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Effective Thesis Topic Ideas

ALLFED

Note: these topics can be done outside a thesis/dissertation

How would we feed everyone if the sun was blocked or if there were a significant disruption to industry? The Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) is working on planning, preparedness, and research into resilient food solutions, so that in the event of a global catastrophe we could respond quickly to save lives and reduce the risk to civilization.

There are many fields of research that could contribute to this effort, and ALLFED has listed dozens of effective theses here. David Denkenberger and Joshua Pearce are professors who could potentially co-advise or advise some of these theses, if a suitable local advisor cannot be found. Both David and Joshua have a strong track record of generating peer-reviewed publications from their projects, even undergraduate ones. More reading is here.

 

Catastrophic scenarios considered

The thesis topics included in this document have been chosen for their potential to address scenarios that could create catastrophic global food system shocks. The two main classes of scenarios, described below, are those that could block the sun’s light (referred to as “(S)” scenarios in this document) and/or scenarios that inhibit electricity/industry (referred to as “(E)” scenarios in this document).

  1. Agricultural global catastrophes that could block the sun include supervolcanic eruptions and nuclear war (in a nuclear war, smoke from the burning of cities would rise to the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight). These scenarios could kill billions of people, cause a civilizational collapse, and could potentially even jeopardize the long-term future of humanity (which is one definition of existential risk). The probability of nuclear war is on the order of magnitude of 1% per year. Throughout these thesis topic lists, these sun-blocking scenarios will be designated with an (S).
  2. Electricity could be disrupted globally in the event of an extreme solar storm, multiple high altitude detonations of nuclear weapons causing electromagnetic pulses, a narrow artificial intelligence computer virus, or a pandemic causing absenteeism of essential workers. Because virtually every industry relies on electricity (including the fossil fuel industry), industrial civilization could collapse. See more details here. Also concerning is catastrophes that could disable electricity regionally for up to years. Theses in this scenario will be designated (E).
  3. It would be very unlikely that independent catastrophes would disable industry and also block the sun at the same time. However, it could be that the sun-blocking catastrophe causes trade to break down, in turn causing the collapse of industry in many countries. Furthermore, in the future, if global civilization were very dependent on solar energy, the blocking of the sun’s light could catalyze the collapse of industry. See more details here. Theses in this scenario will be designated (S)/(E).

Discipline category “engineering”

