# Vertical farming taking off?



## Brian G Turner (Dec 31, 2019)

Vertical farming seems to be developing commercially in Japan - how long before we see green towers here?









						Grown from necessity: vertical farming takes off in ageing Japan
					

The nondescript building on an industrial site near Kyoto gives little hint to the productivity inside: 30,000 heads of lettuce grow here daily, under artificial light and with barely any human intervention.




					phys.org


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## Venusian Broon (Dec 31, 2019)

That's interesting. I just read an article from a scientist who has just retired from DEFRA (For those that don't know this is part of the Government here in the UK - the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). Who said we should give up half of our farmland, here in the UK, and repurpose it for carbon and water capture, and the well being of the populationand replace the lost production with vertical farms.









						Convert half of UK farmland to nature, urges top scientist
					

New woodlands and wild places are needed to fight climate crisis and improve people’s health




					www.theguardian.com


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## Overread (Dec 31, 2019)

Honestly when you consider the potential for mechanisation and reducing land coverage I'm surprised vertical farming isn't more of a thing. When you then measure it against land use and the desire to conserve that is growing in the west - vertical farming seems the only sane option. Turn one field into the output of 20 or more fields of the same size. Do it enough and you can cut down on farmland needed


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## Alex The G and T (Dec 31, 2019)

How many acres of farmland need to be covered in solar panels to make all of that artificial sun-lighting carbon-neutral?


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## Overread (Dec 31, 2019)

Alex The G and T said:


> How many acres of farmland need to be covered in solar panels to make all of that artificial sun-lighting carbon-neutral?



Carbon Neutral is a bit of a fad name; you can never be fully neutral. For power generation for the mass use you're still most likely looking at nuclear power which has a much smaller footprint in general. All those solar cells wouldn't just have a huge footprint of resources to produce but also the physical size of the area they'd have to cover.


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## Alex The G and T (Dec 31, 2019)

The point remains: From whence the Juice?

Leafy, cool weather crops, like the featured lettuce, do well in the low intensity, fluorescent lighting pictured.

Any sort of summer crops: grains, corn, beans, tomatoes, squash... require much higher intensity lighting.  The required Wattage per unit area skyrockets.

"More nukes" is a tough sell, these days.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 3, 2020)

Alex The G and T said:


> The point remains: From whence the Juice?
> 
> Leafy, cool weather crops, like the featured lettuce, do well in the low intensity, fluorescent lighting pictured.
> 
> ...


Good point. Growing hydroponic stacked tiers of lettuce is not yet really 'farming'? Farming implies hundreds of thousands of acres of corn and wheat, and rich earthy fields of potatoes, soya beans and onions etc. One can say it's a start but there's still a long way to go? Lettuce is lettuce, lol?


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## Dave (Jan 3, 2020)

I don't want to get political but the fact is that this subject is simply about political decisions; that is all. We have the technology already: green walls, green roofs, permaculture, underground hydroponic farms, agro-forestry, silviculture and mixed farming solutions. The "acres of corn and wheat" (and grass) are largely needed to feed farm animals (or to make biofuel.) If we ate less animals and more corn and wheat then it wouldn't require so much space. Getting people to do that - to eat less meat, or to drive less and to drive electric vehicles - that is the difficulty because people (myself included) won't easily do that by choice. Getting people to see that the industrial scale of modern mono-culture farming (and fertilisers, pesticides and ploughing) is actually a problem at all, or that our limited natural resources cannot survive our unchecked capitalist philosophy of ever increasing economic growth, or to stop countries squabbling over the size of their portion of what is left - those are the real problems. Solutions require people to come and work together, and to share, and to accept limits (both personal and political), and that is unacceptable to a majority of people as it is seen as (and it actually really is) a form of socialism. I personally just don't think it is going to happen. I think we have already missed our chance to prevent serious global warming now, and that all we can do is to ameliorate the damage with engineering solutions. I think we must hope that the human race survives the future wars to come fighting over our depleted natural resources.

As for energy production, there is untapped tidal, wind, hydro-electric and geothermal power. There is plenty of sunlight and space for solar panels in the Sahara, or on the shadow squares we will have in orbit to help cool the Earth. However, all energy use produces heat itself, and in a warmer world, maybe we should try to use less too. Nor do these "green" forms of energy come without their own environmental problems. Aquatic insects think solar panels are open water. Windmill vanes kill birds. Hydrological engineering and tidal barrages alter ecosystems and stop fish spawning. There is much in the newspapers about the environmental consequences of the need for Cobalt required for batteries. Nuclear fission power may be a hard sell politically but it will be required for the foreseeable future. My problem with it (apart from the accidents, the waste, and the pollution) is simply that Uranium is itself, a limited natural resource. We need to look much further ahead into the future than politicians, and the general public, currently do.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 3, 2020)

I more or less agree with your comments @Dave. 'acres of corn and wheat' strikes me as a rather niave view of farming, like it came out a pre-school book. A lot of farmland in the UK is totally unsuitable for arable crops, a lot is utilised for producing animals such as sheep. (It was mostly this kind of land that the ex-Defra person said we should re-wild, re-forest.) 

As you state there are a lot of different approaches, some of which we may _have_ to take up. i.e. arable land has it's own problems, for example soil degradation which is currently being exacerbated by climate changes and commerical farming practices across the globe as well as here in Blighty. 

While eating less meat is a solution that would have huge positive environmental benefits, it's a solution that I'm afraid won't work if it was just down to 'people to come together'. (And I include my gym-going, strength focused self, gotta have my protein!) Meat has been and is seen as a premium highly attractive food source that the rich eat, so most of us are going to strive to eat a lot of it. I fear, like yourself, that only some sort of catastrophe will shake the collective understanding that trying to give 7 billion people a US diet of meat is currently totally unsustainable. 

As for your power musing, mmm... solar panels, tidal power, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal all just use energy that would have been there in the first place, so fundamentally it's a zero-sum game, they are extracting energy and converting it into another form. Same actually, for the use of Uranium in fission power - if we didn't use it, the ore would just sit in the Earth's crust and release its heat there anyway. Coal and natural gas pockets are clearly different. 

As for the problems...give me those problems rather than increasing the amount of greenhouse gases via coal and gas use or the other pollutions that impact all parts of the ecosystem - you'd prefer acid rain and choking clouds of combusted wood or coal waste? I think that impacts the ecosystem far far more than a few birds hitting wind turbines. 

Uranium, yes, is limited, but I think we've got a 1000 years of the stuff. If we really have to rely on Uranium a bit, that should give us enough time to change over. Hopefully we don't need to lean too much on it, as I don't think we are the sort of species that can handle trying to keep the increasing pile of dangerous waste safe from this technology for hundreds of thousands of years. 

Perhaps - in fifty years   - fusion will be working commercially, or perhaps India can get Thorium reactors to work and we can quickly get rid of 20th Century fission as well.


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## Dave (Jan 3, 2020)

Venusian Broon said:


> As for the problems...give me those problems rather than increasing the amount of greenhouse gases via coal and gas use or the other pollutions that impact all parts of the ecosystem - you'd prefer acid rain and choking clouds of combusted wood or coal waste? I think that impacts the ecosystem far far more than a few birds hitting wind turbines.


I agree with you, but that is rather missing the point. I'm enough of a realist to understand that many people do not agree with us. Members of this Forum reading this right now, do not agree that climate change is a problem. If they don't deny the science completely, they deny the severity, or else that man's actions are responsible, or else think it is all a conspiracy. I don't want to start a political discussion here over this, because they will never be convinced otherwise and such a discussion is therefore fruitless. 

All I am saying is that we do have the technology to create green walls, green roofs, permaculture, underground hydroponic farms, agro-forestry, silviculture and mixed farming solutions, and to re-wild farmland. However, even if people did want to make these huge sweeping changes then there are other far bigger implications than simply the construction and replanting. Farmers earn money from their farms. Farmers like to farm. They do not want to have unproductive land and they need to earn money to pay bills just like everyone else. Where do you find the money to compensate them and for how long? Taken a step further, those Amazon rainforest farmers burning forest to grow crops, are just poor men who have nothing but their land. We want them to stay poor and not farm, while we continue to be rich and eat beef, grown on their neighbour's previously rainforest land. We want the people of China and India to continue to eat rice while we enjoy meat. Rice is a particularly protein-poor staple compared to wheat or corn. They only want what we already have, and they will have it, and we are not going to stop them. We can avoid thinking about these problems, we can fight wars over them, but the real solutions will only come from sitting around a table and making compromises. 

My pessimism comes about because I don't see any political will to do this. There are no votes in it enough to win majority governments; people won't vote to be made poorer, more especially if they don't believe in the problem anyway.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 3, 2020)

Vertical farming is probably going to survive no matter what happens. Where it is economically feasible it will be done, where it isn't economically feasible it won't work. It could be a future indicator of how farming industry is shifting from wildly uncontrolled massive areas of unprotected  fields to a more controlled, protected situation which mimics a factory. Vertical food factories could be continually updated to incorporate new technology and eventually move to providing the raw materials on site needed to produce new food products, such as substitutions for meat. It also looks like it represents a decentralization of the farm industry, where localized operations produce food where it normally can't be grown for immediate consumption in the area it is grown. It can be used to return land back to its natural state by using volume instead of surface area. With a vertical food factory in the middle of former large open field farms the reintroduction of natural growth would probably be beneficial to the area around it. For the foreseeable future reproducing plant life itself is probably the most efficient way to convert energy to food, even if one method uses more energy than another method. Vertical farms seem to use less water and are less susceptible to water damage from storms, which might be more important than how energy is supplied to the farming operation. It works where there is too much precipitation or not enough. It is also able to produce food year round, even in winter weather conditions. 

 If a way could be could developed to utilize water from municipal sewage, that could be a constant source of water in municipal locations. Storm run off in cities could be another source of water that goes untapped now.

Not knowing what the total list of agricultural products, a list of stuff that won't grow in a vertical farm seems to be smaller than what can be grown in one.

