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we haven't solved vertical farming yet. it's not energy efficient. i imagine its even harder/more expensive in Antarctica to keep the plants warm enough. cheap
by 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
we haven't solved vertical farming yet. it's not energy efficient. i imagine its even harder/more expensive in Antarctica to keep the plants warm enough.
cheap and clean energy production is where we should spend our money.
- ben_w 4y agoI'm not a farmer so I may be way off, but I thought the one thing we had done with vertical farming was beat natural energy efficiency? Photosynthesis doesn't use sunlight all that well, PV + wavelength tuned LED can turn the same amount of sunlight into more biology. But! Farmland is dirt cheap, so that's more of a solution in search of a problem than anything else.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoYou mean efficiency in terms of the plants absorbing the energy? Probably. But in most parts of the world it's still cheaper to just use more land.
- ben_w 4y agoYes to the question. Also, agreed to the final point. Plus, the comparison shouldn't be "open farmland vs. PV+LED", it should be "for the resources cost of PV+LED, what can you build in the way of polytunnel or greenhouse?" Which in turn reminds me of this YouTube Mars botany simulator, whose validity I can't help but doubt, but which is nevertheless moderately interesting: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o6-Hfsnhn_HFxjJ0jz45D3oE https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhDkilF5o6-Hfsnhn_HFxjJ0...
- saberdancer 4y agoEnergy efficiency vs outdoor farming with Sun is not applicable to any Mars colony. You can be very inefficient if it is your only method of producing food.