Gloomy Malthus provides food for thought as world's appetite builds

[GliderGuider]

Gloomy Malthus provides food for thought as world's appetite builds

I accept that there are vast areas of the world – Russia and Africa, for example – that could theoretically raise their agricultural output. But it is vital to understand that food production itself is also a very energy-intensive business – itself highly-reliant on oil. From the fertilizers and pesticides used to treat the earth, to the machines needed to sow, reap, process, package and distribute goods to market, crude features extremely heavily in the global food supply-chain.

As a UN report commented last week “rising oil prices could further exacerbate an already precarious situation in food markets, adding even more uncertainty to the price outlook just as plantings for crops in some of the major growing regions are about to start”.

In the coming months, rising oil prices will bid up food costs further. More expensive food, in turn, could spark yet more unrest in the world’s oil-producing hot-spots. What we are witnessing in global commodity markets cannot be dismissed as “speculation”. These price rises represent the reassertion, after a credit-crunch induced hiatus, of long-term “structural” trends.

The analysis above poses some very serious questions for energy-importing nations like the UK (GG: and the USA). Addressing them will take years, decades even. Here and now, though, we need to accept that in the months to come, among rising fuel and food costs, inflationary expectations will soar. None of this is good news, of course. Some readers will accuse me of being miserable – even if they suspect I’m right. But that was good enough for Malthus. So it’s good enough for me.

[jwirr]

1. The really sad thing is that much of this could have been avoided

if our governments the last 30 years had bothered to take note. I do not see President Obama even acknowledging any of these problems let alone doing anything about them. What did they think we wanted them to plant that veggie garden at the WH for? So we could watch them get their hands dirty. That would have been a good point to bring up some of these problems but no they made it all about healthy eating! Healthy, hell, most people just want to have food to eat.

[bhikkhu]

2. Its not about growing more food

Fresh water is the real limit we are at. In theory we still have adequate food production (a big surplus in the US, in fact) but the limits of water supply, and weather related losses pretty much spell out a limit for population. Governments spent billions attempting to "control population" throughout the 20th century, but it was mostly wrong-headed and ineffective.

[wtmusic]

3. Unfortunately that limit is the result of millions starving to death

mostly in places where we don't see them.

onedit, to clarify: sufficient food in Kansas doesn't guarantee sufficient food in Somalia.

[bhikkhu]

7. Absolutely true

Most people don't know there are only a handful of countries in the world that are net exporters of food, and something around 185 countries that rely on imports.

[CRH]

4. Adding to the fresh water dilemma, ...

conventional natural gas supplies peeked for north america in 2001. Just to maintain our energy supply, we are now fracking our way into our fresh water supplies through pollution. A choice between economy, activity, transportation and warmth, vs future potable water supplies and food. Hard to see a good outcome from all this.

[Nederland]

9. The real limit is energy

There more than enough water in the oceans for anything you could want, you just have to have enough energy to get the salt out...

The law of Conservation of Matter means that ultimately energy is the only real limit for anything.

[bhikkhu]

12. I read a UN prepared water report years ago...

they were well aware that we would be hard up against the water problem now, and had planned to have a large-scale program of desalination in place running on fusion reactors. Needless to say...

[txlibdem]

25. Vertical farms are a net energy producer

The cost of desalinating water would be negligible compared to the cost of lighting and heating for the vertical farm. 3M has fiber-based filters that neatly remove salt and other contaminants from sea water, other methods are possible such as using current desalination plants or high temperature nuclear reactors like the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor or other high temperature reactors.

The saving grace of hydroponic farming and vertical farms is that they are closed loop systems; you input the water one time and recycle it endlessly from there on out, especially with vertical farms where the systems to recapture any evaporated water would be built into the structure of the building and the design of the system uses far less water to begin with anyway. Compare that to conventional farming which 1.) uses 20 times the water and 2.) needs a never ending supply of water resources: what isn't used by the plant just runs off to the ditch or evaporates into the air to fall as rain somewhere else.

In a nutshell, the water crisis will only get worse as time goes on, vertical farms will use far less water and will recycle and filter what water it does use. The only lost water will be whatever the plants use to actually grow fruits and vegetables; far more manageable amounts than even the most conservative "outdoor" farming methods conceivable for today and into the future.