  1. Develop a prototype and open source plans for people to be able to feed themselves without very much labor assuming they have a cow (1.5 billion cows are enough to be draft animals for all farmland). Even without industrial power (e.g. tractor), one person could feed ~20 with wheat with machines pulled by cows (plow, planter, cultivator, harvester, mill, etc). This may help people in less-developed countries right now. This could be a thesis for each piece of equipment, and there should be a scale up calculation to see if it could be done in time before stored food runs out (a few months). May need some specialized equipment to cover the major staples of wheat, corn, rice and potatoes. Work with Open Source Ecology? - (E)
  2. Work out logistics of moving water with human power right after losing industry. (E) (in progress, but followup work can be done)
  3. Investigate retrofitting light duty vehicles to be pulled by cows, possibly with an experiment. (E)
  4. Investigate ways of heating buildings with wood quickly, such as repurposing an oven to be a wood-burning stove. This could be useful. (E)
  5. Construct a rope twister quickly (for seaweed). (S)
  6. Construct a low tech greenhouse quickly and count costs. (S)
  7. Investigate ways to convert the fiber residue from leaf protein extract production into sugar at the household scale, including having bacteria grow on it and leaching the sugar out (bacteria excrete enzymes that break the cellulose into sugar outside the bacteria) for a few leaf types. I’m not aware of anyone doing this to produce food, so this has a lower probability of success. One possible way to make this more practical is to engineer the bacteria to produce much excess sugar (ideally the edible 6 carbon type, and the bacteria use the human-inedible 5 carbon sugars for energy). Another option is figuring out how to pretreat biomass (typically with acid) and use enzymes (perhaps from fungus) at household scale. - (S)
  8. Work out logistics for collection and delivery of killed leaves, leaf litter, partially decomposed logs, and peat for growing food/feed assuming industry is still functioning. - (S)
  9. Work out logistics for collection and delivery of killed leaves, leaf litter, partially decomposed logs, and peat for growing food/feed assuming industry is not functioning. - (E)
  10. Open source leaf grinder for leaf protein extract from tree/crop leaves. Leaf protein has been produced at the household and industrial scale. - (S) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  11. Cost and scaling of seaweed without industry and reduced sunlight - (E)/(S)
  12. Cost and scaling of potatoes/sugar beet/rapeseed/barley/wheat without industry and reduced sunlight - (E)/(S)
  13. Determine which critical infrastructure electronics would be most likely damaged or destroyed from an EMP shock, such as PLC controllers in SCADA systems, and investigate how to make them more resilient at low costs, or identify the cost of stockpiling them globally. - (E)
  14. Work out how to recover industry as quickly as possible, e.g. focusing on making replacement parts destroyed by EMP (and estimate time of recovery). - (E)
  15. Growing fungus such as Quorn on tree/crop leaves at household scale. Either figure out a way to separate the fungus from the fiber for humans or if the fungus is not separated from the fiber, use as feed for rats (some ability to digest cellulose) or chickens (very little ability to digest cellulose). This has a natural analog of fish (very little ability to digest cellulose) eating decomposed leaves. This may be relevant. (Note: current Quorn production is based on corn and wheat, which are already human edible, so this is generally not as promising in a catastrophe). Or figure out how existing factories could be repurposed to produce fungus on leaves or rapidly construct facilities for the same. - (S)
  16. Partially decomposed wood chipper (relevant for logs in forests and also in young peat): try out existing grinders/chippers/shredders and develop an open source customized grinder. Or figure out how we can retrofit existing equipment (e.g. rock crushers) to grind partially decomposed wood or rapidly construct facilities for the same. - (S)
  17. Growing fungus such as Quorn on partially decomposed ground-up wood. Either figure out a way to separate the fungus from the fiber for humans or if the fungus is not separated from the fiber, use as feed for rats (some ability to digest cellulose) or chickens (very little ability to digest cellulose). This has a natural analog of fish (very little ability to digest cellulose) eating decomposed leaves. (Note: current Quorn production is based on corn and wheat, which are already human edible, so this is generally not as promising in a catastrophe). Or figure out how existing factories could be repurposed to produce ground wood fungus or rapidly construct facilities for the same. - (S)
  18. Cost and scaling of leaf protein extract without industry and reduced sunlight - (E)/(S)
  19. Cost and scaling of energy/electricity production in a catastrophe. – (S)
  20. Quantify the impact on energy/electricity production of nuclear winter, particularly solar, wind, and hydroelectricity. Study the effect of the global energy mix moving towards solar-dependent energy sources. – (S)
  21. Do initial food production scaling calculations (like were done in Feeding Everyone) for additional resilient foods such as (or if including cost estimates, each of these could be a separate thesis): - (S)/(E)
  1. Shipworms (mollusk) (engineering because need to figure out how to contain the logs in the ocean) - (S)
  2. Bivalves such as clams and mussels - (S)
  3. Krill and deep ocean fish (engineering because possible retrofitting of ships) - (S)
  4. Seaweed without industry - (E)
  5. Cattle without industry - (E)
  6. Leaf protein extract without industry - (E)
  7. Greenhouses without industry and reduced sunlight - (E)/(S)
  8. Glycerol synthesized from hydrocarbons (e.g. propene) - (S)
