Vertical farming

[Richard]

Originally Posted by johnball

Fascinating idea, I'm surprised it hasn't come up sooner.

It would depend on the foods grown -- the more space they take up, the less return received.

The "idea" has been around for ages but it's not really cost effective at the moment. This could change though in which case it could become a viable solution, especically for feeding the megacities of the future.

Anyone who's worked in even the most windowed office building knows that only the spaces next to the windows get the light.

Plants need light to grow. The windows can only supply so much. So the other light has to be artificially produced (which eats energy).

The soil, the water, fertilization, etc can all be handled fairly naturally. But some of it will have to be imported. This is not "self sustained" by any means.

But the biggest factor is energy consumption. Is it cheaper to spend the energy to move crops from 100% natural light into the city or is it cheaper to spend the energy on artificial light and grow the crops inside the city?

[Richard]

Originally Posted by addict

Plants need light to grow. The windows can only supply so much. So the other light has to be artificially produced (which eats energy).

Use mirrors.

[UrbanFarmboy]

This is rediculous. The idea of producing food on a skyscraper is novel and unique but it has absolutly no viability grounded in economics. This might be good for tourism, but a 80 story building which houses thousands of people would devour what little a rooftop farm could produce in a matter of minutes. The space and money would be much better spent adding more solar panels or more wind turbins.

[Richard]

The whole building is a farm, not just the rooftop. And the economics would be comparative. It might be expensive now but if, say, there were global food shortages in the future then the economics would start to look a whole lot better.

[UrbanFarmboy]

Originally Posted by Richard

The whole building is a farm, not just the rooftop. And the economics would be comparative. It might be expensive now but if, say, there were global food shortages in the future then the economics would start to look a whole lot better.

The whole building cant be a farm for the simple fact that its in the city and half the building doesnt get direct sunlight. Its just the top floors of the building. But again that poses another problem that as these proliferate, space becomes a premium which will not only drive up the costs but limit total production.

[Cannonball]

Another real plus is that plants absorb a lot of calories, from the sun, in performing their photosynthese thing, which requires a lot of energy. In short, it will cool the city a bit. Quite a bit if there is a jungle on top of every building.

[Wowbagger]

Very ridiculous. It takes a lot of energy and ressources to build skyscraper. Leave the skyscraper to people so they live in a high population density environment and don't have to travel a lot on a daily basis, and don't waste a lot of space, while farming food ressources on land at proximity.

[Cannonball]

Hey, plants anywhere and everywhere convert carbon from the air into organic hydrocarbons. Every little bit helps...

[spadlet]

If the lower layers are used for people to live in or something, why dont they include a composting toilet system, then they could burn the gas from that rather than the compostable waste from the plant matter?