The Advent of 3D Printing and Redefining Agriculture

Not taking better advantage of Earth Day last week to do a series of environment-friendly posts continues to make me feel like a slacker about myself, this blog, and the environment. To make myself feel better, I though I would:

1. Figure out how to embed and/or link a pdf into blogger. (Coincidently, I also learned how to insert pages/other pdfs into and extract pages from a pdf on a Mac without paying a ton load for Adobe.)
2. Revise my term paper I wrote in March 2013 on 3D Printing and Agriculture for my "People, Plant, and the Environment" botany course at the Dunwoody, Ga. Campus of Georgia Perimeter College.
3. Create a post inviting the world to read my very simple and idealistic paper on how 3D printing technology could one day help solve some of our environmental and energy problems in the hope that it may inspire others to take my very basic idea and save the world. (All I ask is that you give me all the proper credit and citations—monetary donations would also be welcomed should my ideas help you make beaucoup bank.)

Those tasks accomplished, I present to you my paper. Interestingly enough, the only criteria other than formatting that Professor Sharon Lambert gave the class for this term paper was that a) it had to be about plants and b) well, I can't remember if there was actually a "b)".

Title: The Advent of 3D Printing and Redefining Agriculture

Author: T.J. Blackburn

Abstract:
Used mainly for drafting and design, 3D printing, a relatively new technology reminiscent of Star Trek, has recently expanded its practical applications beyond commercial fabrication and manufacturing into the realm of medicine and the sciences. The author briefly explores the impact this technology is having on agriculture and posits the possible role 3D printing could play in alternative fuel production.