On the topic of energy use, vertical farms will be a net energy producer:The energy calculation has already been done -- Vertical farms make *more* energy than they need Updated at 9:28 AM

"Conclusions

The 2005 report assembles answers to remedy the underlying question in years past. Can it be done? Do the inner workings present a viable framework that translates into self-sustainability? Yes, the Vertical Farm's seems to be able to maintain itself without energy from the grid with the potential to make money by selling energy back. Waste products from edible plants and animal wastes have the low-end potential of generating 51,585,612 kWh per year alone. In comparison the energy requirements for maintaining the plants and animals only totals 26.5 million kWh per year. On a weekly basis, an extra 482,415 kWh is available for other processes such as building maintenance. Even more energy will be generated once the potential energy that is to be generated from plants integrating into the living machine is included. The only other large energy expenditures not included are refrigeration and pumping requirements. In all, the Vertical Farm appears to be capable of self-sustainability. The advent of a new era in food production, efficiency, and community relations is no longer a far-fetched product of futuristic movies but a realistic idea resting on the cusp of the horizon. It is only a matter of time rather than innovation until nature and technology are integrated as a breathing building."

http://verticalfarm.com/old/plans-2k5.htm

Thus, a vertical farm produces roughly double the energy needed.


A bit more fleshed-out explanation is in the link but here is a "Reader's Digest" version:

"The 2005 class of Medical Ecology answered the question: What are the energy requirements for a vertical farm 48 stories high by one square city block in footprint? Based on the production of a robust variety of edible and non-edible plants and a few animal species (chicken and fish), the waste products (non-edible plants from living machines, and portions of edible plants and animal products not consumed) have the low-end potential of generating 51.6 million kWh per year. In contrast, the energy requirements for maintaining the plants and animals employing a continuous growth strategy totals 26.5 million kWh per year. On a weekly basis, a surplus of 482,415 kWh is available for other processes such as building maintenance, or it could be added back to the energy grid of the North East corridor. More energy could potentially be generated with the addition of solar panels or wind-capturing technologies. The only other large energy expenditures not included are refrigeration and pumping requirements. In all, the vertical farm envisioned in this report will not only be self-sufficient, but will have the potential of an economic windfall from the sustainable generation of energy from methane digestion of left-over organic waste. The vertical farm is what the concept of urban sustainability should and will be built around."

http://verticalfarm.com/old/plans-2k5.htm

Methane: if you've ever visited a pig or chicken farm then you know very well (from the smell) the potential for massive energy generation.

Read the linked article. With solar panels and a few wind turbines on the roof the energy surplus could be even greater. That adds cost to the project but might be worth it if the vertical farm is in an area of unstable power supply (like many US cities are becoming) and putting wind turbines on the roof may require a stronger structural component to the building so that is a question for the engineers and bean counters (way above my head at this time of the morning...). There will be a happy medium to be found, perhaps, between the "Cadillac" version and the "stripped-down model" version if funds are tight.

Someone needs to build one of these vertical farms to show the world that it can be done. I thought about the possibility of getting 50,000 people to "buy in" to the project, putting up all the money for construction (or renovation of an existing structure). If these 50,000 people were ensured of getting 100% of their food for free (or at most a nominal cost) the first full-scale vertical farm may become a reality.


But then I read:

"Perhaps the answer will emerge out of China, Japan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, or Australia -- all countries said to be moving toward such a scheme. No vertical farm yet exists, but futuristic prototypes abound. Picture the glass-box Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but five times as tall and insulated as securely as the intensive care unit of a hospital."

http://www.onearth.org/article/vertical-farm-book-review

It seems that if the United States continues to fail in promoting advanced technologies and solutions for the planet then there are a large number of countries throughout the world that still have the ability to improve on the future. Where we fail, others will step forward to fill in the void just as happened with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, advanced batteries, etc.

=========================
In another post, I detailed that it would cost $9,000 per person to build one of these vertical farms. That works out to be from 2.66 years of grocery expenses or 1.44 years if one assumes you'd be buying organic produce (which is what you'll be getting from the vertical farms, clean food, no pesticides, no herbicides, no dangerous organisms like Salmonella). So for the cost of 1.44 years of food a person can purchase a share of a vertical farm and receive clean, healthy organic food free for years to come.