What can't: 
Squash
Melons
Pumpkins
Cucumbers
Fruit trees
Root vegetables

It seems to be plants that need a lot of plant surface area to produce edible products. Perhaps hybrid vertical farms could use the towers to grow what can be grown and use the fields for what can't be grown. Then we would be back to the big open land farms, but maybe less of them.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 3, 2020)

I'm not really sure what point you were trying to make then @Dave , if it is to do with the clip you quoted. You listed a number of negatives with green energy - I just loaded up the 'other side' with regards to fossil fuels. 

But perhaps you are talking about something else. 

Not discussing these issues because you think 'they will never be convinced otherwise' seems just as wrong as being irrationally intransient on any issue. (On whatever view anyone can have, not just climate deniers, say.) Later on you say 'real solutions will only come from sitting around a table and making compromises'. How are we supposed to do that without talking? Yes, even here there are a few troll-like avatars stalking about, but they will likely find other issues to irritate with anyhow. Or are we letting them win and this is another topic that must get thrown into the unmentionables on this forum? We have to start somewhere, even amongst ourselves. 

I guess I am crossing lines here. You are looking out to stop flaming and trolling on this forum first of all, the 'compromises around the table' belongs to the global political solution that needs to be in place, for governments are currently the organisations that have the most power to do something.

(But yes either we somehow bumble our way through this mess a bit battered, but more likely the only political will to change will have to come about via some catastrophe that impacts everyone.) 

There's a lot of assumptions and points you make that I could discuss in your second paragraph, but I guess you're not keen to keep this discussion going, so I'll leave it there and find other outlets. Cheers.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 3, 2020)

Dave said:


> our unchecked capitalist philosophy of ever increasing economic growth


Yes. Unsustainable.

However, looking at UK farming: smallish fields separated by hedgerows and mostly growing not very much else but grass, upon which a few sheep and cattle are grazing -- it is possible to imagine how without the animals it might be possible to elevate the actual growing areas into vertical farms. But I suspect it's going to be different if we start trying to achieve the same thing in -- Oregon, say -- where wheat/corn grows for thousands of acres to the horizon, and then beyond?


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## Dave (Jan 3, 2020)

@RJM Corbet I saw a report on TV a while ago about using robots in fields. They expertly weed without compacting the soil, so no herbicides required, and they can tell exactly when crop plants are ready to be harvested, and then take them out individually at the optimum time. I guess drones could be used to fly up and down walls.

@Venusian Broon I only meant to show that "green" forms of energy have their own inherent problems, but not trying to say they are worse than fossil fuels. Climate change on Twitter is a battlefield of a topic, so best we don't discuss it further here. Vertical farming and hydroponics is certainly a SFF topic though - there can be no further exploration of space unless we can grow food off Earth.


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## Overread (Jan 3, 2020)

If you've a 1000 acre field then you might only need a 100 acre vertical farm and that's assuming it only has 10 layers to it. Granted a factory like that would be more than 100 acres in size when built; however in theory it would be far less than 1000 acres. If you grow crops to have shorter and shorter stems and a higher yield head then you can fit more and more into racks. In theory you could get several layers in a single "floor" (as shown in the cabbage farm above). A 10 floor factory with 4 growing layers per floor at 100 acres per layer and suddenly we are talking about 4000 acres in a building that might be only a couple of hundred acres big. So the numbers start to scale up very quickly into very significant growth potential.

Of course those are all pie in the sky numbers, however I think it shows the potential for large scale farming in a factory style environment. Allowing for a far greater production of food per unit of area. In theory if you can produce food like that you can not only produce more for less land use (leaving land more open for other use, such as ecological preservation); but you also have the potential to disconnect land quality from food production. Now the key elements would be communication networks; access to trade for resource import (nutrients) and geological stability. It could be huge for 3rd world countries where there are still ancient ecosystems in operation which are currently being torn up for farmland; if that process could be halted for vertical farms there's a general net gain for everyone (except logging firms - at least for short term profit).

Also if you contain farming systems you can decrease elements like nutrient leaching and pesticide leaching (though in fairness if its self contained you shouldn't need the latter - so healthier food for us). So you can locally reduce the impact of farming.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 3, 2020)

Overread said:


> as shown in the cabbage farm above ...


Pedant's corner:

Lettuce. Cabbage is a lot more nourishing, and a lot more difficult to grow, lol?


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 8, 2020)

Instead of lettuce, it could simply be bacteria proteins being grown:








						Food 'made from air' could compete with soya
					

Finnish scientists say the food could be grown with near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 12, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> Instead of lettuce, it could simply be bacteria proteins being grown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes. Absolutely.

In the last of the 2001 books by Arthur C. Clarke most foods are made from yeast and there's a part where someone is talking to a yeast scientist who tells him: those strawberries and cream you had for dessert -- were made from a yeast formula I personally desiged.

I think it's the book where he invents space tower cities, tethered on the Earth and maintained by space elevators?


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## Dave (Jan 12, 2020)

I wondered about the sub-headline on that article. Surely, growing any plant takes in CO2 and exchanges O2? Did it mean CO2 from farm tractors and rock mining, mined for chemical fertilisers? No, it is simply saying that the soil bacteria fed on hydrogen split from water by electricity, could use electricity from solar and wind power.

I think more normal farming could be made much more carbon neutral if it went down the vertical farming route. Here are the weeding drones that I mentioned earlier as an alternative to tractors, herbicides and sparying:








						This weed-killing AI robot uses 20 times less herbicide and may disrupt a $26 billion market
					

Smart weed-killing robots are here and could soon reduce the need for herbicides and genetically modified crops. Swiss company EcoRobotix has a solar-powered robot that can work for up to 12 hours detecting and destroying weeds. Ecorobotix says the robot uses 20 times less herbicide than...




					www.cnbc.com


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## Dave (Jan 15, 2020)

More on hi-tech urban farming ideas:








						How 16 initiatives are changing urban agriculture through tech and innovation | Greenbiz
					

From high-tech indoor farms in France and Singapore to mobile apps connecting urban growers and eaters in India and the United States, here are more than a dozen initiatives using tech, entrepreneurship, and social innovation to change urban agriculture.




					www.greenbiz.com
				




Though I have to agree with @RJM Corbet that growing salad vegetables in these ways is a different prospect to grain and Brassica.


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## Montero (Jan 16, 2020)

I think some interesting points are coming out of this, in particular
the variety of what could be done - which is very important as one size doesn't fit all, despite many organisations (including governments) tending to default to that assumption
growing and consuming locally
the impact of weather on crops - we've all experienced shortages and price hikes when one or another crop dislikes the weather it has had - or is just plain flattened, or flooded, out of existence

I'd like to add another to the mix - farming with rewilding. See Home — Knepp Wildland.
I read Isabella Tree's book on why and how they did it - and it started for economic reasons as much as any. They were trying to run their estate as an efficient farming business, kept on following the latest advice - and they just couldn't make enough money to stay afloat. Modern farming methods just didn't suit the land. By re-wilding they moved into a form of farming that does include meat production - but got rid of most of the farming machinery. All of a sudden they didn't need to buy, maintain and fuel all the massive tractors and other kit. That is one of the things that made a massive difference economically. More on it is here Background — Knepp Wildland

So could even have the hypothesised vertical farm surrounded by fields could be a vertical farm surrounded by re-wilded fields.

Also, recognising that not all land is the same is so important - varying what you do depending on where it is to be done.

Incidentally, on the subject of human impact on nature, plastic is another massive problem. All the plastic and microplastic scattered across every ecosystem that is killing wildlife - completely independently of global warming.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 16, 2020)

Montero said:


> All the plastic and microplastic scattered across every ecosystem that is killing wildlife



I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the plastic is also killing human life. Unlike most of the animals who don't know what the garbage is that they are looking at, just because we know what it is, that doesn't make us immune to it. We aren't. The easiest way to imagine what happened, is to visualize a 25 mile diameter plastic asteroid that hit the Earth, say about 25 years ago, and imagine how it impacted everything the same way a rock or metal asteroid would have, because it did. It is embedded into the crust of the Earth and it is still flying around, but that is because we are still making it. The asteroid that keeps on hitting.

The modernized mechanized chemicalized farm business probably works like gambling. You can make a solid 5 percent but anything after that is by chance. So if you want to make a business of it you put up a whole lot of money, so the 5 percent actually amounts to something. Works even better if you can borrow it with unlimited credit.

Even if you make the land "all the same" on the surface, it will still impact the land around it that it no longer matches and the land below it is expecting something else to be on the surface which is no longer there.

A farm of the future. The crops are grown inside a huge vertical barn and the animals are wandering around in the fields all around the vertical barn. The fields have sections shaded by trees and other sections devoted to root crop and grain crops that supplement each other. The only question is what to do with the run off?


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## Montero (Jan 16, 2020)

Robert Zwilling said:


> A farm of the future. The crops are grown inside a huge vertical barn and the animals are wandering around in the fields all around the vertical barn. The fields have sections shaded by trees and other sections devoted to root crop and grain crops that supplement each other. The only question is what to do with the run off?



Or you rewild and run the animals in that - so the land is properly held together by plant root systems which hold back most particulates from the water, you don't use the pesticides and fertilizers in rewilded farms, so that is the run-off largely solved - the manure stays on the land to fertilize next years growth. They also live off the land, and are not given grain derived supplements.

In terms of the root veg, if you decided to continue growing them, rather than ploughed fields you could go one of two ways:

Grow them in containers/raised beds around the vertical farm, in the way that cities used to be surrounded by market gardens and that is in turn surrounded by the wilded areas, which form natural filters for the water. Growing in containers will also contain far more run-off than ploughed fields.

Look for agroforestry equivalents - I've dabbled a little in forest gardening, perennial walking onions that kind of thing, but other than oca, not played with agroforestry root veg or their equivalents. Tried doing a quick search but couldn't find anything to put in here. But in general IF there are shrubs or trees with starchy fruit, picking crops off perennial trees would mean the land is not frequently disturbed. At the least, anything where the starch is processed - dried mashed potato, crisps, hash browns etc - could be made from some other processed starch rather than starting with potato. It's been done for vegetarian meat, so the kind of processing technology is there.

Incidentally, chickens do rather well in open woodland - Eggs in the woods


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 16, 2020)

Eventually the problem is overpopulation, imo. Climate change  is a result of overpopulation. As @Dave said earlier the ecomomic model is for constant annual growth. The business model is to make money for shareholders as the highest morality.

