Dutch PlantLab Revolutionizes Farming: No Sunlight, No Windows, Less Water, Better Food

reply to post by zarp3333


You are absolutely correct. I've got some known associates in Colorado who legally grow some choice crops and the set up looks like something out of that movie "Sunshine" (had an entire nursery on their space ship).

I agree that humanity's future is looking incredibly positive the older we get. Technology has been and is being developed that will completely change the way we operate and interact as a species. Imagine advanced crop-growing techniques combined with the near perfection of desalinization technologies and the discovery and utilization of a new and near-infinite power source. Those 3 golden keys would unlock a new era of human survival, thriving and social relations the likes of which our species has never known.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


I dont see anything "revolutionary" here at all, people have been using this tech for years. In fact, I would say this is still inefficient compared to a fine tuned aquaponics setup, which recycles EVERYTHING it uses including the water. It may look 'high tech' with the red & blue LED lights, but even I have personally been using them on my herbs since 2001...Here, theyre even on Ebay

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by James1982
Less water used, less energy required, seems like a great way to grow food and potentially generate oxygen for an off-planet colony.

That's the problem, we don't know how much energy is required or if it's more or less than the alternatives.

We do know that the sun provides roughly 1 Kw/m² at lower latitudes, where most farming is done. If LEDs are twice as efficient, you still need half a gigawatt to power the equivalent of a square kilometer of farmland, even if the footprint of that vertical farm is only a few hundred square meters. Also, you still have a lot of wasted energy, mainly in the form of heat. That much heat needs a place to go. If you pack 100 square kilometers of agriculture into one square kilometer of land, the down wind side will be considerably warmer. In frigid climates, that might make the area more comfortable to live in, but the impact on the environment is unpredictable. Do the same thing in 100 places around the world, and the impact on global warming will be significant.

A half-gigawatt nuke plant is probably going to require at least a square kilometer of land, and several hundred square kilometers of land surrounding the nuke plant will not be suitable for anything. And let's not forget about the land that has to be torn up to mine uranium or thorium to fuel the nuke plants. The factories that supply the LEDs also must occupy some land, as well as all the other plants that send supplies to the vertical farm. So how exactly does vertical farming free up land for other uses?

I wonder if the people pushing this tech are deliberately ignoring the big picture. They talk about solving the worlds food problems, but they are completely ignoring the energy equation.

reply to post by Griffo515


That fixture is pretty crappy, no offense... it's not a high output LED fixture. Those aren't Cree LED's.

A high tech LED fixture, the kind being used to grow marijuana professionally or used for lighting reef aquariums, is pretty expensive and provides much more light per LED. Huge advances are being made by LED manufacturers, and you can tell that that fixture is not very high tech just because of the price and by how many LED's they use to compensate for the low amount of power


THIS is a much better example. It's got a lot of power..

shop.sunshine-systems.com...

So now we can put these on spaceships and have a food supply for long journeys to Mars or....

Very cool!

While I can certainly appreciate innovation, I can't help but have a few concerns about humanity potentially starting to rely on farming methods like this.

1. How many generations of indoor plants does it take to make a plant that performs poorly in regular soil, exposed to regular sunlight? What about plants that die with a single knick to the stem, because they lose the need to be hardy? I feel like if push comes to shove, and our population soars into digits that make farming like this a necessity, then we should still keep a fair portion of crops growing under natural conditions, just for the hell of it. Imagine a Utopian society in the future where literally all of the food is grown indoors. Say...Three skyscrapers a city. Now imagine what happens if the Earth's magnetism shifts, or the Sun decided to fry our electrical grid. I don't feel like we would be doing ourselves a favor by relying too heavily on this tech.

2. I feel technology like this, while in a lot of ways will save lives and improve the quality of life for people with little access to fresh, organic produce, has the very real potential to treat a symptom instead of addressing the very real problem of overpopulation. I've heard it exclaimed here before that "X amount more could fit comfortably on this planet." Really? Should that be the mentality? Should we really have to be forced to grow food in skyscrapers so every human on the planet has a full belly? How about we stop cranking so many human beings out? Will someone tell the Catholic church to loosen up about condoms and birth control already? India, I'm looking at you, too. I think we have an obligation to this planet and the other species to not cram it full of us just because we can.

I am in no way saying that this technology is evil. I think that, when used properly and for the right reasons, it will be one of the most beneficial things as far as improving the diets of people in urban areas, and growing food at home for your family will be incredibly easier. Companies will save money. So on and so forth. I'm just trying to address some issues that I feel don't get a lot of attention due to a lack of foresight.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Once again, overpopulation is yet another problem easily solved with a little human wit.