[GliderGuider]

26. No they aren''t.

Because there aren't any. This is all based on simulation and supposition. The devil is in the details, as always.

I frankly don't believe that a 50-acre building could produce a half-million excess kWh/year per acre of floor space. After all, the energy has to enter it somehow, somewhere for energy to be exported. Assuming you're talking about electricity coming from wind turbines and solar panels, that would require 10 MW of capacity just to provide the excess 25 million kwh/year. It's more likely that the whole energy flim-flam depends on animal feed being imported into the building from outside farms, carrying embodied energy into the system in the process.

Until there is a working prototype, it's all just smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned.

[txlibdem]

27. Is someone from Missouri?

"Show me" or I won't believe it? Did you actually "see" man land on the moon? No? Then you probably do not believe it actually happened. It's in books, on tv, on the web, etc., but you've never seen it happen.

Skepticism aside, your lack of belief does not an impossibility make. Your post sounds like those people who told us all that traveling faster than 28 miles per hour would suck all the air out of your lungs, instant death!

All you have to do is read the essay from Columbia University. I recommend reading. Highly recommended.

Your statement, "I frankly don't believe that a 50-acre building could produce a half-million excess kWh/year per acre of floor space" shows that you may not have actually read the post your are reacting to. The post never said "per acre of floor space."

Animal feed needs to be brought in from the outside? Perhaps there might be some but how is that different than current farming? But you forget that the plants grown inside the vertical farm can also provide feed stock for the animals there since we do not eat 100% of the plants we consume, there are stalks, leaves, etc., that we do not consume. They also like to eat many of the things we love as well, refer to http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=2593-Treats_Chart for the long, looooong list of what chickens will eat. From perusing that list the first thing that pops into my mind is table scraps, perhaps from nearby restaurants.

Your post is a negative nelly, looking to cast stones at every idea that did not originate in your perfect noggin, perhaps? It's so easy to tear down, so hard to build. Fortunately for the (soon to be) 10 billion people in the world, Vertical Farming and hydroponic greenhouse growing will easily survive a few petty barbs.

[GliderGuider]

28. Yes, I'm a skeptic

It’s one thing to take reports of an accomplished project like the moon landing at face value, but quite another to swallow holus-bolus the early speculation on a new and untried venture. They’ve also calculated that commercial fusion power is possible, but until they get a sustained reaction I’m not waving the flag for that either.

If this idea comes to fruition it will have to survive much more pointed criticism than mine. I’m just saying that from where I sit it looks like the idea has holes in it you could drive a truck of potatoes through, problems that I’ve outlined in my other posts.

First there’s the heavy burden of construction cost and financing. These highrises have to be purpose builds, due to the power requirements, humidity issues and intensity-of-use questions. There’s no possibility that I can see that vacant office towers will be fit for the purpose. So financing has to be dealt with.

On the question of energy, the post said there would be an excess of 25 million kWh per year, and the building size assumed was 50 acres. That’s where I came up with the half-million kWh per acre per year. I think the energy requirement of this operation, for both lighting and climate control, is going to be a major sticking point, and until it has been fleshed out and tried, I will remain skeptical. After all, Biosphere 2 looked quite practical before it was tried, too. Biosphere at least had the advantage of being a fully closed environment (this was its major challenge as well, of course). The point is, if we’re going to take 5,000 tonnes of food a year out of a skyscraper, something has to go in besides water, CO2 and wind power.

I’m not saying it won’t work in some form – after all, we have viable hydroponic operations today. I’m saying that I’m skeptical about the hype in terms of feeding the huddled masses. For selling organic kohl rabi and goat meat in Brooklyn, maybe. In terms of it working in poor nations, all I can say is try selling a Bolivian on the idea of $7/lb potatoes and see how far it goes.

Edited to add: You need to understand that I'm a contrarian by nature. If you wave the flag for something I'll try and poke holes in it. If you tell me something won't work (or shouldn't be done) I'm quite inclined to try and prove you wrong. This explains my negative response to the RE boosters on this forum as well as some of my pro-nuclear stance. I believe in the dynamics of opposition. So it's not exactly skepticism, but it is just about as annoying.