  9. Producing dietary fats from lignocellulosic biomass via fermentation. Specific microorganisms are capable of synthesizing considerable amounts of fatty acids, even omega and essential fatty acids. One concept is similar to the sugars from plant fiber: the fiber would be turned into a pulp, and then the cellulose would be digested by the microorganisms to produce the fats. Another concept is similar to hydrogen SCP, in which the microorganisms convert hydrogen and CO2 into fatty acids. - (S)
  10. Producing single cell proteins from petroleum wax as British Petroleum did in the 1960s. - (S)
  11. Producing single cell protein from biomass. For example, Arbiom is scaling yeast protein production from wood (80,000 L industrial fermentation) in VA, USA with undisclosed partners; estimated to produce 30,000 tons/y of single cell protein. - (S)
  12. Microalgae, cyanobacteria (e.g. spirulina), purple bacteria and other photosynthetic microorganisms with natural light. - (S)
  13. E. Coli fed with CO2 as a resilient food for catastrophes, including food safety considerations. - (S)
  1. Perform lab experiments to chemically convert petroleum wax to human edible lipids via oxidation and distillation, thus establishing proof of concept. Engineer an analog of the historical German coal butter product from petroleum which is also safe to eat. - (S)
  2. Perform lab experiments to chemically convert CO2 to human edible glycerol, thus establishing proof of concept. Engineer a safe food product from CO2. - (S)
  3. Grow bacteria on tree/crop leaves as feed for rats (some ability to digest cellulose) or chickens (very little ability to digest cellulose). This has a natural analog of fish (very little ability to digest cellulose) eating rotten leaves. Or figure out how we can retrofit existing factories to produce this feed or rapidly construct facilities for the same. - (S)
  4. Grow fungus like Quorn on peat (the reason I did not propose peat as an energy source for food in Feeding Everyone was that it takes a long time to drain for growing mushrooms, but we want it wet in a fungus bioreactor) or lignite coal (compressed peat) at the household scale. Either figure out a way to separate the fungus from the fiber for humans or if the fungus is not separated from the fiber, use as feed for rats (some ability to digest cellulose) or chickens (very little ability to digest cellulose). This has a natural analog of fish (very little ability to digest cellulose) eating rotten leaves. (Note: current Quorn production is based on corn and wheat, which are already human edible, so this is generally not as promising in a catastrophe). Or figure out how we can retrofit existing factories to produce peat fungus or rapidly construct facilities for the same. - (S)
  5. Cost and scaling of cattle without industry and reduced sunlight - (E)/(S)
  6. Cost and scaling of mushrooms on leaves without industry - (E)
  7. Cost and scaling of mushrooms on wood without industry - (E)
  8. Cost and scaling of rabbits without industry - (E)
  9. Develop open source wood chipper. - (S)
  10. Demonstration of natural gas eating bacteria at household scale. See here and here for how these bacteria can be used as fish food (and in a catastrophe, perhaps human food). - (S)
  11. Develop an open source shortwave (HAM) radio system (two way or just receiver). - (E)
  12. Cost and scaling of rabbits without the sun - (S)
  13. We have studied methane single cell protein, and found significant potential for relatively quick and cheap food production that could make a significant difference during food catastrophes. The current target market of methane SCP is fish feed. Methane SCP has significant potential to fill an important gap in aquaculture feed production in the next few years. During a food catastrophe, future SCP factories built for feed production could be slightly modified to produce food for humans, which could serve as a flexible feed/food asset for emergencies. There are companies trying to commercialize similar gas-to-protein technologies for human consumption (i.e. Solarfoods, Air Protein, Avecom, Deep Branch, Lanzatech, who produce protein from H2 and CO2), but as of now there is little or no non-proprietary information on how to produce safely edible methane SCP. Your goal is to analyze the current methane SCP production process and propose any modifications necessary to make it safe to eat in significant quantities for humans. We would like to see a discussion of all aspects that need to be taken into account to ensure the safety of this food source, for example nucleic acid removal and any other considerations you consider important based on existing food safety literature and examples of approved novel microbial foods (e.g. Quorn). - (S)
  14. Develop open-source front-end engineering designs for production of single cell protein at scale from resources resilient to loss of sunlight such as natural gas, biogas or CO2 and electricity. - (S)
  15. Develop open-source engineering plans to quickly and efficiently repurpose pulp and paper factories to produce sugars from lignocellulosic biomass. - (S)
  16. Study the degree to which the availability of qualified labor and of engineering/chemical equipment construction facilities could limit the construction of industrial resilient food factories such as single cell protein or lignocellulosic sugar. - (S)
  17. A key challenge to making leaf protein concentrate (LPC) available is creating a publicly available database of proven safe to eat LPC. This database can be developed using an open source Liquid Chromatography coupled Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) toxicity testing pipeline to rapidly assess regionally important LPC input sources provided by a global network of community owned production facilities. - (S)
  18. Study the possibilities for retrofitting plant oil production systems to produce canola oil instead, since a large amount of this plant could likely be grown in a sun-blocking scenario. - (S) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  19. Cost and scaleup of high-tech greenhouse food. - (S)
  20. Analysis of a satellite communicating with regular cell phones. (E)