The Amazon forest is disappearing.30% of Japan's population is over 65 and Europe and Britain not far behnd.

It's unsustainable. Something has to give. I believe antibiotic resistance is going to become a pandemic that reduces the world population.


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## Parson (Jan 16, 2020)

Interesting thread with a lot of interesting ideas.

One insight that I haven't seen is cost. Building a vertical farm would be very expensive and unlike land it would not likely appreciate, and likely be more labor intensive, and if not, then more costly still in the investment stage. Farming (at least here in Iowa and I'm pretty sure in all the American Midwest) is a low profit business. If you rely on crops for your income you are hugely fortunate to achieve a profit $100 an acre, less is much more common. That means to have a family income of $100,000 you would have to have at least 1000 acres of land. The inputs rent, fertilizer, herbicide, seed, interest, equipment, time etc. (depending on crop, I'm using corn here) is about $800 an acre with a normal yield (250 bu per acre) and ($3.50 a bu. income). So putting $800,000 at risk you MIGHT on a good year make $100,000 probably about $75,000. And a really bad year puts you in debt for the rest of your life, and my figures are optimistic figures. So unless food becomes much more expensive, or the government brings out astronomical assistance. Vertical farming is going to be very niche (Human consumed plants in the middle of densely populated areas.) and pretty much the definition of hard science fiction for at least a couple of generations.

On the other hand the robotic sprayer has a chance, but the part no one is talking about there is grass. To reduce grass you either have to till A LOT, or you have to put down a herbicide before you spot spray as that sprayer is seen doing. I wonder how well it would work if normal grass were in the field? Would there be any savings then? Would it even work? I would note that before the advent of herbicide protected beans. We did something like that spot spraying on our soy beans with humans doing the spotting and we put down a herbicide for grass before spraying for the broad weeds. As far as I know, no one does that human spot spraying anymore.


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## Dave (Jan 16, 2020)

RJM Corbet said:


> I believe antibiotic resistance is going to become a pandemic that reduces the world population.


It is unlikely to be a lack of food. While a lot of the world is starving, we waste more food than ever before. History has shown that we can use technology to continually increase agricultural yields. We did first this with ploughing, then chalk fertiliser, animal manure and crop rotation, then with machinery, seed development, automation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides, GMOs... but we are now doing this at the expense of the nature we rely upon. As a for instance, something (or a combination of things) is killing off bees. Without bees there can be no seeds to harvest. These new ideas in this thread, give hope that we can increase production using less land, less herbicides and pesticides, less wasted fertilisers run-off into rivers and lakes, and less soil compaction or soil loss.

Edit: @Parson Those robots can spot spray better than humans. I agree that the costs are higher, but food has become too cheap. It was once about 90% of a household's expenditure. Now it is what? it depends on household income, but much less.

As for grass, well, we are all going to have to eat less meat. That is really a given with the problem of climate change. It is healthy to eat a little less meat too.


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## AlexH (Jan 17, 2020)

Apparently, vertical farming is more resource intensive than traditional farming techniques, using much more energy than a greenhouse, for example. 

More than anything, we need to reduce consumption and waste.


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

@RJM Corbet absolutely regarding overpopulation. Yes, we should reduce consumption and waste too, but reducing the population is the number 1 winner.

I support two charities regarding this - Population Matters, which raises the profile of the issue in the UK and promotes charities taking direct action such as CHASE Africa. The approach of CHASE Africa has an additional relevance to this thread, as they have a threefold approach - making contraception, including long term contraceptive implants available in rural areas to all women who want them, and supporting a tree planting scheme which has the combined benefits of holding water on the land in the catchment areas of major rivers and providing a sustainable crop for the locals. This includes planting on land round schools and education on the usefulness.

Population



Dave said:


> As for grass, well, we are all going to have to eat less meat. That is really a given with the problem of climate change. It is healthy to eat a little less meat too.


Or eat grass fed meat......   As mentioned further up the thread, there is a lot of land in the UK that is only suitable for grazing, not for the plough. So grazing, or return to woodland. You can buy grass fed meat directly BTW - see for example RED RUBY BEEF | higherhallfarm.

So a few things that you could choose to do with your pennies to help........


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Montero said:


> I support two charities regarding this - Population Matters, which raises the profile of the issue in the UK and promotes charities taking direct action such as CHASE Africa. The approach of CHASE Africa has an additional relevance to this thread, as they have a threefold approach - making contraception, including long term contraceptive implants available in rural areas to all women who want them, and supporting a tree planting scheme which has the combined benefits of holding water on the land in the catchment areas of major rivers and providing a sustainable crop for the locals. This includes planting on land round schools and education on the usefulness.


I think you are doing a wonderful thing by supporting charities like this. The big problem imo, is that reducing population at the birth end of the scale simply increases the percentage of over 65s on pension, that the young are required to support? Of course this probably applies more to _first world_ urban areas than to the _third world _places where state benefits and pensions are not always there, are riddled with corruption and are slight when available.

I believe the terms 'first' and 'third world' should be replaced by global north and global south, not as geographical terms, but in terms of development: Australia as global north, for instance, and Mexico global south.

(Sorry. I apologise for taking the thread a bit off-topic.)


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

Well, continuing off topic, yes, the percentage of over 65s increases - but only for a while. Time takes care of that. And the whole "that the young are required to support" - erm - well most people work and contribute taxes all their lives, and most people benefit from the government spending those taxes on schools, healthcare, old people's homes etc. People of all ages contribute, and people of all ages benefit. 
I also think that people do not appreciate how much older people help each other. My father-in-law has a wide circle of friends of similar age, and when one has an operation, the others rally round to do shopping, cooking, etc for the one convalescing - and then they return the favour. 
You were mentioning removing first and third world - I think the whole "young" and "old" is simplistic and over-done. Some people are helpful and neighbourly, others aren't. I think those who are part of a "help" circle are going to do a lot better if the future is as grim as some think.

Regarding effective ways of tackling global warming, a study was done which does put having one fewer child top. See 
Smaller families most effective action on global warming. That link in its turn will lead you to the original research paper. The headline is:

"Researchers reviewed multiple actions which can help reduce individual emissions. They identified four high-impact actions with the greatest potential to reduce our individual emissions.



*Having one fewer child*
*Living car-free*
*Avoiding airplane travel*
*Eating a plant-based diet"*


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Montero said:


> Well, continuing off topic, yes, the percentage of over 65s increases - but only for a while. Time takes care of that. And the whole "that the young are required to support"


I'm over 65 myself, though still working. The elderly consume the bulk of healthcare spending, etc. Please don't get me wrong. But 'global north' urban lives are longer, often into the 90s.



Montero said:


> *Having one fewer child*
> *Living car-free*
> *Avoiding airplane travel*
> *Eating a plant-based diet"*


Again this is a view from the 'global north'. Most 'global south' residents can't afford a car, can only dream of ever boardng an aircraft and wish they could afford a better diet.

Solutions have to be realistic and applicable to underdeveloped places, imo. Sorry I'm not bring argumentative and  I do understand these are sc-fi forums.


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## AlexH (Jan 17, 2020)

Montero said:


> "Researchers reviewed multiple actions which can help reduce individual emissions. They identified four high-impact actions with the greatest potential to reduce our individual emissions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If _everyone _ate a plant-based diet, it'd probably be worse for the environment. It's about moderation and where the food travels from. The study doesn't seem to take into account how rampant consumerism is encouraged either. It's all down to the flaw of how economies are measured (thanks to war), and I can't see anyone being brave enough to change that in my lifetime.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 17, 2020)

It's very simple, it's not what's being done, just how it is done. Rampant is a good word to describe the situation. I prefer to use developed and underdeveloped instead of first and third world. Many areas of underdeveloped countries are becoming developed and encountering/generating the same situations that developed countries have. I don't think it's old people and young people so much as it is people who can fend for themselves and those that can't. In those terms, both young and old can help each other. As the electric vehicle proliferates, the cost of vehicles can come down quite a bit, because at some point, gulf cart type vehicles that cost little to be assembled, literally from a box of parts, will be offered as general transportation. Warmer climate areas already have smaller, lower cost vehicles as transportation, that concept will certainly become more prevalent. It is far easier to put a smaller electric motor in an electric vehicle than it is to put a smaller combustion motor in a standard size vehicle.

The impact of vertical farms should be looked at over the long term. Many agricultural procedures appear to have lower impacts and costs in the short run but the costs and impacts increase over the long term because the impact of the way the land is treated goes way past it's borders. Vertical farms could be designed to keep the impact within the borders of the property. As you get closer to the perimeter the uses can be tailored to act more as buffers instead of extenders. Large field operations tend to use all the land in one or two particular venues, without the use of large buffer areas to contain the impact of the land uses. The holding tanks that are used to contain unwanted by-products are themselves liable to cause extensive damage to surrounding areas when they are compromised. The question arises, would vertical farms be more resilient in increasingly stormy weather or would the cost of building high wind speed proof buildings greatly increase their costs.


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

RJM Corbet said:


> I'm over 65 myself, though still working. The elderly consume the bulk of healthcare spending, etc. Please don't get me wrong. But 'global north' urban lives are longer, often into the 90s..



And the young consume the bulk of educational spending.......  And everyone is protected by spending on defence and police...... And with good health care, a lot of the elderly are more likely to be healthy and self-supporting for a lot longer so there are savings to be had there.

I've seen it said around newspapers, internet "we must have more young people to care for the old people" - and that is pointless - because they in turn become old and it is a never ending cycle of larger populations. Yes, there will be a population imbalance for a while, but with care, neighbourliness, and the Japanese solution of care robots which is a big thing, it can be managed. With each generation the actual numbers will decrease, though it might still be a similar percentage of the population as a whole. While birthrates drop it will be a continuing issue, but for goodness sake it's not so hard we can't handle it.


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

Split previous post into two on editing, because it was displaying oddly.



RJM Corbet said:


> Solutions have to be realistic and applicable to underdeveloped places, imo. Sorry I'm not bring argumentative and  I do understand these are sc-fi forums.