[txlibdem]

29. There's a difference being a contrarian and being overly negative about needed change

We're not talking about mere inconveniences that we have to look forward to over the next few decades. We're talking about potentially millions of people dying from starvation, civil unrest caused by resource depletion (water and other), wars, etc. I don't find negativity for the sake of negativity to be useful in the fight to ward off the worst of these terrible outcomes.

Since my earlier posts show clearly that an investment in one of these vertical farm buildings could pay for itself in 1.44 years by the savings in grocery costs alone I just don't see that detractors have a leg to stand on.

Here's a report of an even more outrageous grocery bill for a single-parent household in NYC:

Elyse Fisher, 39, who lives on the Upper West Side with her husband and 3-year-old daughter, said it's much more expensive to feed her family.
"I know I've been spending a lot more, but I'm not sure on what," she said at Whole Foods in the Time Warner Center.
The bill for her weekly groceries came to $208.62 - up by nearly $10 over last year.

http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8130&page=1

If you use that weekly grocery cost for a family of two such as hers, it would take 1.66 years to pay back an investment in a vertical farm (@ $9,000 per person, $18k for Ms. Fisher's family).

I like being a pain in the rump every now and again but even I can't long look reality and hard numbers in the eye for too long before I realise that I've been on the wrong side of an argument all along.

[GliderGuider]

30. No there isn't ;-)

All kidding aside, I don't see growing food in high rise office buildings as a solution to global hunger. Lots of other things may be reasonable - permaculture, or eco-agriculture or urban gardening - but trying to transplant industrial agriculture into buildings isn't going to do it. We already have millions of people dying from hunger, and we don't even have a food crisis yet. If you want to help with the world hunger crisis, I'm convinced you're better off giving microloans to women in developing nations than building skyscrapers full of cabbage in New York.

[txlibdem]

31. You seem to be forgetting about global climate change, unpredictable weather, etc.

If all it took was just removing your lawn and planting rows of crops then there would be no problem, right? But we are only at the beginning curve of drastic weather changes coming our way due to global climate change. This year alone there have been many more weather-related crop failures than usual... and it will only get worse in the coming decades.

Greenhouses and Vertical Farms remove the crops from the fickle weather, from the freak storms, the droughts, the increased insect populations that will come from warmer weather in northern climes, etc. And growing indoors brings all the increased yields that I've outlined in previous posts here.

Microloans will not help a flooded (or drought devastated) region. Permaculture, while a good idea in normal times, is not going to be a cure to climate change and crop losses that will inevitably result. Here is the real picture:

Crop failure impels Indian farmer suicides

NEW DELHI, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- As more crops fail in India, the rate of suicides among farmers is climbing.

More than 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, data from the National Crime Records Bureau indicate.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2011/01/06/Crop-failure-impels-Indian-farmer-suicides/UPI-73001294344878/#ixzz1G7anW0QG

Why is production down? Most of the decline in world wheat production, and about half of the total decline in grain production, has taken place in the former Soviet Union — mainly Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. And we know what that’s about: an incredible, unprecedented heat wave.

Obligatory disclaimer: no one event can be definitively assigned to climate change, just as you can’t necessarily claim that any one of the fender-benders taking place right now in central New Jersey was caused by the sheet of black ice currently coating our roads. But it sure looks like climate change is a major culprit. And it’s not just the FSU: extreme weather elsewhere, which again is the sort of thing you should expect from climate change, has played a role in bad harvest around the world.

Back to the economics: if you want to know why we’re having a spike in food prices, the data suggest that the key cause is terrible weather leading to bad harvests, especially in the former Soviet Union.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/soaring-food-prices/

Emilio Mirzakhani, general manager of Homestead Pole Bean Cooperative Inc., Homestead, said the cold snaps which hit as far south as the Miami-Dade County growing region severely damaged squash and green beans

http://thepacker.com/Prices-rise-as-Florida-growers-look-to-rebound-vegetable-production-from-freezes/Article.aspx?oid=1306258&fid=PACKER-TOP-STORIES&aid=657

Here's a video:
ARGENTINA- THE WEATHER IS MAKING HONEY CROP FAILURE IN SOME PARTS OF THE COUNTRY
Monday, 17 January 2011 08:43 Written by Federico Petrera
http://www.apinews.com/en/tv-shows/item/13066-argentina-the-weather-is-making-honey-crop-failure-in-some-parts-of-the-country

[GliderGuider]

No I'm not. I'm perfectly aware of climate-change weather instabilities

I just don't think that forcing vegetables to live indoors is the answer.

