WWII Bomb Shelter Becomes Hi-Tech Salad Farm 122
asjk points out a story of how a World War II bomb shelter, situated 33 meters beneath the streets of London, has been turned into a high-tech hydroponic farm. "The growing system uses energy-efficient LEDs instead of sun, no pesticides, needs 70 percent less water than growing plants in open fields, and less energy than a greenhouse." The computer-controlled environment is designed to shorten the growth cycle of plants like coriander and radishes. They're currently only using about a quarter of the gear necessary to fill up the shelter, but they can produce 5,000-20,000 kilograms of food per year, depending on what they raise. Co-founder Steven Dring said, "We've got to utilize the spaces we've got. There's a finite amount of land and we can grow salads and herbs — which start losing flavor and quality as soon as you cut them — in warehouses and rooftops in cities near the people who will eat them. Use the rural land for things like carrots, potatoes and livestock."
What About Nutrition? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article (or shall I say shameless advertisement) goes out of its way to talk about how much they shower the growing plants with "nutrients," but says not one iota about the nutritional content of the final product and how it compares to organic or conventionally grown produce.
Re: (Score:1)
This *is* organic farming. There's nothing to compare here.
It depends on which definition you want. If you mean the government definition, it is certainly organic. If you mean the definition as it was envisioned by the people credited with the founding of the organic gardening movement, it certainly is not. Go forth and look up "Organic" to find the principals, then dig down to their particular WP pages for the cites. It's all in there.
Organic gardening, before the corporations got their hooks into it, was about cyclical systems involving local food production and
Re: (Score:1)
was about cyclical systems involving local food production and soil health intertwined with community health
Except this very local, which is the whole point. It can grow certain foods in dense urban areas on scales larger than just a rooftop or two. Also by not using soil, it is very good for soil health. The point of soil health isn't to have healthy soil just sitting around, but to prevent the damage of soil already there. Complaining it doesn't help soil health would be like complaining using robots for hazordous work doesn't help make humans healthier because you've removed them from hazardous situations.
Re:What About Nutrition? (Score:5, Interesting)
Except this very local, which is the whole point.
Except that's not the whole point of organic agriculture. Organic farming has a number of points, some of which are valid, some of which are not.
Now the locality issue has to do with the sustainability arguments of organic advocates, which I consider generally more plausible than their ideas about nutrition or toxins. Centralizing agriculture far away and transporting pesticides and fertilizers to that site and then transporting the produce, sometimes half-way across the globe, represents a huge waste of energy, with the pollution that goes along with that.
That said, growing crops indoors with electricity derived from, say, a coal-fired power plant is hardly "sustainable agriculture". If you're growing those crops with solar or wind power from your roof that's possibly a different story.
In any case I'd regard a food system that was more local than what we have in the US to be a good thing. However I don't think that an *entirely* local food system would be a good idea. Yes, local agriculture has sustained human populations for thousands of years, but for thousands of years local famines were common too. So why I purchase locally grown produce, including excellent pasture-raised pork and beef, when it is in season, I don't feel guilty about purchasing Californian or Chilean produce when local produce is out of season, although I'd welcome some kind of "green seal" of sustainability, which would not necessarily be as stringent as, or necessarily a subset of the requirements for the "organic" label.
Re: (Score:2)
Centralizing agriculture far away and transporting pesticides and fertilizers to that site and then transporting the produce, sometimes half-way across the globe, represents a huge waste of energy, with the pollution that goes along with that.
Well... maybe. I've heard differing analyses on this. It's counterintuitive, but there are economies of scale associated with mass production. Trains are incredibly efficient, and so are the massive container ships: the square-cube law means you're moving more stuff and less vehicle. Local produce carried in the back of a pickup truck can burn as much fuel in 50 miles as a thousand miles in a freighter. There are similar economies of scale on the inputs: dragging fertilizer to a thousand local farms will be
Re: (Score:2)
Trains are incredibly efficient, and so are the massive container ships: the square-cube law means you're moving more stuff and less vehicle. Local produce carried in the back of a pickup truck can burn as much fuel in 50 miles as a thousand miles in a freighter. There are similar economies of scale on the inputs: dragging fertilizer to a thousand local farms will be less efficient than one tanker full of it.
