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There are a lot of vegetables and fruits that I do not buy due to the air miles. For instance those nice peas in pods from Kenya. Those things don't get here (t

There are a lot of vegetables and fruits that I do not buy due to the air miles. For instance those nice peas in pods from Kenya. Those things don't get here (the UK) by boat whereas bananas from the Caribbean do get here by boat. Boat is acceptable to me, good for trade and enough arrives by boat for a decent meal to be made. In theory these lights change everything, why grow peas in Kenya, put them on a plane and send them 1/4 the way around the world when a greenhouse in the Home Counties will do nicely? The cannabis angle is pretty good too. As things stand growing those plants takes a stupendous amount of energy with all the problems of ventilation, mould growth, noise from the ventilation and the need to 'not get caught'. With this technology those that can hold down a job can get growing their own without having to have the huge 'leccy bill or having to be friends with dealers. I like the lateral thinking of tuning the light to suit photosynthesis by using phosphors, I am surprised that has not been possible before. One day this will seem so obvious yet it wasn't until this product came along.

ars 11y ago
You have got to be kidding. You are worried about air miles, but are willing to accept artificial light? Do you just want to feel like you are being environmentally friendly, or do you actually want to be environmentally friendly? I've been surprised at how many people only want to feel that way, but don't actually care about being environmentally friendly. (A good example of this is locavores.) > of tuning the light to suit photosynthesis by using phosphors, I am surprised that has not been possible before. It has been thought of before, people have been doing it for decades. This is just an incremental improvement.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Is it your contention that LED lighting uses as much energy as flight?
  - ars 11y ago
    Comparing light to grow plant, vs fuel to fly the fruits of that plant? LED lighting use more, even without doing the calculations I feel quite confidant in saying that it uses much more.
    - fineman 11y ago
      Wrong. There are distance and repetition factors you are failing to consider. With a single trip 100m trip, the LEDs lose. With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. The question is where the line is, and the answer is that it's going down all the time.
      - ars 11y ago
        > With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. Hu? You are planning on shipping a single tomato 621 million miles? That's enough to ship it to Mars and then back. Why in the world would you do that? Wouldn't it spoil? You know you have to pay to power the LED, right? It's not just equipment cost? It takes less energy to grow a tomato in the sun, then fly it somewhere then it does it grow it indoors with artificial light. And no, LED efficiency is not going up all that much anymore - there are physical limits to that.
        fineman 11y ago
        Yes, I'd still grow just one single tomato and send it on many millions of trips. I'll call it "travel-with-my-tomato.com" (Overnight charges may apply for trips to mars.) /s
        ars 11y ago
        So if your whole post about 10^7 100km trips was a joke, why did you post it?
        fineman 11y ago
        Your point was that LEDs don't break even. My point is that there's a threshold at which they would. If you only ever grew one tomato then you probably could buy a cheap plane ticket to deliver it, for less than the lights. So you'd be right, the LEDs would use more energy (cost to make, ship, and use) vs the delivery charges for the sun-grown (free energy) tomato from farther away - even if shipped expensively. But if you grew millions of tomatoes from the same LEDs then you'd be wrong - now buying the grow lights is much more efficient than shipping in sun-grown tomatoes from even a few kilometers away. How many tomatoes are you going to grow?
dharma1 11y ago
I haven't had much to do with this in about 10 years, but back then weed growers (at least in Scandinavia) were already testing fluoros and LED's in addition to the traditional metal halide/HPS lights, and wavelength correlation to photosynthesis and flowering was known.

ars 11y ago

You have got to be kidding. You are worried about air miles, but are willing to accept artificial light? Do you just want to feel like you are being environmentally friendly, or do you actually want to be environmentally friendly? I've been surprised at how many people only want to feel that way, but don't actually care about being environmentally friendly. (A good example of this is locavores.) > of tuning the light to suit photosynthesis by using phosphors, I am surprised that has not been possible before. It has been thought of before, people have been doing it for decades. This is just an incremental improvement.

oldmanjay 11y ago
Is it your contention that LED lighting uses as much energy as flight?
- ars 11y ago
  Comparing light to grow plant, vs fuel to fly the fruits of that plant? LED lighting use more, even without doing the calculations I feel quite confidant in saying that it uses much more.
  - fineman 11y ago
    Wrong. There are distance and repetition factors you are failing to consider. With a single trip 100m trip, the LEDs lose. With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. The question is where the line is, and the answer is that it's going down all the time.
    - ars 11y ago
      > With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. Hu? You are planning on shipping a single tomato 621 million miles? That's enough to ship it to Mars and then back. Why in the world would you do that? Wouldn't it spoil? You know you have to pay to power the LED, right? It's not just equipment cost? It takes less energy to grow a tomato in the sun, then fly it somewhere then it does it grow it indoors with artificial light. And no, LED efficiency is not going up all that much anymore - there are physical limits to that.
      - fineman 11y ago
        Yes, I'd still grow just one single tomato and send it on many millions of trips. I'll call it "travel-with-my-tomato.com" (Overnight charges may apply for trips to mars.) /s
        ars 11y ago
        So if your whole post about 10^7 100km trips was a joke, why did you post it?
        fineman 11y ago
        Your point was that LEDs don't break even. My point is that there's a threshold at which they would. If you only ever grew one tomato then you probably could buy a cheap plane ticket to deliver it, for less than the lights. So you'd be right, the LEDs would use more energy (cost to make, ship, and use) vs the delivery charges for the sun-grown (free energy) tomato from farther away - even if shipped expensively. But if you grew millions of tomatoes from the same LEDs then you'd be wrong - now buying the grow lights is much more efficient than shipping in sun-grown tomatoes from even a few kilometers away. How many tomatoes are you going to grow?

dharma1 11y ago

I haven't had much to do with this in about 10 years, but back then weed growers (at least in Scandinavia) were already testing fluoros and LED's in addition to the traditional metal halide/HPS lights, and wavelength correlation to photosynthesis and flowering was known.