[txlibdem]

37. Are they hostages now?

"Cough up the vitamins and minerals or the Broccoli gets it!"

I think you're backwards in your thinking. Right now we are forcing our food crops to suffer outdoors, subject to the vagaries of weather and pests as well as weeds. Growing indoors, in a greenhouse or a vertical garden, removes all of those stresses from the plant so they can grow to their optimum size and fruiting varieties can produce the optimum harvest, given the plant's other needs are met of course.

[GliderGuider]

38. Greenhouses and vertical farms address different aspects of the food question.

Greenhouses are used to start plants early in cold climates, to provide some modicum of micro-nutrition in the winter, and to extend growing seasons in general. As a Canadian I'm very familiar with, and very much in favour of the practice. Greenhouses can be put pretty much anywhere there is sufficient land.

Vertical farming, though, is being touted as a solution that can provide complete (micro and macro) nutrition in densely populated urban settings from plants that are grown completely indoors. I believe the idea fails due to the cost of the product, which is driven up by the very high cost of land and construction in the dense urban settings where it's intended to be used, as well as the cost of the energy and equipment needed to illuminate the crops. I think the problem would be better addressed by improving dirt-farming practices and putting in electrical transportation links to move the food to where it's needed. It's not as glitzy as a Paulo Soleri hyper-building filled with zucchini, but it's a more cost-effective solution that could be implemented virtually anywhere.

[txlibdem]

41. It would be profitable

An actual indoor farm developed at Cornell University growing hydroponic lettuce was able to produce as many as 68 heads per square foot per year. At a retail price in New York of up to $2.50 a head for hydroponic lettuce...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24Despommier.html

One acre is 43,560 square feet, with 30 floors to work with, assuming a 65% usable area, 68 head per square foot @ $2.50 a head, that's a lot of green!

That's $4,813,380 per floor, and with 30 floors: $144,401,400 annual income.

[GliderGuider]

42. No problem, I believe there are ways to make it profitable.

Hydroponic lettuce, basil, spinach, tomatoes, cut flowers - they all could be profitable. From that point of view it's a very cool idea. The only part I don't buy is part where it feeds people a full-nutrition, 3,000 kcal/day diet they can afford.

[txlibdem]

43. Columbia University

http://wwww.verticalfarm.com

The facts are there, the studies, an interesting essay, the videos. Please avail yourself of the resources.

[GliderGuider]

45. Using Despommier's numbers

From Despommier's essay I got the numbers that he uses as his baseline: a 30 hectare building (identical to my initial model btw) that can supply 10,000 people with a 2,000 cal/day diet. That means the building must produce 7.3 billion calories per year.

Going back to my original numbers, I still think that $150/sq ft for building construction is reasonable, based on the estimates I found here. I also found a reference to construction costs in Thailand, and they were around $100/sq ft. Costs in Argentina seem to be about 1,000 euros per square meter, or $140 a square foot. From that, $150 seems like a reasonable place to start. The construction cost for a 3 million square foot building is assumed to be $450 million with an annual mortgage cost of $30 million.

Maintenance and general operating costs come next. I originally estimated $7.00 per square foot per year. I found this page that estimated triple net maintenance costs at around $10/sq ft, and this one that says maintenance costs will be a bit more than the construction cost over 30 years. Since a farming building might conceivably take somewhat less maintenance than an office building, I let my estimate of $21 million per year stand.

Now we come to energy costs. A multi-story building will need to have a lot of interior illumination to get the kinds of yields we need, and a square one like I propose isn't ideal, even if the walls are mostly glass. So supplementary lighting will be required. I went looking for greenhouse lighting costs, and found http://extension.unh.edu/Agric/AGGHFL/OFAlight.pdf">this PDF from the University of New Hampshire that gives a formula for the cost of HPS greenhouse lighting. The weekly cost formula for 575 foot-candle illumination (better than 350 ft-c for high growth rates) is ((hours per day) * ($ per kWh) * 0.05). For 18 hours of lighting per day at $0.10/kWh, that comes out to $270,000 per week, or about $14 million per year. (I overestimated the lighting cost in my original analysis.)