Indeed, and moreover, a lot of foods simply can't be grown locally for much of the year without deploying supplemental lighting and heating, which eat up lots of energy.
There's a reason oranges are grown in California and shipped to New York, rather than creating vast local enclosed greenhouses upstate and heating them year-round: it's way, way cheaper.
This sort of thing makes sense for produce that don't have a long shelf-life and don't require a lot of space to grow, so that an environment can be maintain
Re: (Score:2)
I think there's a lot to be said for eating the things that can be grown locally and in season. It's not clear to me if it's actually a direct win for the environment or nutrition, but I think that it pays dividends in the way we think about our food. A lot of people seem to expect asparagus 365 days a year, and it skews their perceptions of how food is made. And that in turns affects the choices we make about the whole system, and especially about what we put into our bodies.
I believe that the root of the
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, I have all but given up the battle as to what Organic is supposed to mean, I only mentioned it above for clarification. But making compost tea is Organic(tm)-OK, whether or not it's truly "organic gardening" or "organic farming" etc etc.
There's lots of ways to do hydro organically-within-the-law.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, they just crave electrolytes.
Re: (Score:3)
The definition for "organic" that I was always familiar with was that something was simply grown without pesticides and "artificial" fertilizer, but I guess if there's no soil, one is forced add minerals (and vitamins? Do plants need vitamins??) somehow.
That is a common misconception. In fact, organic agriculture uses pesticides; it just has a more limited set of pesticides to work with because "synthetic" pesticides are excluded, except when they aren't because they're too practical, cf copper sulfate.
Re:What About Nutrition? (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly when will the marijuana growers start using this tech? Washington and Colorado need DIRT CHEAP weed, because it's grown without dirt!
Funny thing (from an Oregonian's point-of-view): marijuana growing is actually an industry where experimentation with hydroponics and efficiency is usually bleeding-edge. Back when it was still illegal, you wanted the efficiency so that your power consumption was low enough to not alert anyone to those high-intensity full-spectrum lights in your basement/apartment/whatever for 18-19 hours a day. The clandestine nature of the task also demanded that you be as efficient with as much of the hydroponics as possible.
Now that the stuff is legal, a lot of folks have taken this experience and knowledge to ramp things up to an industrial level, where you still have to be efficient. For instance, a new grow farm was looking to establish themselves in the countryside near my in-laws on the Washington peninsula, and the neighbors' biggest worry was that it would lower the water table too much (believe it or not, most of the Pacific Northwest does have a dry season for a couple of months during the summer, so well water is considered a rather precious commodity, even out here). Anyway, the farm had to demonstrate the efficiencies they had in place in order to persuade said neighbors that yes, the new greenhouses won't dry up their wells... and they even showed the improvements they were working on to make things even more efficient (note that it also saves them money overall as well.)
Re: (Score:3)
Tomato growers. Every hydroponics user I've talked to in the last 20 years have all been tomato growers.
Really passionate about it too. A bit paranoid and secretive too. Must be a really competitive field, tomato growing.
Re:What About Nutrition? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
At a minimum, they're probably providing the plants with electrolytes...it's what plants crave.
It's better than water. Everybody knows that's for the toilet.
Re: (Score:2)
Brawndo, it's got what plants crave.
Re: (Score:1)
LOL now THAT is hilarious!
Re: (Score:2)
Trade Secrets and such, I suspect (but then, "nutrients" does sound a lot more palatable than "highly diluted poop".)
I find that if arable land is the big issue, you could just as easily convert some floor in an office building, or even use the rooftops (though you'd have to figure in temperature and evaporation - but on the plus side you get rain and free sunlight during most of the growing day).
It's not like going underground is the only solution towards getting more arable land to work with. It's a good
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard about this project a few times now and one of the big advantages about it being in the shelters is that they provide a constant temperature year round. There is actually quite a bit of money spent with a greenhouse to keep the temperature regulated.