My view - solutions have to be realistic and tailored to suit the place to which they are being applied. I don't think, as seems implied by your post, that a solution has to be universally applicable before it can be applied. There have to be many answers, because there are many different problems.
The paper is saying what the impacts are on the world as a whole. Just because a poor person in Africa doesn't ever get on a plane, doesn't mean that planes are not a big problem in trashing the planet on which we all live, rich and poor.
In terms of helping people in rural Africa - well, there are schemes like CHASE Africa. In terms of helping the planet - well - there is the list of top 4 things and the top of the list is having one fewer child.

Returning to an earlier post regarding supporting a charity - I just wanted to clarify that I am not talking about spending vast amounts of time at fund raising events, or street campaigns, I am doing two very simple things.

1. Talking about Population Matters and CHASE Africa online.
2. We have annual membership of PM and make a monthly donation by standing order tp CHASE Africa - if anyone here wanted to do the same then for CHASE AFRICA - Donate - CHASE Africa. From their website

*How your donation will help*

*£10* pays for 10 indigenous trees to be planted and maintained in a national park
*£15* pays for 2 women to get access to their choice of family planning
*£25* pays for a nurse’s salary for a day
*£50* pays for 23 trees in a fenced school woodlot
*£100* pays for 14 women to get access to family planning

Edited to add - and finally spotted the missing bracket - aargh!


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 17, 2020)

Overpopulation isn't the problem as much as overconsumption. The West has less than 20% of the world's population but uses over 80% of its resources.


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

I'm afraid I disagree. Overconsumption is a very big problem, but overpopulation is a bigger one - in part because a lot of people strive to improve their lifestyles - or in simple terms have the ambition to become overconsumers themselves. There is also the subtler point not just regarding consumption and its impact on CO2 levels, but regarding impact on the environment - felling trees for farms for example - which removes habitat and increases erosion and run-off. That is a global problem and directly related to the number of people wanting to eat, whatever kind of diet they are eating. Even growing vegetables and eating them locally alters the environment.

Edited to add
Organisations such as CHASE Africa are providing a service which local people want and can't get elsewhere - they don't want large families, they just have no access to contraception. At that kind of level, overpopulation is far easier to address than overconsumption. 
Overconsumption is not a new thing - this 2,100 year old Chinese mummy shows that - Nobody knows why this ancient mummy is so well preserved - she was overweight and died of a heart attack. These days it is the scale of the overconsumption that is the problem - so many more people are doing it.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> Overpopulation isn't the problem as much as overconsumption. The West has less than 20% of the world's population but uses over 80% of its resources.


I think corruption is also a major problem in 'developing' countries. Budgets don't get to the projects or people they're intended for. I think idealism is good. Without idealism there might be no improvement. But solutions have to be practical on the ground, imo.

It is wonderful that well meaning western urban people are anxious to deal with climate change and plastic pollution, etc. But the main culprits are poor countries with more pressing immediate survival concerns than how they recycle plastic and generate energy.

EDIT
Just to get the thread back on topic: solutions like food towers have to be practical enough to work in places like the Congo, not just in prosperous 'western' countries?


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 17, 2020)

RJM Corbet said:


> But the main culprits are poor countries with more pressing immediate survival concerns than how they recycle plastic and generate energy.



You may find this is simply because Western news tends to focus on what Western countries are doing - but if you look hard enough, you'll see some of these news reports mention things poorer countries are actively involved in to improve their environment.

But the point remains that the biggest consumers create the biggest environmental problems. Those pristine forests aren't being cleared to feed the poor, but to feed the rich through short-term cash crops for export to the West.

Trying to get back on topic - this is why vertical farming could be such an important topic for the future, especially with the aim of trying to make Western countries more sustainable - and especially without directly impacting lifestyle quality and choices.


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## Parson (Jan 17, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> - and especially without directly impacting lifestyle quality and choices.



Now that's the real bugaboo. Almost everyone likes to see the problem generally or where it relates over there, but are willing to make only the smallest of sacrifices in their own daily living. And vertical farming offers something of a low sacrifice model, but I don't for a minute think that it's economically viable without massive governmental sujpport, or raising food prices so that much of the world cannot afford to eat. --- It could sound a little Swift's "A Modest Proposal" to someone in "undeveloped" countries.


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## AlexH (Jan 17, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> Trying to get back on topic - this is why vertical farming could be such an important topic for the future, especially with the aim of trying to make Western countries more sustainable - and especially without directly impacting lifestyle quality and choices.


But "lifestyle quality" and choices are what need to be impacted. Electric cars and vertical farming and whatever else that encourages us to continue as is (likely worse) won't help.


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

Sounds like we need a new thread to have a discussion on how to impact on consumerism. If that won't be too world affairs-ish. Might be interesting too and can be done separate from vertical farming.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 17, 2020)

Parson said:


> Almost everyone likes to see the problem generally or where it relates over there, but are willing to make only the smallest of sacrifices in their own daily living.



You know, we have an historical precedent otherwise - in the 1800's, the British ruled that slavery was illegal, even though it would cause an increase in prices for ordinary foodstuffs, not least sugar. Yet the bill was passed not because British MPs thought it was really important to abolish slavery, but because there was such a huge groundswell of public opinion against slavery that MPs - some of which were directly or indirectly connected to plantations - had little choice but to support it.

So it is possible for people to accept some financial penalty in order to do the right thing. I would see the growth of the organic food movement as a reflection of this.



RJM Corbet said:


> Just to get the thread back on topic: solutions like food towers have to be practical enough to work in places like the Congo, not just in prosperous 'western' countries?



Food towers need to be able to work where there is greatest demand. Set in or around cities on any continent would be an ideal. I suspect we're going to see a lot of different variations developing according to different climatic conditions. But as has been raised, vertical farming also needs to be able to cater for the most common foodstuffs.

However, as has also been mentioned, I suspect some food towers will be developed specifically for less obvious crops. I still expect, one day, to see towers for the growing of nutrient-rich algaes.


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## Dave (Jan 17, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> You know, we have an historical precedent otherwise - in the 1800's, the British ruled that slavery was illegal, even though it would cause an increase in prices for ordinary foodstuffs, not least sugar. Yet the bill was passed not because British MPs thought it was really important to abolish slavery, but because there was such a huge groundswell of public opinion against slavery that MPs - some of which were directly or indirectly connected to plantations - had little choice but to support it.
> 
> So it is possible for people to accept some financial penalty in order to do the right thing. I would see the growth of the organic food movement as a reflection of this.



But £20,000,000 to pay for damages suffered by owners of registered slaves was paid by the UK Government from taxes by the Slave Compensation Act of 1837 so (in the UK) there was hardly any financial penalty. They didn't really care about North America. The extra money sloshing around in the UK economy causing a boom much like the Banking PPI refunds have caused more recently, and is credited with starting several new enterprises which helped the UK to take a world lead in the Industrial Revolution.

To make a similar compensation today for people and corporations to give up fossil fuels would have an impossibly high price tag. We need a staged changeover to greener fuels over a longer period of time - exactly what climate conferences have been trying to agree on for decades. Unfortunately, the USA not only refuses to sign up but it strong-arms small countries and actively lobbies for climate denial. The other big polluters like China and India are actually trying hard and given time will succeed. 

To bury your head in the sand and continue as if nothing is changing will not help the coal industry in the USA or Australia. They may keep their mines open and producing, but they will find that they no longer have a market. If you don't get on board with green energy now, you will end up having to buy it from other countries like China who are currently investing heavily.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Dave said:


> If you don't get on board with green energy now, you will end up having to buy it from other countries like China who are currently investing heavily.


IMO the problem is how to _store_ 'green electricity'?

There is nothing like a battery yet that could reasonably power a household, let alone a factory or a city block? Electricity cannot be stored. Ok, it can be stored to some extent. But not yet in any practical way? And big batteries are dangerous. Even a phone battery is potentially dangerous. I understand there is research. But to me this is where the whole discussion is skewed by a misunderstanding.

Yes, there are plenty of _sources_ of green power. Why aren't we simply scrapping fossil fuel and going green? Isn't it just so obvious? It has to be a global conspiracy by oil companies to keep their monopoly, etc. (As in: not)

But these renewable energy sources are not reliable enough at times when wind, sun, waves etc, are not doing their thing -- because the electricity they generate cannot be stored. Not effectively. Not yet.

IMO: The best alternative to fossil fuel electricity is nuclear. But the greens won't have that either?


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 17, 2020)

Dave said:


> pay for damages suffered by owners of registered slaves



I don't mean that - I mean that the public knew that abolishing slavery would result in price rises for ordinary shopping food shopping items, but they called for it anyway. Ordinary consumers were prepared for some change in lifestyle, at penalty to themselves, in order to create the opportunity for a better world. 



RJM Corbet said:


> The best alternative to fossil fuel electricity is nuclear. But the greens won't have that either?



Nuclear energy receives incredible subsidies, from the building of the power stations to the amount paid for the electricity they generate, to the public funds used to clean up radioactive waste (the latter alone I've seen costed at over £100 billion). Some people would argue that similar amounts spent on alternative renewable sources would be money better spent - we haven't even begun to properly develop tidal energy sources yet.

Perhaps more importantly, the future of energy production is perhaps one that is decentralized - where homeowners generate their own power through solar, heat pumps, and other accessible renewable energy sources. We don't need huge batteries to power towns when homes can have their own smaller batteries - easily possible with existing technology.

I suspect that, with vertical farming, what we're actually talking about is a slow decoupling of global capitalism - that in the future, individuals, families, communities, and towns, would seek to aim to be as self-sufficient as possible. In the UK at least I know a lot of research and development has already gone into this through Peak Oil projects, some of which is actually supported by big businesses.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> we haven't even begun to properly develop tidal energy sources yet.


Yes. Imo this is probably the most reliable.


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## Dave (Jan 17, 2020)

@RJM Corbet Sorry, by "green energy" I really meant the "green energy technology" would need to be bought from other countries who would hold the patents etc. and was thinking more as a country than an individual.

I don't really disagree with what you say though, except there are energy storage systems like pumped hydro-electric i.e. Dinowig
Batteries are improving rapidly but can never be a large scale answer and their production comes with environmental problems (as do energy-efficient light bulbs.) Excess electricity could by used to produce hydrogen from water, then recombined with oxygen in a hydrogen fuel cell. I'd also agree with @Brian G Turner regarding nuclear.



