Tuesday January 17, 2006

Norway plans fail-safe seed bank

peakoil.com -> english.aljazeera.net :

Norway is to build a doomsday vault in a mountain close to the North Pole that will house a vast seed bank to ensure food supplies in the event of catastrophic climate change, nuclear war or rising sea levels, New Scientist says. Built with Fort Knox-type security, the $3 million vault will be designed to hold around two million seeds representing all known varieties of the world's crops. They are the precious food plants that have emerged from 10,000 years of selection by farmers. The facility "would essentially be built to last forever," according to a feasibility study.

To be preserved, the seeds must be kept below freezing point. Operators plan to replace the air inside the vault once a year at winter-time, but even if for some reason this becomes impossible, the permafrost will still keep the seeds viable. The thick walls, airlocks and doors mean that even if global warming accelerates badly, it would take many decades for hotter air to reach the seeds.

(2006-01-17 00:31:10 SGT) [Env] Permalink

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