So the total annual cost to run the building is $65 million per year. For that you get 7.3 billion calories. That divides out to about 112 calories per dollar. To account for some profit we'll round it down to 100 calories per dollar.

A 2,500 calorie/day diet (more reasonable than Despommier's estimate of 2,000 cal/day) could be supplied for $25/day or $750 per month. According to http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2009/CostofFoodJun09.pdf">this USDA publication, that is about three times what an average American currently spends for food. And of course, with this approach the cost to feed a family of four is simply four times the cost for an individual - the economies of scale are all built in up front.

So, I still say the idea is much too expensive at this time. Of course if the price of food were to triple while the price of inputs remains unchanged, you're in the ball game. That's entirely possible over the next 20 to 30 years, as food costs soar, construction companies start to build things very cheaply and efficiencies penetrate a lot deeper.

It's a cool engineering idea, but until the costs come way down and the price of regular food goes way up it's not a solution for feeding the huddled masses - even American ones.

Of course moving it into the developing world and having to supply food for $5/day is a whole different ball game.

[GliderGuider]

46. However, using current hydroponic yields and a quasi-balanced diet...

I didn't trust Despommier's estimate of being able to feed 10,000 people per building, so I went back to the spreadsheets one more time.

This time I took the current hydroponic yields from the book you quoted in your previous post and translated them into calories per acre. Three foods stand out: beans (31.5 Mcal/acre), potatoes (56 Mcal/acre) and tomatoes (60 Mcal/acre). Our 75 acre (30 hectare) building could produce a total of 3.75 billion calories per year based on those three foods at an average production of 50 Mcal/acre. I calculated the number of people we could feed a quasi-balanced 2500 cal/day diet incorporating those three foods. That number is 4,100 people - less than half Despommier's estimate.

Then I used my estimated building operating cost of $65 million per year to figure out how much this diet of just beans, potatoes and tomatoes would cost. It came out to $43 a day, or $1,300 a month - 5 times the average American food expenditure.

This idea has a long way to go before it's ready for prime time. We would need to double the yields and cut the operating costs in half (or quadruple the yields or cut the operating cost by 75%) to make it workable as proposed.

I think I'll stop ragging on the topic now, but I do want to thank you sincerely for pushing me to look more deeply into the idea. That's what boards like this can be great for. I know you're enthusiastic about the idea, and that's fine - without enthusiasm for possibilities we won't move forward. Like much else in this game, if we can agree to disagree for now eventually time will tell.

[txlibdem]

47. Good job with the math, except

I don't think we disagree as much as you claim. More than one of my posts here in this thread have stated that there will come a time when the cost of oil and diesel fuel plus the water crisis will make these vertical farms more economical than so-called standard farming practices. And since I see you've read that essay I will assume that you also read the ecological and health damage that standard farming practices causes. Why isn't the agriculture industry required to pay the cost of these? Why does the rest of society foot that bill, without having a choice in the matter?

You got the figures from here?
"It has been estimated that it will require approximately 300 square feet of intensively farmed indoor space to produce enough food to support a single individual living in an extraterrestrial environment (e.g., on a space station or a colony on the moon or Mars)(35). Working within the framework of these calculations, one vertical farm with an architectural footprint of one square city block and rising up to 30 stories (approximately 3 million square feet) could provide enough nutrition (2,000 calories/day/person) to comfortably accommodate the needs of 10,000 people employing technologies currently available."
--- http://www.verticalfarm.com/more?essay1

But in the next sentence he goes on to say:
"Constructing the ideal vertical farm with a far greater yield per square foot will require additional research in many areas – hydrobiology, engineering, industrial microbiology, plant and animal genetics, architecture and design, public health, waste management, physics, and urban planning, to name but a few. The vertical farm is a theoretical construct whose time has arrived, for to fail to produce them in quantity for the world at-large in the near future will surely exacerbate the race for the limited amount of remaining natural resources of an already stressed out planet, creating an intolerable social climate."
--- http://www.verticalfarm.com/more?essay1

I might quibble with your figures if I had the time to go through it (I reserve the right to do so at a later time) but there is one inescapable fact:
"The Problem

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 10 to the 9th power hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices."
--- http://www.verticalfarm.com/

So we need an additional land mass that is 20% larger than Brazil, all used for farming, in order to feed the additional humans estimated to be on this planet in 2050. Aside from the obvious fact that this amount of unused arable land does not exist, we do not have the water resources right now to support that additional amount of farmland. Water is going to become *more* scarce in the future, not more abundant. It is clear to me that we need to make changes in our "business as usual" farming practices or we are facing serious and deadly consequences.