Brian G Turner said:


> I don't mean that - I mean that the public knew that abolishing slavery would result in price rises for ordinary shopping food shopping items, but they called for it anyway.


Sorry, I misunderstood you. Yes, the public did know,  as there was a scaremongering campaign to make them aware.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 17, 2020)

The batteries are already everywhere and every single one of them is a potential disaster. One solution for storing power is to use big batteries that are stored on the property. Bolt a couple of car batteries together and you got the size of a typical home oil heating tank. Probably same power capabilities if you used it to generate all your power instead of just heating the house. 

How do you get one of these batteries? It's not as hard as it seems. Electric car batteries have to be in tip top shape to deliver instant power on demand, so one can travel fast, so the proverbial lead foot can feel satisfied about vehicle performance. Maybe we should drive slower but that isn't going to happen. Because we want everything now, and can do it so it happens. When the car batteries start to show declining top flight service they need to be replaced. So now we got all these big batteries starting to pile up, still good but not good enough for cars. So you take the used batteries and bolt them together and use 5 instead of 4, but the price is sale priced because the reality of the situation is that those big batteries have to be stored somehow somewhere, so why not park them outside of everyone's houses. Problem solved. Sort of, for now, at least until the batteries become too bad to use and then they can be sent to robotic factories where all the contents can be safely recycled. Unlike the lead storage batteries going to under developed countries.

There is a thing called green fallout that nobody likes to talk about. Such as the destruction of the natural forests by replacing them with palm tree plantations. Just calling them plantations brings all kinds of thoughts to mind. Green clean biodiesel fuel is only green and clean when it's grown in a vat or in some way that has no negative impact on the diversity of the land. Which has another shoe falling.  Mono crop organic farms that are meg sized have negative impacts on the land, same as mono crop farms that are not organic. They are being built to fuel the over zealous consumption of food. If it's organic it has to be good. Maybe the food is good but the price the land pays is not good. Organic farms started out as small farms with a lot of diversity so they had little negative impact on their surroundings. But because big profit people became involved, the way it is done overcomes the importance of the final product. 

The cheating on the diesel exhaust test results needed to be done because diesels chop up everything fed into them and grind it all up in the tiniest size particles that can't be measured. Particles so small they can sail right into our lungs straight through the skin on our chests. Look ma, no breathing required. Top of the world ma! 

Nuclear is not an option until the entire nuclear industry learns how to clean up the messes they have created. No one is going to come in with an eye towards profits and an urge to spend those profits on cleaning up the messes from previous accidents and careless disposal of all that stuff nobody knows what to do with. 

***Joke Alert*** As far as population goes, there is a thing called conflict of interest. We are already here, on planet Earth, having a great time, a great life. So please, there is no more room here, please make other arrangements to be born on some other planet. You're cramping my style.

The vertical towers have to be designed to be economical to build, maintain, and operate, and they can be. That means all those people who insist on designing things using the latest start of the art financial tools that require a lifetime contract need to be removed from the design process. That way the towers can be operated in developed countries as well as under developed countries. Designing something is only half the job. The design needs to be done in a way that it is economical to build, operate, and maintain. Anything less than that is a failure. As you can easily see, we are surrounded by failure, so much failure that it is an established, acceptable way of life. The science industry is famous for saying they are not responsible for how their ideas are used. Maybe that is true, but to not list of the bad effects, consequence of uses, and anything else negative about the discovery is a grade of 50 percent. Last time I checked 50 percent was smack dab in the middle of failure territory. What started out as a good idea, turning personal failure into success has backfired beautifully when applied to the world of business. Perhaps the business world should only be tasked with selling products and not allowed to design the products they sell. Separate production from profits.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 17, 2020)

Robert Zwilling said:


> Organic farms started out as small farms with a lot of diversity so they had little negative impact on their surroundings. But because big profit people became involved, the way it is done overcomes the importance of the final product.


Unwashed carrots at twice the price, lol. Good business if you can get it ...


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## Montero (Jan 17, 2020)

Regarding sugar and slavery - having watched the various sweetmaker documentaries/historical re-creations - in the Georgian period there was the equivalent of Free Trade brand - sugar not harvested by slaves. Confectioners would have signs in their window to say they stock product made from that sugar - and it was more expensive.

Pumped storage - there is a lot of misunderstanding about that. Yes, it can be used to store renewable energy, in theory, although it is a massive engineering project involving a lot of that ever green material, concrete and needs the right land layout - e.g. two reservoirs one at the top of a hill, the other at the bottom. BUT what it is currently used for is fast response electricity at peak demand - so at times of surplus electricity, the turbines/archimedes screws that run up through the channels between the top and bottom reservoir are used to pump water up to the top reservoir. At times when the National Grid has a sudden peak demand with the flick of a switch you send the water back down the tubes, turning the screws that now act as turbines to generate electricity. It is what it is currently designed for - to cover a sudden peak demand very quickly. It isn't intended and doesn't have the volume to run for days and days.
The National Grid is complex, with different types of energy generation. Gas turbines can respond quickly - if kept hot - but not as quickly as pumped storage. And the if kept hot is a bit of a kicker - there is always a rolling reserve on the National Grid with a gas turbine power station burning gas that is keeping the turbine blades hot, but not turning. This is because the turbine blade construction includes different metals, with different coefficients of thermal expansion, so if you shove superheated steam into a cold turbine at full whack, you break it. So the gas turbines are using gas, without generating electricity. One of these has to be on line all the time, especially when there is a lot of wind power coming into the grid, because wind power is very variable - the output varies with the cube of the wind speed - and if the wind drops you need the rolling reserve to kick in to avoid all the safety trips going and resulting in a black out. So one of the ironies of trying to put wind energy into the National Grid is that gas is burnt as a back-up, without said gas being used to generate electricity.

If you tried to run a National Grid type operation - as in constantly available power - by storing renewable generated electricity using pumped storage for example, you would need massive, countryside obliterating reservoirs - because there can be days at a time without sunshine, ditto wind. So you'd be trying to store days worth of electricity, not hours.

The Island of Eigg has its own renewable powered grid - here is how it operates Eigg Electric - The Isle of Eigg. Basically you can only run one appliance at a time, and they are all low demand types - think caravan kettle not mains electric kettle.

Now to my mind, one of the ways to tackle overconsumption - and also to power say vertical farms without building masses more power generation - is rationing. It can be done and it has been done - remember the rolling power cuts of the 1970s? It is something central government can control. 
During the fuel crisis, a national speed limit of 50mph was imposed, to save on fuel. That largely worked too (and reduced the number of car crashes).

Regarding green fallout - yes, total lack of joined up thinking. Another jolly that has been perpetrated in the last few years is diesel generator farms. Some soul in central government noticed all the emergency power generators around the country owned by hospitals and large institutions and said "hey if you'll allow us to use them from time to time as a top-up, we'll pay you" or basically wrote a subsidy for that. However the way the subsidy was written, led to entrepreneurs building diesel generator farms - including on green fields - all for the subsidy.

So one of the really key things for the future of the world, is fighting off short term non-joined up thinking plus trying to explain technical limitations to the non-technical (e.g. a lot of politicians).


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## Vertigo (Jan 19, 2020)

RJM Corbet said:


> IMO the problem is how to _store_ 'green electricity'?
> 
> There is nothing like a battery yet that could reasonably power a household, let alone a factory or a city block? Electricity cannot be stored. Ok, it can be stored to some extent. But not yet in any practical way? And big batteries are dangerous. Even a phone battery is potentially dangerous. I understand there is research. But to me this is where the whole discussion is skewed by a misunderstanding.
> 
> ...


Green electricity can moderately easily be stored using pumped storage hydroelectricity (Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia). Whilst this is not on the same level of efficiency as, say, lithium ion batteries it does not suffer from the same exhaustion problems that most (all?) chemical batteries suffer from.


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## Montero (Jan 19, 2020)

@Vertigo - Pumped storage - see my previous reply. It can be uses to store renewable, just not for long enough to cover days and days of low generation. The article you link to does say it is used for load balancing - which is what my post is talking about. Further down it says "generating periods are often less than half a day". That is just not long enough to run a National Grid type operation on renewable, when you can have many days without wind and/or sunshine.
The pumped storage in Wales is pumped up overnight by surplus electricity mostly produced by nuclear power - which is part of the base load as it is known. Base load is a form of generation that is best run as nice and steady, so it's the one you leave running all the time, and add on the ones that can do fast response as and when needed.


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## Dave (Jan 19, 2020)

Just to add a couple of small points:

I believe pumped storage hydro-electric is already used in some places to store energy for longer periods than just 'balancing demand load' so I'm not sure the "in theory" is necessary. I accept it could not be used for several days or prolonged periods.
They don't necessarily involve 'a lot of concrete', although it would require the correct geography/hydrology. There are canal/lock systems that have used pumped water/ to keep them full since canals were first invented, and the 1851 Crystal Palace fountains. I'm not pretending these could be used for hydro-electricity, just saying that concrete hadn't been invented.
Modern solar panels don't need "sunshine" in order to work. They generate electricity even in low light levels. Obviously, they don't generate quite as much. However, it is unlikely that there would be a long period without a combination of any sunshine or any wind. In addition, tidal barrages not only capture energy, but can be used to store it too. Tidal barrages have clear advantages in the renewable energy stakes.


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## Vertigo (Jan 19, 2020)

Dave said:


> Just to add a couple of small points:
> 
> I believe pumped storage hydro-electric is already used in some places to store energy for longer periods than just 'balancing demand load' so I'm not sure the "in theory" is necessary. I accept it could not be used for several days or prolonged periods.
> They don't necessarily involve 'a lot of concrete', although it would require the correct geography/hydrology. There are canal/lock systems that have used pumped water/ to keep them full since canals were first invented, and the 1851 Crystal Palace fountains. I'm not pretending these could be used for hydro-electricity, just saying that concrete hadn't been invented.
> Modern solar panels don't need "sunshine" in order to work. They generate electricity even in low light levels. Obviously, they don't generate quite as much. However, it is unlikely that there would be a long period without a combination of any sunshine or any wind. In addition, tidal barrages not only capture energy, but can be used to store it too. Tidal barrages have clear advantages in the renewable energy stakes.