And if you were just to plant gardens on rooftops then you are at the mercy of the weather and you can't grow during the winter, unless you install greenhouses. That is, of course, the building can take the weight of the gardens in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. This is London, the climate isn't ideal for year-round outdoor horticulture, and the pollution would make me reluctant to eat food grown outdoors, at least within the M25.
I'd like to be buying more locally-grown fruit & veg, but the local farmer's market is 1. pathetically small, I suspect the organisers charge too much for a stall, and 2. only run once a month. There's a couple of "box of fruit & veg" schemes, but the quality is very variable.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea you won't be happy until we have an unsustainable farming methodology that will require knocking down the world forests to feed the population.
This "Organic" farming, is really a first world problem issue, where we want the status of getting the top quality food, even if we cook out all the flavors and put it in a pizza.
Re: (Score:2)
How could any of these be different? Salad is a living creature, not a dish made by a cook. The only things that can change are the relative abundances of various cell types (and lots of variance there means the salad will simply
Re: (Score:1)
There's no nutritional difference yet shown between organic and conventionally grown foods, so your question boils down to whether there can be a nutritional difference between hydroponically grown foods and foods grown in soil. It would follow that foods grown in different soils could also have different nutritional profiles. We know the latter is true to at least a small extent, so it would follow that the former would be true (the reasons why different soils effect nutrition would apply equally in the hy
Same old story... (Score:4, Insightful)
Use the rural land for things like carrots, potatoes and livestock.
Tell that to the real estate developer who wants to build $1B in homes on a flood plain, gives contributions to the politicians to make it happen, and won't be around when rising sea levels wipes out the homes that homeowners will expect taxpayers to pay for.
Re:Same old story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the UK, developers are on the hook for flood risk minimisation etc for years afterward, and have to pay a bond which they only get back after so many years without any flood damage occurring in the development - the bond is set at a level where if they spend the money on the flood defences the developer will profit if they get the bond back.
Plus, "flood plains" are often a misnomer - my house is in a flood plain, except the river is 200 metres away and 8 metres below ground level, and if it flooded then the entire city would be in a heap of trouble. It hasn't flooded in 150 years, and the defences are such that flooding will be done upriver outside the city, but still my house is classed as being on a flood plain...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Flood plains" have nothing to do with sea level rises...
Re: (Score:3)
The flood plain that my apartment complex sits on drains into the San Francisco Bay Area. If sea level rises, the water level in the bay rises and floods the flood plains. See map in the link below.
The map clearly shows that a sea level rise of only a few meters would inundate hundreds of square miles of land. San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay would enlarge, covering industry, residences and infrastructure. More surprising would be the enormous area of flooding that would occur in the Sacramento Valley. Hundreds of square miles would be underwater there and the intrusion of this salt water would have major environmental impacts.
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/san-francisco.shtml [geology.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You do NOT live on a flood plain.
According to the government, I live on a flood plain. In fact, most of Silicon Valley is a flood plain.
http://resilience.abag.ca.gov/floods/ [ca.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
If it would get flooded by a sea level rise then it would probably also get flooded by storm surges and some tides which would make it a flood plain.
Re: (Score:2)
A flood occurs when either water supply is increased or water drainage is decreased (or both) beyond usual variance. If sea levels rise, drainage in low areas is decreased since pushing seawater out of the way slows down rivers. So it seems likely that flood plains will grow upstream and cover new areas, while existing plains get worse and more frequent floods.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now you want to blame some mythical real estate developer for you buying swamp land in Florida!!!
Actually, I would. Southern Florida is expected to be underwater by the end of the century.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620 [rollingstone.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I would. Southern Florida is expected to be underwater by the end of the century.
NO its not. The Governor of Florida banned mention of Global warming, so now it won't happen.,p> http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
Take that you whiny liberals. We control science with the stroke of a pen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The power is in you. You are the one you've been waiting for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ls?
Olympis sized swimming poo?
ew.
Soylent Green (Score:1)
ITS PEOPLE!!!!
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, main place I started being skeptical was the LEDs vs the SUN. Now, MAYBE its possible that the LEDs are efficient enough that the electricity cost of running them is offset by the decreased water, other energy needs, but....