[txlibdem]

49. In the case of lettuce

Columbia University found that they could produce 68 head of lettuce per square foot by using their hydroponics techniques. Per the calorie content website I linked to in a previous post, an 8 ounce head of lettuce contains 23 calories, so we get 68 * 23 = 1564 calories per square foot annually. 3 million square feet devoted to lettuce in this way would equal approximately 4.7 billion calories (4,692,000,000 to be exact). That comes to 12,854,794 calories per day and at a 2,200 calorie per day diet would support 5,843 on lettuce. (refer to http://www.calorieking.com.au/foods/food.php?amount=8&unit=-2&category_id=47033&brand_id=1&food_id=151896&partner=hwf) But that assumes 3 million square feet of usable food growing surface.

One acre is 43,560 square feet, 30 stories of which is 1,306,800 square feet if each floor of the building contains but a single layer of plants. That results in 2,043,835,200 annual calories, enough for a 2200 calorie diet for 2,545 people (who really, really like lettuce I guess). But that goes against the very idea of vertical farming: going vertical. Why would you assume a single layer of plants per floor of the building? Fortunately, there are a number of solutions to the problem of multiplying yields per square foot by using the vertical space more effectively.

Valcent (http://www.valcent.com) uses 9 trays stacked on top of each other. Their system produces 20 times the yield of standard farming techniques while using only 1/7th the energy of greenhouse growing techniques. It sounds promising. And this (http://www.valcent.eu/warehouse_growing.html) appears to show 16 layers of plants with LED lighting suspended from the ceiling. Using both of those as examples, we get enough to feed (9*2,545) 22,905 people or (16*2,545) 40,720 people.

OmegaGarden (http://www.omegagarden.com/index.php?content_id=1521) uses a series of rotating cylinders with an LED or CFL lamp in the center which can grow 3000 plants in 150 sq ft of space, and uses 0.76 kWh of electricity per lettuce plant so the lighting adds very little to the cost of growing crops with their system. "Each carousel carries six, 8ft. long Omega Gardens™; equaling as much as 1500 sq. ft. of greenhouse yet only using 150 sq. ft. of floor space, including access!" (per http://www.omegagarden.com/index.php?content_id=1521). We could calculate then that it multiplies greenhouse production by 10, thus feeding 25,450 people.

AeroFarms (http://aerofarms.com) uses stackable trays where the LED lights on the bottom of row 2 provides light for the plants growing in row 1, repeat as high as you would like. Their site states a 500% increased yield over hydroponic greenhouse growing: "Annual Yield / Sq. Ft.: (field grown) 0.4 lbs; (hydroponics) 6 lbs; (AeroFarms) 30 lbs" --http://aerofarms.com/why/comparison/ but I'm not sure what height they're stacking to or if that is a "per level" figure. THey state that their system results in faster growth: Growth Cycle 35 – 70 days, 25 – 50 days, 18 – 21 days (from the same link comparing field, hydroponic, and AeroFarms).

Somewhere in the combination of that and the hydroponic floating raft method there might be an answer to increasing yields. I think that is why Dr. Despommier states that more study is needed.

[GliderGuider]

36. Deleted duplicate n/t

[amandabeech]

48. And you have to pipe the water to the fields.

In California and south Texas, for example, the fields are close.

Kansas is a long way from the nearest salt water in the Gulf of Mexico.

[txlibdem]

5. Growing food hydroponically in greenhouses or vertical farms uses 1/20th the water

...and as little as 1/40th the land of conventional farming methods. And because the plants are inside they are not as exposed to pests and weeds so pesticide and herbicide use is cut down drastically, only on an as-needed basis and hopefully after natural pest control techniques are tried.

It's a little more expensive than "conventionally grown" crops when gas is less than $3 per gallon but that changes as gas (diesel) gets above $4 a gallon or more. Pesticides and herbicides are made from petroleum so the cost of those will go up with the price per barrel of oil.