Our business sublets a few rooms in a warehouse used by a printing company running some very large printing machines and many other energy-intensive bits of machinery such as cutters, folders, stitchers etc. A few years back the owner put solar panels on the roof to, I assumed, offset some of his energy costs. This is in the UK, not a place renowned for its excessively large hours of sunshine but recently he surprised me when he mentioned that on aggregate he puts more energy into the grid than he takes out. Those solar panels earn him money and were fully paid off in less than four years (he did have those very attractive government guaranteed rates back then). Even on overcast days they generate more than he uses. He generally only goes into 'loss' during the winter when work continues after dark.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 19, 2020)

I think once we have properly developed tidal and wave energy systems in place the issue of storage could be less of an issue.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 19, 2020)

Vertigo said:


> Green electricity can moderately easily be stored using pumped storage hydroelectricity (Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia). Whilst this is not on the same level of efficiency as, say, lithium ion batteries it does not suffer from the same exhaustion problems that most (all?) chemical batteries suffer from.


It was already being discussed in the early 80s, but as @Montero says, it seems really just a fall back option at the moment, imo. 

There are also fly wheel options etc, but the basic fact remains electricity cannot yet effectively be _stored_ from renewable sources to a degree replacing the need for fossil fuel or nuclear electricity?

Nuclear does the job, with new ideas like Thorium reactors. But the consequences of accidents are so frightening. Over the last 50yrs there have been accidents, but only Chernobyl was truly disasterous. Others were reasonably managed and contained?

I'm not trying to paint over the dangers of nuclear, but technologies are improving for the large scale production of clean nuclear electricity?

EDIT
I'm sorry I responded directly to  @Vertigo before reading the following posts. Just couldn't wait to get my oar in, lol. But I think the point stands? It's a misconception out there that green energy can easily replace fossil fuel energy. But that's not the case at present because of the storage issue?


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## Montero (Jan 19, 2020)

The renewable energy foundation - https://www.ref.org.uk/ - scrutinises renewable electricity production by means of the subsidy paid - only the subsidy for larger installations, not household size ones. They also have a library of research documents, including on wind patterns over the UK and Europe.
They cover wind, solar and biomass. Many days of reading there.

In terms of generating renewables - tidal has a lot of problems in terms of silting up. La Rance has problems. See La Rance Tidal Barrage | Tethys
From the first paragraph - this gives you an idea of the fraction of the power provided, compared to current demands in France:
"With a peak rating of 240 MW, generated by its 24 turbines, it supplies 0.012% of the power demand of France. With a capacity factor of approximately 40%, it supplies an average 96 MW, giving an annual output of approximately 600 GWh."

There is also tidal stream - which relies on tides through a channel - sort of underwater wind turbine. More powerful than wave power. However a lot of concern regarding impact on marine life - there is an ongoing experimental tidal stream turbine at Stanford Lough.








						SeaGen - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



There are claims by firms that want to install more that up to 10% of the UK's electricity could be provided by tidal stream - but how true that is remains to be seen.

Wave power - You do need to remember wave power is derived from wind, so subject to outages. I would also want to see studies of what it would do to aquatic life to have nets of wave power generators over the ocean - what if whales or dolphins surfaced through it.

Concrete - was in use in the Roman period.

Thorium isn't new, the potential was known at the same time as Uranium. Our government and others pursued Uranium rather than Thorium, because Uranium reactors give you material for making nuclear bombs, and Thorium reactors don't. It is one of the reasons that Thorium reactors are safer.

But we are really back to here - we should all use a lot less electricity. All government projections are based on ever increasing supply - and however you provide that supply, there is still a big environmental cost and use of steel, aluminium, glass, and rare earth elements, the production chains of which include mining (and attendant pollution) and smelting - which by the way requires a lot of electricity - not just in total quantity but a lot all at once. The kind of  level of power that cannot be produced by wind turbine or solar panels - so we need traditional power stations in order to manufacture renewable energy collection.

I am finding it odd in this thread that there are outcries against overconsumption which when it goes into detail does so mainly on food, in particular meat, but when I mention overconsumption of electricity and talk about rationing, no one joins in that discussion.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 20, 2020)

The old car batteries are already being used as power storage devices after they are taken out of cars. Its a done deal. The only company not onboard is Telsa. That is probably because they sell new car batteries to be bolted to the sides of houses, so they don't want to lose any money by selling a cheaper battery. In 2018 there were 55,000 batteries that had been removed from cars that needed to be put somewhere. By 2025 there will be 3.4 million of them.The old car batteries could easily be bolted to the walls of the vertical farm tower structures. While the vertical tower outside walls and roof are all glass to let light in, there are other buildings on the site that could have solar panel roofs and maybe all that framework that holds the glass up could be covered with solar cell strips instead of panels.

 The water thing is nice but how many places can it done in a practical way. Even though it is storage and not generation of power, it still falls under the alternative power curse of not being practical enough to be used everywhere all the time. Even though it has faded from the news, Japan still has the problem of disposing all the water at the contaminated nuclear part. Even if they dump all the water in the ocean, the ruined cores are still there, still a big problem. Despite all the claims about nuclear plant safety, they are still subject to earthquake damage and flooding, which can now be seen, has no limit as to how big a flood can be. The vertical towers might be made flood proof in that the only stuff that gets washed away from the lower floors is plant matter and plastic hardware. The glass windows might not stand up to a violent wind storm, but if the frame remains intact, it would be an easy matter to get the farm quickly running again after a flood. Which is something that outdoor field farms don't seem to be able to do.


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## Dave (Jan 20, 2020)

To return back to topic, one big advantage that these new indoor, city-based vertical farms have, is that there are lower transport costs (and transport is a large contributor to CO2 emissions) as this Dutch blog reports:









						A tomato flat: growing vegetables in the city - Spotlight
					

To supply the growing city population with fresh vegetables, Wageningen horticultural specialists are doing research into vertical farming




					weblog.wur.eu


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 20, 2020)

I didn't catch that before that there were no or very few insects to speak of. That's a big plus. Since we kill all the bugs on farms I guess it is a mute question to ask if some bugs are needed for better agricultural results. There could be a vertical farm building every couple of blocks for big cities. That feature could change cities reliance on outside food sources for vegetables. Traditional farmers must be unhappy about that or are they already switching to things that can't be grown in vertical farms.  If there were walkways in the cities that went over the roads and lower height buildings, that could all be solar paneled. Is there a new generation way to generate light that is equivalent in energy savings to the switch from tungsten filament to leds? I don't see anything searching that isn't led. 

The light can't be all hitting its target, its got to be going everywhere. Maybe light pipes that distribute the light the same way tube irrigation distributes the water. Is it a waste of time lightning up plant stems? The lightning seems to be a shotgun approach.  Could everything be mirror surfaced to catch all the reflected light and the light that never goes in the right direction. In the pictures it seems like the frames, beds, racks, are opaque, how much energy is lost by that. Does everything get algae covered if everything is made out of clear plastic.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 20, 2020)

Montero said:


> Our government and others pursued Uranium rather than Thorium, because Uranium reactors give you material for making nuclear bombs, and Thorium reactors don't. It is one of the reasons that Thorium reactors are safer.


It may be one reason, but there are other advantages. In this thread Thorium reactors I posted a 20min video which seems to explain Thorium reactors in an understandable way ...


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## Parson (Jan 20, 2020)

Robert Zwilling said:


> I didn't catch that before that there were no or very few insects to speak of. That's a big plus. Since we kill all the bugs on farms I guess it is a mute question to ask if some bugs are needed for better agricultural results.



It is not a mute question. Insects are needed for farming. Some plants need insects for good pollination --- think bees, but there are a ton more than honey bees --- One of the continuing problems with pesticides is that they kill too many kinds of insects. Some, besides pollinators, are marginally good for the crops and a few of which are very good for the soil. In fact it is a partial reason for genetically altering plants to provide protection against the most destructive insects without harming others. 

Another kind of pollination, wind, might be more difficult in a closed setting.


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## Dave (Jan 20, 2020)

Parson said:


> Insects are needed for farming....


Natural predators i.e. Birds and parasitic wasps attack aphid eggs, and ladybirds (ladybugs) eat aphids. Most pesticides are indiscriminate. Most kill everything. They will accumulate higher up the food chain and kill birds too, and whatever eats the birds. In most cases, humans are at the top of the food chain.

I wonder how you would replicate this on a generational spaceship flying to colonise another planet? We can build the vertical farm easily, but it would only take one pregnant aphid hidden under a leaf and the crop is devastated. Can we take wasps, ladybirds and birds along with us?


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## Vertigo (Jan 20, 2020)

Dave said:


> Can we take wasps, ladybirds and birds along with us?


I find that quite an interesting question and would turn it around. Can we_ not_ take wasps, ladybirds and birds along with us? Can we actually create a sustainable ecosystem with only the 'good' bits. Personally I seriously doubt it. Apart from anything else if you leave holes in the ecosystem something will just take their place. Leave out aphids and something else will figure out how to get sustenance by siphoning off the plant sap and without a natural predator like say a bird it will run riot.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 20, 2020)

Robert Zwilling said:


> were no or very few insects to speak of



I saw this and suddenly imagined the vertical farming of insects for food. I hear locusts are good and maggots taste like shrimp.


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## Montero (Jan 21, 2020)

You have to have something for said insects to eat .......
But, in a general, theoretical way, with no idea of the practicalities, don't see why not.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 21, 2020)

It's no difference than a fish farm. Some of the fish farms are so inefficient that they use far more food to feed the fish than the fish provide as food. Insects might be better suited to convert carbohydrates to protein. It would be a weird sight to see vertical towers with plants in them and other vertical towers with insects in them. A good story could have the insects continually plotting to escape from their tower filled with crap food to get into the other towers with the grade A prime food. Tunneling underground, making passageways through the metal and plastic frames connecting everything. Traveling on the undersides of crates.