The sun is a lot of energy and plants convert light to sugar.... they need light, so converting it to something else and back has to be less efficient than letting it shine on them directly. But....
"no pesticides"....no way. None to start maybe but, plant pests will get in and they will require pesticides to remove. Might get your first crop or two pest free, but without pesticides or a complete sanitary cleanout between crops, its not going to last.
Re: Bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
they need light, so converting it to something else and back has to be less efficient than letting it shine on them directly.
Plants only absorb light in the red visible spectrum and parts of the ultraviolet spectrum. In principle, we could make farming more effective by absorbing infrared and green light, converting to electricity, and using the electricity to power red light for the plants to absorb.
Re: (Score:2)
"Plants only absorb light in the red visible spectrum and parts of the ultraviolet spectrum"
Nope. Red and blue are just the quickest to be absorbed, while green actually passes through more easily and bounces around more easily, and primarily powers growth under the canopy. When plants reflect (actually re-transmit) green, you're only seeing certain wavelengths of green coming back at you. That's because there are hundreds to thousands of biological pathways that works with various wavelengths of light, and
Re: (Score:2)
Like the other guy up there, though, am more interested in the "nutrient" they are using. Unless they are changing the soil regularly or rotating crops, they must be adding something to the soil, and whatever it is, I doubt it will be very "organic".
Re: (Score:1)
This isn't an open field, though. There are entry points to the "farm" and if they control what goes in and comes out, and if they keep an eye open for any proliferation of pests and take them out as soon as they show up, it's feasible.
It isn't, you will need something eventually. That something might be organic and plant-derived, but if you're not keeping absolute clean-room procedures going then you will certainly bring something in on you eventually. Nothing short of bunny suits and chemical showers can ensure that.
Like the other guy up there, though, am more interested in the "nutrient" they are using. Unless they are changing the soil regularly or rotating crops, they must be adding something to the soil, and whatever it is, I doubt it will be very "organic".
They're not even using soil! You can do organic gardening without soil just by making compost tea and flowing that as your nutrient. The most common feedstock is horse poop. All you need to keep the reaction going is an aqua
Re: (Score:2)
They're not even using soil! You can do organic gardening without soil just by making compost tea and flowing that as your nutrient. The most common feedstock is horse poop. All you need to keep the reaction going is an aquarium pump and a bubbler stone.
My grandma, who was an amazing gardener, kept a barrel out near the barn. It was half full of chickenshit. The barrel was allowed to fill with rainwater to the top, and every so often, she'd dip an old tin pan in it, and lay some of this chickenshit tea on the plants.
Which was of course, really smart, since chicken manure is really "hot" and needs a lot of diluting before putting it on the plants.
As a wee kid, I was suitably grossed out by the whole thing. Fortunately I forgot about it when we ate her
Re: (Score:1)
What plant pests exist 33 meters underground in the middle of London? None. Insects aren't created from the ether.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
Insects aren't created from the ether.
Spontaneous generation says otherwise, though I appreciate that someone at least finally acknowledges the existence of the ether.
Re: (Score:2)
Insects aren't created from the ether.
Spontaneous generation says otherwise, though I appreciate that someone at least finally acknowledges the existence of the ether.
Well, it was ether that, or we'd have to listen to you complaining all day...
Re: (Score:1)
No, plant pests don't in sufficient quantities to start a colony. Do you think there are weevils wandering around the Tube?
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
So, I had to type "led gree" into Google to have it auto-suggest "led greenhouse lights", and get hits from Amazon, Home Depot, Phillips, and a bunch of other sites.
Maybe your current knowledge of LEDs for growing plants is outdated and thy actually have the technology for this? Because the sheer number of hits I got tells me it's real technology.
I have no idea about the pesticides, but people did farming for thousands of years without pesticides ... so I'm not convinced it's not possible to grow plants without pesticides.
Re: (Score:2)
I have to agree... I mean, besides the LED street lights outside my home, they do make/sell full-spectrum LED lighting that has more than sufficient candlepower to do the job of growing plants, especially when placed pretty close to the plants themselves.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Which nobody is claiming ... what they're saying is, given a finite amount of land, and the fact that nutrients are lost once you harvest and begin shipping ... you can also grow some food close to where the people who will eat it actually live. And you can do it year round.