Discipline category “biology”


1. Do initial food production scaling calculations (like were done in Feeding Everyone) for additional resilient foods such as (or if including cost estimates, each of these could be a separate thesis): - (S)

  1. Mushrooms growing on coal
  2. Mushrooms growing on petroleum
  3. Mushrooms growing on peat
  4. Algae in ponds/enclosures
  5. Waste food to pigs (for smaller catastrophes)
  6. Bacteria growing on polymers
  7. Shipworms (mollusk)
  8. Termites
  9. Gribbles (crustacean)
  10. Inner bark

2. Nutrition of feeding tree/crop leaves to cellulose digesting animals like rabbits, cows, sheep, and goats. - (S)

3. Quantifying behavior change for conserving food (sleeping more, exercising less, working less, quitting smoking, weight loss, taking antibiotics, other interventions for metabolic rate reduction, etc) - (S)

4. Analyzing nutrition for losing sun and industry (including for animals), possibly with additional food sources than were analyzed in this paper. - (S)/(E)

5. Genetic engineering/crop breeding to make new plants that can grow well in nuclear winter in the tropics. Especially promising would be plants that use spores to reproduce, either naturally like ferns, or genetically engineered into existing crops. This is because spores are much smaller than seeds, so the storage cost would be much less. Furthermore, each plant could produce more like 1 million spores, versus 100 seeds, so scaling would be far faster. - (S)

6. Make an exhaustive list of all crops that could be grown in reasonable quantities in a sun-blocking scenario. - (S) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)

7. Study the species most at risk of extinction due to loss of food in a sun-blocking scenario and propose interventions to prevent them from going extinct, thus conserving biodiversity and palliating the impacts of biodiversity collapse on society after the catastrophe. - (S)

Discipline category “GIS” and “Demography”

  1. GIS mapping of inputs for producing resilient foods, including forests, industry, and agricultural area (for dead leaves). Also mapping of population. Then perform calculations on distances and costs of moving food and inputs. - (S)
  2. GIS mapping of inputs for producing resilient foods: How many people could we feed technically if it were every country for itself (pandemic, etc disrupts trade)? What if it were every U.S. county for itself? - (S)
  3. Given a loss of industry, people would likely choose highly suboptimal evacuation destinations from areas that have insufficient shelter, water, and food. Use GIS to map out where populations should optimally relocate. - (S)
  4. Given a loss of industry, in our initial assessment, we thought ~$5 million would be required to prepare shortwave (e.g. HAM) radio systems to enable communication to the majority of people on Earth quickly, due to the need to purchase radio systems and backup energy systems (such as photovoltaics), all of which must be unplugged to protect from EMP. However, there may already be many unplugged radio and power systems maintained by military, disaster relief organizations, and preppers. Develop a survey and distribute it to assess current capabilities in this area. This has high value of information, because there may be little additional hardware required. - (E)
  5. Better quantify the capability of using fertilizers based on ash produced from burning wood in landfills and other materials, aided by GIS analysis. - (E)
  6. GIS analysis of water supply and demand if the sun is obscured. – (S)
  7. GIS analysis of how ground freezing would affect infrastructure during the most extreme sun-blocking catastrophes. - (S) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  8. GIS analysis of the availability of agricultural residues globally and the feasibility of feeding them to cattle.- (S),/(E) and (S)/(E) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  1. Inventories of cattle, feed and feed quality.
  2. (dry matter) - that can be used for planning, transportation, etc. and provides a base number
  3. Spatial analysis of limiting factor - Protein, Energy or Fiber as well as spoilage corrections.
  4. optimal redistribution based optimum beef and dairy herd size to maximize biomass conversion/ food production until cost threshold achieved.

Discipline category “political science”

  1. Produce catastrophe (losing sun and losing electricity/industry) response plans at various levels - (S), (E) and (S)/(E)
  2. Analyze different scenarios of conflict and cooperation in catastrophes, ideally informed by the resilient food production potential of each country. - (S)/(E)

Discipline category “economics”