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## Montero (Jan 22, 2020)

Earlier in this thread, I posted about overpopulation being the biggest problem and was hoping for an extensive discussion, but there was only a little response. I just received a link to Karen Shragg's latest blog, Karen being a noted activist regarding the impacts of overpopulation on climate change. It rather struck a chord for me, so I am posting a link and one paragraph here:

Why Environmental Moderates Are More Frustrating than Outright Climate Deniers — Moving Upstream with Karen Shragg

"As a self proclaimed and proud overpopulation activist, I have personally been told to wait to push this issue because other issues are more pressing. *Well waiting gets us an additional 1 million passengers every 4.5 days to find water for, clothe, house, feed and employ*. We are already at least 5.5 billion overpopulated compared to our resources and the pollution resulting during their extraction. The environmental moderates also operate by a mythical timetable, one in which renewable energy and cloth bags will save us."


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 22, 2020)

Karen makes no argument, as much as just rants with the assumption that most of those 1 million are Western superconsumers - which they are not. Try reading this instead: The burning issue of population control

However, I'd much rather we move the thread back to issues of futurism: what the future could look like, in terms of changes from technology and how that can change ordinary society - such as how vertical farming could potentially develop - rather than a focus on present day issues which are more likely to spawn social arguments.


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## Dave (Jan 22, 2020)

No question that over-population is a bigger problem, and that it is linked to, and it sits behind all the others. It is more that we don't discuss world affairs on this forum and as we already took this thread off on several tangents (my fault), I was trying to reign it back onto the original subject of vertical farming. The other reason, as I see it, is that the solutions to over-population ( I can think of several, some tried for real, such as the Chinese one-child policy, some theoretical, and some from science fiction - _Soylent Green, Logan's Run._) which in every case are even more unpalatable or harsh than those solutions to global warming are. As Brian says, any discussion will produce very strong views especially of a political and religious nature. They must be discussed, but not necessarily here.


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## Montero (Jan 23, 2020)

I think I will come back with a small reply, as there are assumptions about what I have said that I would like to briefly counter.
@ Brian - I was reading solely Karen's article on the frustration of trying to talk about population control. I have read your article, which yes, does mention the problems on overpopulation - but then moves on to talking about it as though it is being imposed on the third world by the first world. That is not what I am advocating, and it is frequently, and inaccurately an accusation leveled at people who highlight overpopulation as the problem. Maybe some do advocate that, but I've not met any and I'm not one of them. Yes, I agree that people on a western lifestyle should reduce their overconsumption.
@Dave - not all solutions to overpopulation are harsh. The one I've been advocating (CHASE Africa) is providing birth control to people who want to limit their family size and have no access to contraception. They want it. There are other organisations around the world doing the same. I picked CHASE Africa to support due to all the additional things they were doing in employing locals and reforestation. I thought that was where my limited donations would do the most good.
Yes, this thread started as futuristic, but kept going sideways onto current renewable energy - with little understanding of the practicalities of electricity generation. My earlier suggestion of rationing electricity would have a far quicker impact on CO2 emissions than building more renewable installations as building new in and of itself uses resources and produces CO2. It could be implemented by central government and does not rely on individuals recognising the problem and limiting themselves.


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## Dave (Jan 23, 2020)

Montero said:


> @Dave - not all solutions to overpopulation are harsh.


I don't think I've made any unfair assumptions, on the other hand that ^ was not what I actually said. What I actually said was:


Dave said:


> ...in every case are even more *unpalatable or harsh* than those solutions to global warming are.


The *availability* of contraception is only a piece of the problem. Just to start with, it is unpalatable to ‎1.313 billion (2017) Catholics, and to many evangelical Christians too. The problem with population control is in the "control" part. Someone is "doing" the controlling of someone else, and whether they both agree or not, someone holds power. I'm struggling to think of any kind of "control" method that someone somewhere wouldn't object to at some level. I'm not thinking about what you or I believe is right, I'm thinking of what can actually be achieved by unanimous agreement.



Montero said:


> with little understanding of the practicalities of electricity generation.


On the other hand, that is one huge assumption, but as you yourself have pointed out, these problems of the practicalities of electricity generation are mainly ones of fluctuating supply and maximum demand load. I guess I am just much more optimistic that engineering solutions can be achieved to solve those problems than I am that international diplomacy can get people to agree to common goals. And I did also say:


Dave said:


> However, all energy use produces heat itself, and in a warmer world, maybe we should try to use less too.


More efficient energy use is key.


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## RJM Corbet (Jan 23, 2020)

Continuing off topic, into World Affairs territory:

The Maltheus theory of population says basically that if exponential population growth cannot be checked by controlling the birth rate, that nature will reduce it by war, plague, famine (climate change and antibiotic resistance), etc.









						Malthusianism - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 23, 2020)

I would assume that reducing over consumption of materials, food (just another form of energy) and energy, is based on the idea that we are already using too much. I don't think we can reduce current levels because a lot of people in undeveloped countries and even in developed countries need more materials, food and energy than they are getting now. When their needs get satisfied, we would still be at the same levels we are at now, and only if the ones who have it now, cut way back, and 10 percent will never do it.

What is needed is solutions that are practical, easy and affordable to operate, and not used as a way of extracting money from people who don't have enough of it. These towers are exactly what happened to towns that became cities by going vertical in their development. That seemed to work and seems to fail when the properties aren't properly maintained. What is happening is that the farms are being moved in to and closer to the cities where all the consumption is located.

If the farming towers aren't maintained I figure they will fall apart a lot faster than a city going into decline, so there is the cost of keeping them in operational shape to consider. Well designed vertical farms should keep this in mind, simplicity of maintenance and low maintenance costs. If these become a means of simply extracting money from the people running them than they will probably fail as independent operations. People can be be stuck in apartments where the facilities are substandard for long periods of time because they settle for what they have. I suspect that plants in a vertical farm will not settle for rundown conditions, and will noticeably not produce suitable yields. 

The cost of energy to run them can be looked at two ways. If the energy cost is high and you want to make a stiff profit off the operation, the cost of the food produced will have to make up for the costs. But it could also mean that it is a business that needs to be run as exempt from stiff profits so the excess energy costs would be covered by the profits not being delivered to the owners of the operation. If the owners of essential operations can't understand that they are performing a public service by growing food and not running a money machine to make stiff profits then they are not qualified to own the business. Their demands for high salaries where the would be none would automatically disqualify them from running the essential services.

The cost of energy is cheaper at night, can the grow cycles be modified to fit the cheaper power rate times or does it have to be run with the lights on 24 hours a day to even think of breaking even. Dim the lights in the day time if they must be kept on?

Some of the articles I read are about companies that are in the business not to sell food, but to sell the farms to people so some one else can grow the food. In our society it seems like the idea of something being cost efficient has been replaced by the idea that it must be profit excessive. That type of reasoning could result in diminishing returns for a good idea. It's like taking baby horses, mules, and camels, and putting them on full workloads long before they are able to do it and then wondering why they can't do the job.


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## Parson (Jan 23, 2020)

Dave said:


> The *availability* of contraception is only a piece of the problem. Just to start with, it is unpalatable to ‎1.313 billion (2017) Catholics, and to many evangelical Christians too.



This is far too strong to represent the truth of the practice of birth control. Officially, the Catholic church does not permit "artificial" birth control but many Catholics still practice it. See the link, and there is absolutely no evidence that Catholics are becoming less like the main population than they already are. 

A survey conducted in 2015 by the Pew Research Center among 5,122 U.S. adults (including 1,016 self-identified Catholics) stated 76% of U.S. Catholics thought that the church should allow Catholics to use birth control.[36 
Christian views on birth control - Wikipedia

And among Evangelicals the use and approval (based on the people I know, and I'm the community) is even more widespread. There is no one definitive place that one can look for what Evangelical or Conservative Christians believe. But for proof I would offer the fact that although birth rates for Catholics and Evangelical/Conservative Christians are higher, they do not approach the level of the early nineteen-hundreds; and even less the rate of live births before that. Right now that rate is 2.5 per female, quite a bit higher than the "normal" rate but not nearly high enough if birth control was widely ignored. See the link below from a conservative Christian site.

Conservative Christians Are Having Fewer Babies, Study Finds

------

As to building vertical farms without a profit motive; I have severe doubts that would work in the long run. The Russian collective farms were an utter disaster. If food becomes more scarce, it will also become more expensive and either the consumer and/or the government has to pay more. Which is the long run is the same thing. More demand = higher prices. and equally Less incentive to work hard = less production = higher prices.


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## Brian G Turner (Jan 23, 2020)

Actually, with regards to profits involved with vertical farming - or the lack of - it's worth recalling that pretty all of our nationally grown food is supported by government subsidies. Some re-arrangement of this could favour more Earth-friendly foodstuffs than others. For example, if meat were no longer subsidized so much it would became more expensive and perhaps consumers would ease less of it in the first place. Additionally, if vertical farming were provided with subsidies, it might became quite viable after all in instances where it otherwise wouldn't.


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## Parson (Jan 23, 2020)

Brian G Turner said:


> Actually, with regards to profits involved with vertical farming - or the lack of - it's worth recalling that pretty all of our nationally grown food is supported by government subsidies. Some re-arrangement of this could favour more Earth-friendly foodstuffs than others. For example, if meat were no longer subsidized so much it would became more expensive and perhaps consumers would ease less of it in the first place. Additionally, if vertical farming were provided with subsidies, it might became quite viable after all in instances where it otherwise wouldn't.



I agree with your post @Brian G Turner, but at least here in the States the raising of animals is little supported by the government. The raising of feed grains and human consumed grains, especially after Trump's disastrous tariffs, most definitely are. And that leads to some absolutely crazy things. Because government subsidies make it possible, one of the biggest rice growing areas in the US is in California, where it is only feasible because of flood irrigation! And that's in an area where water is or will soon be the major limiting factor for human development. Why are some of the highest priced, and most profitable crops like almonds, tomatoes, lettuce, and the like subsidized?