Efficiency, in this case, includes year round production, shipping, and the ability to have certain kinds of fresh produce without having to ship it around the world.
Unless you have a way to ship lettuce from Peru to London which is solar powered, you're kind of missing one of the points. Local production has its own efficiencies and benefits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK, pick your damned whining ... either it's not as efficient as the sun, or it's more efficient than the greenhouse.
I assume at this point you're just moving the goal posts so you have something to complain about?
It can be a lot less efficient than the sun, and also be a lot more efficient than a green house. And you don't need to ship it half way around the world in the winter.
Honestly, WTF are you complaining about now? This doesn't sound like a problem with the summary, it sounds like a problem with t
Re: (Score:2)
OK, pick your damned whining ... either it's not as efficient as the sun, or it's more efficient than the greenhouse.
Umm, where do you think greenhouses get their light?
And you don't need to ship it half way around the world in the winter.
You can put greenhouses in the city, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, you're one of those people ... believe it or not, a good portion of the planet lives in latitudes where the sunlight in winter is inadequate for growing crops even in a greenhouse ... and by changing the light cycles, you can change how long it takes to be able to harvest to a much shorter cycle.
In a lot of cases greenhouses still need to have big giant sodium lights because the few hours of daylight isn't enough to grow plants.
But, hey, I'm sure nobod
Re: (Score:2)
"believe it or not, a good portion of the planet lives in latitudes where the sunlight in winter is inadequate for growing crops even in a greenhouse"
http://www.greenrhinoenergy.co... [greenrhinoenergy.com]
Cover that greenhouse with solar panels and use LED, and you're practically home-free. Even in Antarctica, which while not pictured, actually gets LONG periods of constant sunlight and thus has a higher yearly irradiance in many locations, versus say Australia.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet in Northern latitudes you can get only a few scant hours of daylight in the winter.
So, if you got sun, use it .. if you don't got sun, LEDs are what you need.
Oddly enough, there is no single solution which works everywhere. But apparently when you have an underground bunker in the UK, you can still find something which works
Re: (Score:2)
They sure as hell don't get it all from the sun .. London is further North than Green Bay Wisconsin.
Nobody is growing vegetables in greenhouses in Green Bay Wisconsin in the winter without some additional lighting.
And London is about 5 degrees further North.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/... [rhs.org.uk]
Note the complete lack of any discussion of artificial lighting. Heat is important for winter greenhouses in England, but with regard to light the only discussion is about shading during the summer. Moreover, I have a colleague who lives in a small town just north of Sheffield who gardens year-round in an un-lit greenhouse. He says the shorter days in the winter result in slower growth, and some plants like it more than others so he changes the mix of what he's gro
Re: (Score:2)
house. And you don't need to ship it half way around the world in the winter.
Honestly, WTF are you complaining about now? This doesn't sound like a problem with the summary, it sounds like a problem with the poster.
I think maybe he was molested by a hydroponics technician when he was little.
Re: (Score:2)
The summary claims that the underground solution uses less energy than a greenhouse. Maybe the summary is bad (I know that'd be a first on slashdot).
I wouldn't doubt it at all. LEDs do a really good job of turning little sips of electricity into bright light. They certainly use less energy than CFLs, and a metric shitload less than Filament based bulbs. Even more savings are to be had with banks of them powered with DC, since you don't have the energy suckage of an individual power supply to each bulb.
And you do have a fair amount of electricity at work for that aboveground greenhouse.
Re: (Score:1)
"no pesticides"....no way. None to start maybe but, plant pests will get in and they will require pesticides to remove. Might get your first crop or two pest free, but without pesticides or a complete sanitary cleanout between crops, its not going to last.
Won't you be shocked when you look up what "organic farming" means. It has a legal definition and everything.
Re: (Score:2)
Won't you be shocked when you look up what "organic farming" means. It has a legal definition and everything.
