Simple diagram of a hydroponic system. They just pump it back through the system.
Posted on 08/20/2018 5:54:51 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The world’s largest vertical farm is coming to Dubai.
The indoor farm is a $40 million joint venture between Crop One Holdings and Emirates Flight Catering, who say it’s a way of producing pesticide-free crops while using a fraction of the water that traditional farming does.
The produce will feed passengers of Emirates and other airlines at Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport. The farm will be built near the airport, eliminating trucking costs and emissions.
But is vertical farming really as green as it seems?
HOW DOES IT WORK?
To feed a growing global population, which could reach 9.1 billion by 2050, world food production will need to rise by 70%.
In addition, most of us will be living in cities, and will likely want to source our food locally.
Many think that vertical farms offer a viable solution.
For one thing, this type of farming doesn’t need soil. The plants are stacked on top of each other in rows, their roots immersed in nutrient-rich water. This system, called hydroponics, uses 99% less water than field farming. The plants sit under LED lights which drive their photosynthesis.
The growing conditions are controlled digitally. The temperature, humidity, light, water and plant nutrients are all monitored by a computer, which constantly adjusts the levels according to what the plants need.
This also means that the farms can be set up anywhere, as long as there’s a source of electricity and access to distilled water. In the future we may see these farms on offshore oil and gas exploration facilities and in extreme climates.
In the new Dubai facility, the plants are stacked together four or five storeys high over 12,077 square metres. That’s enough space to grow greens for the 225,000 meals that Emirates Flight Catering produce daily.
THE BENEFITS
Proponents of vertical farming argue that the benefits are many. There’s no need for great swathes of land to grow food. Crop One says that the facility will produce the same amount on a single acre indoors that would normally require 400 acres of land. In addition, the food can be grown in cities, leaving redundant agricultural land to be taken back by nature.
No fertilizers or pesticides are used, so there is no agricultural runoff, one of the main sources of pollutants in our waterways. However, critics argue that the energy costs can be high.
Bruce Bugbee, a professor of crop physiology at Utah State University, says that even the best LED lights only have a 50% efficiency rate. “Transportation costs account for about 4% of the energy in the food system. The energy for electric lights is much greater than that,” he told The New York Times.
In addition, so far only a few types of crops are suitable for indoor farming, such as lettuces and tomatoes.
IT'S CATCHING ON
But it’s enough of an idea to interest investors, who are pouring millions into the start-ups revolutionizing the way we grow food.
The global vertical farming market was valued at $1.5 billion in 2016, and the hydroponics segment contributed nearly 42%.
According to research firm Allied Market Research, the global vertical farming market is expected to reach $6.4 billion by 2023.
We all starve on lettuce and good intentions.
Bacon
Lab-Grown Meat Is Coming, Whether You Like It or Not
https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/
A picture would be a lot easier to explain what it is
Bingo!
The only reason this could work is if the gimmickiness was attractive enough to potential customers to warrant the extra cost. Like paying more for "organic" products.
I am in Texas. It will be pasture or finished feed lot.
When Nolan Ryan starts sells lab meat, then I will be in the ground.
The market for lab grown meat will be quickly overshadowed by massive supplies of 3D printed meat.
Fine, doesn’t mean I have to eat it.
No, they did not invent hydroponics but have engineered the vertical farm with the detail and scope of a state of the art soft drink manufacturing facility. Very impressive and I am looking forward to seeing how the economics pan out in actual operation versus the detailed prediction used to justify the capital commitment.
I think the world population was around 100 quadrillion people.
Anyway, each super-skyscraper was completely self-sustaining and at least 10,000 stories high - with many higher than that. It would take occupants a lifetime to discover every nook and cranny of the super-skyscraper they were born in.
Not to mention the basements, would would stretch several hundred stories into the ground.
Millions of people or more would live in each one of these super-skyscrapers.
These structures were so gigantic that over time, the occupants began evolving their own language and culture so that going to the building adjacent was equivalent to entering a foreign country. You would need a passport to gain entry and you would need to obey the laws of that particular structure which could be radically different.
For example, one building required the wearing of women's clothing, whether you were male or female biologically. Another building mandated a maximum age of 30 years. Once you reached 30 years, you were to sacrifice yourself to become food for the livestock being raised.
So the super-skyscrapers basically became their own nations with their own government and military. Wars between buildings were common.
People basically spent their lives in the building they were born in. As the population increased, additional stories would be built upwards and downwards (into the earth). Because the upper stories went into the upper atmosphere, the buildings had to be pressurized and built like spaceships.
Some buildings were more powerful than others and stretched ever higher into the sky. I think one of them ended up being nearly 500 miles above the earth's surface and had a population of several billion people. Constantly building upwards.
I forget exactly how the story ends but there was some kind of massive world war and trillions and trillions of people died. It was a crazy scene. Buildings were set on fire a couple thousands stories above the ground and there were still people thousands of stories above that had no idea what was going on far below them - in the same building.
Simple diagram of a hydroponic system. They just pump it back through the system.
As high as the home of the Fee Fi Fo Fum giant.
/Sarcasm alert/
Link please.
Thank you for the excellent post.
I have a book, "Hydroponics, the Bengal System", by Sholto Douglas, 1955. It works, there is zero runoff.
Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponic in Vermont is doing well. Fully automated.
I cannot believe the ignorant remarks by Freepers on any somewhat technical subject, where they know so little, they don't know what they don't know.
Makes us look like idiots for the possible new person thinking of fleeing the democrat party.
Maybe do a little online research before typing foolish gibberish?
How the high purity water is produced and how the blowdown is handled will have a very large impact on economics. There are only three companies I am acquainted with that have the rock solid process breadth and industrial qualities to handle the total water side technologies. One is a USA company, another is a European company and the third is Israeli. The Israeli company probably has the best global resume or at least did 5 years ago when I was working on a related system. Sorry Japan, etc, you guys are not likely to be in the game.
I thought tall objects were not supposed to placed near airports.
No doubt it’s great, and extremely efficient...once you exclude the cost of building the thing.
You’ve been drinking your namesake?
Don’t give up hope for the future tomato.
Seedless watermelons were terrible when they first hit the market. This year they are consistently excellent.
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