Subsidies are a tricky thing. On the one hand they seem to benefit the "richest" farmers the most. (In the US government aid is given in proportion to the number of acres that are affected, so the bigger the farm the greater the pay out) and it sometimes encourages really dumb farming practices - see above - On the other hand they sometimes encourage conservation (I know a lot of farmers who keep land out of production because they are paid to do it, and thereby allowing more natural habitat) and it might keep the cost of food artificially low. (One line of reasoning: Without Government aid marginal unprofitable land would not be planted leading to lower production leading to higher prices. The Other line of reasoning says it would lead to lower prices because a farmer would now plant every possible inch of his/her land because they would need to maximize their income and thereby actually lowering prices. --- Which is the right one is impossible for me to say. In the short run I'm pretty sure the latter, but in the long run very uncertain.) Subsidies also help to insure a reliable supply of food. If it becomes unprofitable to farm a lot of people will stop assuming the massive risk and if/when demand goes up or supply crashes thee will not be enough food. (This might seem far fetched but all milk producers, especially small ones, are in deep trouble. The cost of production is higher than price of the milk and has been for a couple years now. It would not be shocking to see the production of milk in the US lower by a major fraction in the next 5 years.)


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## Dave (Jan 24, 2020)

Parson said:


> This is far too strong to represent the truth of the practice of birth control.


This is exactly, why we don't talk about this here. The Pew Research Center conducts opinion research within the USA. As far as I can tell, the US birth rate is 1.80 births per woman (2016) and the population is rising at only 0.7% annual change, due largely to people living longer. I don't see a problem with the birth rate in the USA.

However, opinions held by people on what they themselves should do, is starkly different to what people will demand that other people should do, or, as an example, on how overseas aid is being spent. The fact that there is actually a distinction between "artificial" and "natural" only supports my point. This was not intended as any slur on the USA. Despite some very recent changes, and the Mexico City policy that _can_ be unfairly applied, the US is still the largest donor of contraceptives world-wide. So, no problem there either. These difference of opinion only underline my point: that getting everyone to agree on policy will be nearly impossible.

That was one example. If you don't like that one then another is the cultural aspects of having many children or the economic benefits to poor families. Those are probably stronger reasons than religion to having large family sizes. Making the tax and benefits systems work so that they support poor families with children, at the same time as not giving a financial incentive to such families to have more children is also nearly impossible.

It is for exactly the same reason that the farming subsidies you discuss appear to go to the wrong farmers. Or, even that the biggest corporations can avoid paying taxes. There just cannot ever be a perfectly level playing field, and accountants are paid to exploit whatever loopholes they can find.



RJM Corbet said:


> The Maltheus theory of population says basically that if exponential population growth cannot be checked by controlling the birth rate, that nature will reduce it by war, plague, famine (climate change and antibiotic resistance), etc.



It is actually worse than that. In closed natural systems (bacteria on a petri dish) there isn't some upper level reached followed by complete annihilation. It is a bell curve. A peak is reached followed by a comparable falling off. In real terms, rather than one single big event, that would equate to lots of small wars, plagues, famines, and floods, getting steadily larger with time, while we live in a steadily increasingly degraded environment. We can avoid that if we can learn to live within our means.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jan 24, 2020)

I think the bell curve is ringing loudly for some zones of life. We are part of a much larger group and by no means the dominant group as far as capabilities and responsibilities for keeping the zone we inhabit functional. Chart the total diversity for animals we like and I think we will see the bell curve quite clearly. It is already past the peak and is on a downward slope for total diversity for the zone that we occupy. Especially if we just include species we like. The different zones overlap partially or completely. For water based bacteria that are carbon dioxide based the area of there zone was restricted to areas under ground, under rocks and other out of the way places close to or on the ocean floor. Now their area is expanding to include areas much closer to the surface and open areas, so their curve is rising. Add that to our curve and that slows down the falling curve.

There is a lot of screaming about insect populations falling dramatically. The first one everyone thinks of and studies are butterflies, then come bees, and beetles. They tell us the biomass is decreasing of what they can catch flying in the air or crawling on the ground. No mention if species like flies, gnats, mosquitoes are also in declining population numbers as butterflies and beetles are. The larger stuff is getting knocked off for sure, exactly the same as large animals. But what about the smaller stuff? There are no studies for flies or gnat populations globally because they are too hard to study. What about the insects living in the dirt, underground or other out of the way places? Too hard to study. Cockroach population studies. Nope. Only the stuff we like. Only the stuff that is easy to see. The numbers of the small insects could be increasing and we would never know because the studies are based on what we like to do and what we find easy to do. If we put all the numbers based on population the total number could be running flat level while the mass could be declining. Bad for those who eat insects but probably not bad for the small insect populations as they find more room and less predators. Big numbers for little bodies. There are around 10,000 grains of sand in a handful of sand. And much bigger numbers when we zoom down to micro size.

Farming insects would be a good way to bring back big body insects. At least for that we have the capabilities. And we could always eat them as a reward for our efforts. 

Insect farming could become a big business
"Businesses are already jumping into the sector, producing burgers made of buffalo worms, sweet potato soup made with bugs, grubs as pet food and DIY insect farms." People were thinking of raising insects to feed larger animals like fish, and I guess cattle cattle. Instead of that there is a push to go straight from insect to the dinner plate. There was/is a thread where we were joking about cockroach milk, milking the little insects, tiny little herds. It is being done, and people are beginning to design systems to raise herds of insects. This is going on in parallel to the vertical farming towers. Insect herds supposedly produce less ammonia and methane but I don't know what happens when we move from bath tub size enclosures to silo size enclosures, if the benefits of less impact on the environment are still there.


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## Dave (Feb 6, 2020)

Cairo, Paris, Singapore - why can'r we have this in London?






						Vertical forest buildings designed by Stefano Boeri set to center new Cairo Administrative district
					

Designed by Stefano Boeri, the new capital in Cairo will feature living vertical garden buildings that are energy efficient and green by design.




					inhabitat.com
				












						World's largest urban farm to open – on a Paris rooftop
					

The 14,000m² farm is set to open in the south-west of Paris early next year




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Singapore Aims to be the World's Greenest City
					

As Singapore expands, a novel approach preserves green space.




					www.nationalgeographic.com


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## .matthew. (Feb 7, 2020)

The most sustainable way to go vertical is with vertical greenhouses. These could even be built to occupy one edge of a larger residential complex.

You build these on the edge of a city facing sun up, and allow no other skyscrapers to block them. The windows themselves would allow enough light in to grow a sizeable amount of crops in beds. The water required could be taken from rainfall or the main grid if necessary. Now these wouldn't be as productive as the more intense ones, but would require virtually no maintenance or electricity which is key for long-term efficiency, even if they only supplement the local area's demand.

Or just go more giant countryside greenhouses which allow for better yeilds than open fields anyway.


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## Brian G Turner (Feb 29, 2020)

Interesting piece about culturing microalgae here:








						Microalgae: Future food for thought
					

They're responsible for more than 75 percent of the Earth's oxygen supply, but often get no credit for it.




					phys.org


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## .matthew. (Feb 29, 2020)

Ahh, algae as oxygen producers... legit excuse to cut down all the trees


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## AlexH (Feb 29, 2020)

.matthew. said:


> Ahh, algae as oxygen producers... legit excuse to cut down all the trees


In parts of the UK, tree-planting has been taking place on rare habitats that support important species. You couldn't make it up.


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## RJM Corbet (Feb 29, 2020)

I like this idea of tree planting drones.

"... Ten drones, operated by two operators, can plant 400,000 trees a day ..."

There's still a bit of work to make that a reality, but the concept seems realistic?









						Tree-planting drones could help restore world’s forests
					

British engineers have created a seed-planting drone which could help restore the world’s forests.




					www.standard.co.uk


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## Overread (Feb 29, 2020)

It might at least make tree planting "affordable". Since so many logging firms and government groups keep citing that its not economical to pay to plant trees. Meanwhile when you've got huge areas being felled daily in some large forested regions it at least gives some potential hope that some might start to replant the areas they've stripped.

Of course there's replanting and replanting. There's a huge difference between regimented rows of monoculture monoage forest and the varied species, age and distribution you get in a woodland.


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## .matthew. (Feb 29, 2020)

Overread said:


> Of course there's replanting and replanting. There's a huge difference between regimented rows of monoculture monoage forest and the varied species, age and distribution you get in a woodland.



Nothing to stop the drones scattershotting seeds from a healthy mix of flora is there?


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## Overread (Feb 29, 2020)

Not at all, but mixed see planting is more expensive (typically, depends on the tree species of course) and can result in a lower yield per unit area, especially if they only want a certain species. 

It also doesn't address ageing aspects. In a natural system you end up with trees of varying age and size depending on colonising patters as well as natural loss and replacement over time. A species and age varied forest is typically quite resilient because it isn't reliant on a single age or species. Meanwhile a planted forest might have all the trees of the same age and species. So any disease gets to run rampant with little chance of developing isolated pockets that might avoid infection - for example.


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## .matthew. (Feb 29, 2020)

Depends if you're planting for reforestation or logging purposes.

There would be nothing to stop the drones first planting a bunch of varieties (just mixed bags of what you want), then just airdropping a bunch more over the following years until you have a mixed age, mixed species forest.


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## Robert Zwilling (Mar 1, 2020)

Sustainability by replenishment has a nice ring to it but the resources have reached a point where we are talking about replacing every fish or tree taken with three more fish or trees that can't be harvested for a long enough time that it wouldn't be considered profitable. On a good day, the operations that are practicing sustainability might be replacing one third of what is taken out, and only a fraction of that is left alone, the bulk of it usually being monoculture. Growing crops in contained vertical operations minimizes the destructive impacts of current industrial agricultural efforts. The run off water for outdoor operations is unchecked simply because it is impossible to contain it. Some cities are constructing large quantities of apartments haphazardly integrated with retail and business instead of individual houses in outlaying areas. Vertical farming operations could easily be included as part of the areas being devoted to apartment growth. the same way parking spaces are allocated.


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## Brian G Turner (Mar 18, 2020)

Not vertical farming, but an article exploring how we could ramp up urban farming with what's already there:








						Urban land could grow fruit and veg for 15 per cent of the population, research shows
					

Growing fruit and vegetables in just 10 per cent of a city's gardens and other urban green spaces could provide 15 per cent of the local population with their 'five a day', according to new research.




					phys.org


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## .matthew. (Mar 18, 2020)

It's been done but we could certainly do better with modern technology and GM crops.


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