Yeah, one that includes use of pesticides.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the no pesticides claim is completely true. First, by having the crops indoors, you seriously cut down on attracting open air pests. Second, the crops are seeded in a cloth mat. After harvest, the mats are removed, cleaned, and if too worn destroyed. The cleaning process happens every 20 days, which is much shorter than the insects life cycle. So, the insects never get a chance to settle in. The cleaning process is like a laundry, removes any eggs.
Re: (Score:2)
I did specifically qualify it as "without a sanitary cleanout". 20 days is most certainly not shorter than the life cycle than most plant pests, but is enough to keep them from establishing a colony so yah that would work.
However, i do wonder how much of this significant amount of work is being considered when saying its so much more efficient.
In many ways a closed environment can be worst than open air because open air crops attract both pest and pest predator, closed environments are far more resistant to
Re: (Score:2)
I did specifically qualify it as "without a sanitary cleanout". 20 days is most certainly not shorter than the life cycle than most plant pests, but is enough to keep them from establishing a colony so yah that would work.
However, i do wonder how much of this significant amount of work is being considered when saying its so much more efficient.
In many ways a closed environment can be worst than open air because open air crops attract both pest and pest predator, closed environments are far more resistant to predator establishment than pest.
Have you worked at a greenhouse? Seems like you know everything about both modes of operation.
What you are telling us is that plants just grow themselves in greenhouses, The farmer sleeps in every day, and the plants plant themselves, wed and feed and water themselves, and harvest with no human labor.
Serously to make a aotomobile analogy, You are like the person who claims that Tesla's are failure, because their batteries have less energy when it's really vcold, conveniently forgetting that people hav
Re: (Score:2)
Spoken like someone that's never had to deal with a spider mite infestation.
Re: (Score:2)
Says the COWARD that can't identify themselves.
Too scared of the real-world consequences, coward?
Re: (Score:2)
"no pesticides"....no way. None to start maybe but, plant pests will get in and they will require pesticides to remove.
Dayum, I've been getting organic, hydroponically grown salad greens for years now. I'm pretty certain they have the insect issue taken care of. Probably the only thin they have to really be concerned about is viruses.
Might get your first crop or two pest free, but without pesticides or a complete sanitary cleanout between crops, its not going to last.
In a pretty well sealed facility like this, the insects really don't have much place to live. There's no soil, so they can't live in the soil, and concrete b
Re: (Score:2)
> In a pretty well sealed facility like this, the insects really don't have much place to live. There's no soil, so they can't live in the soil,
Not all pests require soil, some are quite happy on leaves/stems, or even in bare roots.
Just off the top of my head, thrips live in soil before they become adults and move up to the leaves. They have been observed to thrive on hydroponic crops just fine.
Of course, we already have the answer on this....they do a sanitary cleanout.
Shit, I know a guy who doesn't do
Re: (Score:2)
Actual sunlight efficiency - ~93 l/w
Current non-lab LED efficiency - 220+ l/w (Cree MK-R) with 300+ l/w already having been announced months ago.
Of course, people in the horticulture game are using the 110 l/w - 130 l/w LEDs, instead of the easily-available 180+ l/w LEDs out now.
LEDs have such efficiency that solar powering the entire thing is the way to go, and has been for a few years.
... less energy than a greenhouse (Score:2)
Greenhouses are supposed to trap, and therefore produce energy, not to consume it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure when greenhouses were meant to be net producers of energy.
I think their original purposes might have been:
1) growing things in climates that were otherwise too cold for them (where your energy "production") probably comes from. aka "the greenhouse effect" which I think in practice almost always has some kind of either supplementary heat (if its too cold outside for the sun to provide enough heat) or supplementary ventilation (to keep it from being too hot).
2) protect more sensitive plants from
Re: (Score:2)
The Governor of Florida just called. You are not allowed to mention greenhouse effect. Strike it, please.
Re: (Score:2)
Greenhouses are supposed to trap, and therefore produce energy, not to consume it.
Good gawd!
first thing is trapping energy is not producing energy.
Second thing is why don't you go into a closed greenhouse on a 100 degree day. You probably won't find one, because they have to be opened up to get rid of the excess heat.
