AlexH
Well-Known Member
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.
Vertical farming taking off?
- Thread starter Brian G Turner
- Start date
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.
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.
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.
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.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
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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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.
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.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Yes. Imo this is probably the most reliable.
@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.
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.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. Yes, the public did know, as there was a scaremongering campaign to make them aware.
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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.
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.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
Unwashed carrots at twice the price, lol. Good business if you can get it ...
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).
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).
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.
@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.
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.
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.
I think once we have properly developed tidal and wave energy systems in place the issue of storage could be less of an issue.
RJM Corbet
Deus Pascus Corvus
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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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.
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.
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
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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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.
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.
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:
weblog.wur.eu
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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