Welcome to Thanet Earth: is this a taste of future for UK agriculture?

[jpak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/11/greenbuilding.food

From the A299 Thanet Way there is not a great deal to be seen - just some low white structures on the brow of the hill, and a discreet little sign. But that is because fewer than 15 of the 80 football pitches' worth of greenhouse have so far been constructed. Once this development is fully operational it will be rather harder to ignore.

The low hill on the Isle of Thanet in Kent will be home to 1.3 million plants, growing in seven greenhouses, each up to 140m in length and fed by its own reservoir.

Seven power generating stations on site will heat the glasshouses, and generate, as a byproduct, enough electricity to supply half of Thanet, an area in north-east Kent incorporating the towns of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs.

The crops themselves will be suspended from the 8m ceiling in huge hydroponic rows, their roots never touching the chalky Kent soil beneath.

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[muriel_volestrangler]

1. And this is what a part of The Netherlands already looks like, with this

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=52.019121,4.205017&spn=0.045848,0.105057&t=h&z=13

Several square kilometres of glasshouses.