And during the winter, they need heat just like any other building does where you don't want the temps to dip below freezing.
They do a fine job in operating at the spring/fall portions of the year. Or when there is some abundant energy source, like the thermal energ
Re: (Score:1)
At Cornell we've done lots of research in the area of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) which includes hydroponics technology. There's a lot of bad information on the internet (and in this topic's comments). Just a few points:
Re: LEDs being more efficacious than the sun, it's not so simple because you don't pay for direct solar, where you do pay for electricity used to produce supplemental light (whether in a greenhouse or a bomb shelter).
Even in a relatively cloudy climate like Ithaca, NY, lettuce
Re: (Score:2)
Underground scene (Score:3, Funny)
a World War II bomb shelter, situated 33 meters beneath the streets of London, has been turned into a high-tech hydroponic farm.
"We had very little work to do to get it going, as it has been being used as a high tech hydroponic farm, wink, for decades."
Re: (Score:3)
"We had very little work to do to get it going, as it has been being used as a high tech hydroponic farm, wink, for decades."
Actually, that was my first thought when I read the summary. Nobody ever got rich farming lettuce. But herb/weed . . . whatever you want to call it . . . that is a cash crop.
I'm thinking that they have a couple of secret backrooms in that facility. What an excellent cover story! Urban herb farms get busted, because their electricity usage is way above that of the neighbors. If you already declare that you are farming "lettuce" . . . you claim that is why your electricity bill is so high.
Re: (Score:3)
Ah, but if you're using fancy LEDs instead of big enormous power hungry lamps ... how many LEDs can you run for the cost of a couple of those huge lights?
If you don't have several kilowats of lighting to deal with, putting out all that excess heat, just how noticeable is it likely to be?
A few tens of watts versus a few thousand changes a lot ... that's a light bulb or an air conditioning unit instead of the power meter spinning enough to be noticeable.
Metric system? What metric system? (Score:1)
For as much as you all claim that metric is so easy, you sure do screw it up a lot.
"5000 to 20000 kilograms" is inefficient and stupid. It should be 5 to 20 megagrams.
But I'm just a US-dwelling everyday user of imperial measurements, so what do I know? Oh, wait, yes, that's right, I know how metric works! And your failure to use it properly belies its lack of usefulness. So quit bitching about imperial measurements.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, we just love zeros. There's been a glut of zeros in Europe since the end of the war (the famous 'zero mountain' you might have heard about) and we've always been taught to love zeros and use them when ever we can.
Repurposed Cold War Era Bomb Shelter in Seattle (Score:3)
What a waste of a great weed growning location (Score:3)
A hidden bunker 100 feet underground with great plumbing and electricity, and you're growing FUCKING LETTUCE??
More info on the shelters... (Score:2)
The intention was to re-use these tunnels after the war as part of an express underground line. Never happened, unfortunately, as the Northern Line could do with more capacity!
I thought high pressure sodium was more efficient? (Score:2)
Anyone able to add input on that? My information was that HPS was MORE energy efficient than LED if you went with the correct bulb and wattage... that is... bigger bulbs with the opposing leads.
I'm not an expert but that was my understanding. Naturally the HPS lights can't be near the plants. You ahve to back up. But they cover a much wider surface area.
Re: (Score:1)
It's pretty hard to get good numbers on this from manufacturers, because almost everyone gives specs in human vision units (lumens, lux, foot candles, etc) if they give any information at all. For growing plants, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) units are required to make sensible comparison. PAR consists of wavelengths between 400 and 700 nm. Conversion between the measurement systems is not trivial and can only be done accurately if you know the power of each wavelength in the spectrum.
It's al
Re: (Score:1)
CO2 assimilation rate depends on concentration and species. For example, at 400 ppm, butterhead lettuce would assimilate about 0.38 lb of CO2 per ft^2 per hr. Whether greenhouse or bomb shelter, CO2 could be replenished through ventilation, infiltration (i.e. unintentional ventilation) or supplemented (e.g. from tanks). There are benefits to increasing CO2 concentration above ambient, mainly that the plants need much less light to achieve the same growth. Experiments at Cornell have shown lettuce needs