  1. Produce better cost estimates of different resilient foods.
  1. Current prices have been estimated here. A simple more accurate estimation method would be scaling current price of food upward by a constant factor.
  2. The following methods would incrementally improve on this first approximation: 1) scaling current price of food upward based on how much increase from current food production would be required; 2) quantifying some inputs such as transportation and feedstock at current prices; 3) including the feasibility and cost of retrofitting equipment; 4) using an economic input output model that adjusts prices for inputs such as water, rent, capital markets and energy.
  3. High accuracy would be using a computable general equilibrium model that adjusts prices for inputs. And the highest accuracy would be using a general equilibrium model as a function of time. These advanced interactive models could include consumer preferences for different types of food. - (S), (E) and (S)/(E) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  1. Model the optimal stock holding/production behavior under a rational expectations model and an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario, in order to help to determine prices following a severe disaster.
  1. Something like this: https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/50/3/427/1528339?redirectedFrom=fulltext The paper looks at the incentives for producers/traders/wholesalers vs consumers in markets with a fungible commodity that can be stored at a defined cost.
  2. This could be adapted to a situation where a shock lasts multiple years, and this information is available in year 0.
  1. Analyze scenarios that cannot be handled by a computable general equilibrium model, perhaps breakdown of money, which is replaced by bartering.
  1. Here the task would be to estimate the likely range of equilibria that could form, to at least bound prices/resource uses.
  1. Shadow pricing model of protein, fat and carbohydrates (linear programming based on the system developed by Leonid Kantorovich).
  1. This analyses the implied cost buying another unit of macronutrients from your available basket at each equilibrium of output and demand. This in turn would need to be expanded with the revealed preferences of consumers: for example people consume potatoes over sugarbeet even a higher cost per unit of macronutrients, and would need to be validated vs today.
  2. However, there are weaknesses to this approach, for example each production equilibria has a unique shadow price
  1. Development to bring resilient food ideas that can be deployed now in low income communities (or in local disasters). This could be done for each of the few main resilient foods, and would compare viability versus simply importing foods (at different world prices). - (S)
  2. Economics of affording food without the sun considering the possibility that some people could relocate to forests and feed themselves with a few tools, perhaps growing mushrooms. - (S)
  3. Analysis of key resources and bottlenecks in the current food systems, and the vulnerabilities they create. For example, we are currently reliant on synthetic fertilizers to a very high degree, as well as international trade and bulk shipping. While this is partly an engineering issue, the economics of this should also be considered - for example if rising trade reliance is increasing the exposure to Black Swan events, or if key resources are likely to rise or fall in availability due to market pressures. - (S)/(E)
  4. Analyse the economic/social impact of past sunlight blocking events (prices, resource allocation etc.) such as Tambora. See how prices equilibrated, and how people/policy responded. - (S)
  1. This could be extended to other historical catastrophes, such as the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Han Chinese around the Three Kingdoms Era or sieges/other localized severe events.
  1. Cost-effectiveness of saving expected species with resilient foods - (S)

Discipline category “business and finance”

  1. Develop business case (possibly reinsurance or resilience bonds) for funding resilient foods prior to a catastrophe - (S)

Discipline category “psychology”

  1. How to make resilient food solutions appealing to people - (S)
  2. Analyse the risk of “moral hazards” from preparation and prevention, and ways to mitigate these risks.
  3. Estimate how much food waste can we expect in disasters.
  4. Explore how mental health effects of disaster (such as trauma, lack of access to treatment, nutritional deficiencies) affect factors such as disaster response, cooperation, and willingness to eat food.
  5. Analyse people’s willingness to feed animals (either in the interest of animals or for the purpose of having livestock for food) in disasters.

Discipline category “sociology”

  1. Investigate how existing inequalities affect food distribution in disasters and how to mitigate negative effects.

Discipline category “communication media marketing”

  1. Study options for resilient foods public awareness, public service announcements, etc - (S)

Discipline category “agricultural science/forestry”

  1. In our initial assessment of agricultural productivity without industry, we conservatively assumed preindustrial levels. There are a number of reasons why we may have higher agricultural productivity without industry, using knowledge acquired in the last two centuries. Therefore, one thesis could investigate the continued use of improved crop varieties despite loss of industry. Another thesis would assess the efficacy of pest control without industry. - (E) (Work in progress, but followup work is possible)
  2. Report on what experiments have already been done to assess whether people inexperienced in growing food could be trained quickly, and recommend which crucial ones could be done. - (E)
  3. Grow crops in simulated nuclear winter conditions (reduced solar irradiation, temperature, precipitation, etc.). This could be cool tolerant crops such as potatoes, sugar beet, wheat, barley or canola in plant growth chambers. Experiments may also be possible in greenhouses in winter simulating the first year after a nuclear war before the Earth has fully cooled down. - (S)
  4. Feasibility and cost of preventing significant destruction of trees (e.g. by fire) killed by a loss of sun despite loss of industrial capabilities. - (S)/E)

Discipline category “public administration”

  1. Investigate how to ensure foods are available and distributed in disasters (e.g. how to ensure that workers/volunteers/governments are available and motivated to distribute food)