Jeez. People panic so far much.

Very interesting and it reminded me of something I read recently (almost all anyway)

www.alliancesforhumanity.com...

The Influence of the Blue Ray of Sunlight and of the Colour of the Sky, in developing Animal and Vegetable Life
In arresting Disease, and in restoring health in acute and chronic disorders to human and domestic animals.

Really fascinating stuff.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Very cool to see that...I used to be a botany major and am very interested in this kind of stuff.....I guess we can live underground and thrive...not that we couldn't before but its getting more possible.

Originally posted by Berenai
So now we can put these on spaceships and have a food supply for long journeys to Mars or....

Very cool!

In the inner solar system, sunlight is abundant. It wouldn't make sense to use artificial lighting except in places like the moon, where the nights are very long. Also, Antarctica comes to mind, though powering a vertical farm in Antarctica would have a significant impact on the environment, there.

Originally posted by Berenai
So now we can put these on spaceships and have a food supply for long journeys to Mars or....

Very cool!

We can use them in our ELE bunkers...what they were made for maybe.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


They should combine with aquaponics to allow fish also.
Using the combined tech would allow underground or in building food growth.

reply to post by sigil23

You are correct in your assessment sigil, and I have done a bit of research on the harware involved,in terms of lights and fixtures, and these systems are fairly low in cost, and I too believe this market will grow somewhat rapidly. The only other costs are building leases, containers, mediums, water supply elc, and labor. This system uese only 10% of what a typical garden requires, so the savings factor applies as well.

Thanks for the comments,
spec

reply to post by Phractal Phil

In the inner solar system, sunlight is abundant. It wouldn't make sense to use artificial lighting except in places like the moon, where the nights are very long.

However, areas of habitable planets may have a continued or long dark side. Colony dwellings could be designed for underground or in caves on a particular planet. Pure speculation here, but also some planets that we msy colonize, way down the line, may have a type of cloud, or gas, or ice, or something that keeps the majority of light out, maybe...

spec

reply to post by Griffo515

Not disagreeing here about the 'revolutionary' part, or timeframe,= you mention. Perhaps in terms of investors getting involved, and spreading this tech throughout the industry more, both hydro/aqua and farming in general, brings a renewed 'revolutionary' aspect to it. Also the aquaponics you speak of is a masterful technique, however, the ones that are also hooked up to a computer that monitors many of the uptake, and enviro factors, make that system even better. So, I think these new systems have probably gone a little further with those areas, and can monitor every single aspect of the plants life. I guess what is coolest about it, is that there is some dough behind it now to usher it into mainstream for some real change in agriculture.
That being said, again you are right, this system combined with an aquaponic set up would be the best.

Peace,
spec

Ohh I bet the black gov/ NWO/ Illuminati has all kinds of technology similar to this in their underground bunkers. Heck they even purchased all the world's frozen food supplies recently as well. Nibiru is coming!

Originally posted by HenryTwoTimes
I got some friends in California, I wonder if this would work on what they grow.

It does. In fact it was that certain type of 'grower' that helped develop this method in the first place. It has been efficiently used by many people for years now in this 'industry'.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Yeah I have seen these systems in use before and they are not quite as new as youd think.

LED matrix's have been onsale to the public for a couple of years and do have comparable success to those of HPS systems when it comes to harvest time with a severe drop in your power bill.

The are relatively easy to bulb yourself... the important thing is the mixture of colours in the matrix itself and ensuring that you buy the correct grade of LED.

They are super low in heat too which means that you can have the matrix super low to the plants.

I love this technology.. I hope that finally these systems will become cheaper and more readily available to the general public.

Imagine removing a couple of metres of your floor boards and fitting a hatch to the crawl space (2ft? or something like that?) would be plenty of room for low profile veggies and you would only need to check on them once or twice a week.. provided your watering system is up to par.

HOW COOL!!!! thanks for posting mate!

Yeah it will be good if they use it to grow massive amounts of pot so the stupid prices decrease. For actually farming it will be the equivalent of Wall Mart for farming or corporatizing farming, if implemented on a large scale. Only corporations would be able to afford to build sky scrapers to grow in and they would wipe the small scale vege farms (like I work at) off the map. A better option would be to discourage people to have so many children so we can keep living off the land.

Peace

Nothing beats the sun in terms of light spectrum's to support life, however this is a great idea.

LED's are not the best lights for yield's but don't give off much heat so im sure this would be better in a sky scraper growing environment.