn, beets etc |
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//Would it reduce mean traffic?//
No, road rage incidents would remain about the same. |
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[DrC], did Eric Rudolph camp out upon the medians of western Washington? |
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//Would it reduce mean traffic?// Would people really slow down to half speed on interstates because there are "animal crossing" signs every place without a guardrail? |
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bris: no idea, but he was sure good at avoiding a whole bunch of state patrolmen and FBI. |
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Thanks [spidermother]. Still snooping around, before I post a truly halfbaked idea. As we speak, unleaded petrol is being met with indifference by motorists who think that they will have to make alterations to their cars. |
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It was met with indifference here as well, until leaded
petrol was banned. Unleaded became pretty popular
after that. |
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Perhaps adding windmills along all the medians? No need to harvest crops then. No worries about pollution. |
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I'm sure it will work if ADM can make a profit from it. |
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