See http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/12/vertical_farming
... with videos and info

[GliderGuider]

6. How would it work in Bolivia? Or Bangladesh, Pakistan or China?

Every time I hear of this idea i think "yuppie solution". The problem is not the yuppies, they will do just fine. I haven't been convinced about its applicability in poor undeveloped nations.

[txlibdem]

10. Every time I hear someone wanting to use a technology that wastes 80% of its energy as waste heat

I want to ask them: why do you want to use an incandescent light bulb?

Every time I hear someone wanting to waste 86% of the energy of liquid fuel, I ask them why are you driving a gasoline powered car?

The question about Vertical Farming working in Bovia, et al? Why would it not work there? Do they have different water? Different sunshine? Different glass? Different concrete? The answers are nope, nope, nope, and nope.

It's easy to case stones when you have no intention of moving out of your cave I guess. But let me assure you: "fire... good."

[GliderGuider]

13. Why would it not work there?

Cost, perhaps? If this becomes feasible when gas or diesel goes over $4.00 a gallon it's quite possible that it wouldn't be affordable in Bangladesh. In America with its $47,000 of GDP per capita, that $4.00 takes 10 minutes work to earn on average. In Bangladesh it takes 12 hours, in Bolivia 4 hours, in Pakistan 8 hours, in China 2 hours. Even in Mexico it would take an hour. In the USA it takes 10 minutes. That's why I call it a yuppie solution, though it might be a bit more fair to call it a rich first-world solution. The affordability factor changes dramatically depending on the location.

I've got nothing against innovation - after all I'm typing on a computer and I spent 20 years of my work life making the Internet run faster as a datacom R&D firmware designer. It's just that such innovations, admirable as they are, turn out to have quite limited applicability when you cast your eyes out onto the wider world.

[txlibdem]

14. The worldwide water crisis will force changes to what we now think is "uneconomical"

That's my first thought as I read your comment. People will need to eat and hydroponics can be done "on the cheap" in a lot of cases -- still saves up to 95% of the water that is now wasted by using standard farming methods. At some point the price of oil and the water crisis will make this *more* economical than our "business as usual" way of doing thing things.

Also, I detect a hint of chauvinism in your post: those "people" could never have what we great Americans have? Yet they have skyscrapers, roads choked with vehicles, huge mining equipment, cell phones, computers, etc., etc., etc., just like we have. Brazil's economy is growing far faster than ours (ever heard of the BRIC countries????) for instance. Prices for many things are lower there, labor costs are far lower, raw materials costs are lower (at least the ones that are mined closer to them). For Bolivia to build a Despomier-inspired vertical farm would be far cheaper than for us to build it in metro de Nueva York.

[GliderGuider]

15. There's no doubt that innovation can be done on the cheap

My antipathy towards this approach comes from my general distrust of proposing engineering solutions to problems that I don't think are, at their core, engineering problems. I see the engineering mindset as the source of the problem we're in, so by definition it can't be part of the solution. Engineering may look like a solution, but IMO that's evidence of a circular argument or a tautology promoted by our culture: "Engineering solutions are called for because the solutions need to be engineered." I don't think the predicament we're in can be solved by engineering, technology in general, or any field of human endeavor that requires reductionist thought at its foundation. You and I have had this conversation before, I think...

(and 10 minutes later...)

Thanks to my twin flame's latest piece of art linked below, I have just now been introduced to a concept that crystallizes my position regarding engineered solutions versus organic, emergent ones. It is Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the Omega Point. According to de Chardin, the Omega Point "denotes the state of the maximum organized complexity (complexity combined with centricity), towards which the universe is evolving." It's essentially the point of, or the point just before, a singularity in human experience - but it's a singularity of consciousness rather than achievement, of awareness rather than technology (these are my words, not de Chardin's). From that perspective the Omega Point is the diametric opposite of the technological singularity conceived of by transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil, which is a singularity achieved through engineering. The fact that I resonate so strongly with the concept of the Omega Point, but not at all with Kurzweil's singularity, is evidence of my inherent orientation away from the achievement represented by feats of engineering and towards what our engineering culture defines as the "softer" arts that embody connection, integration and holism.

[Nederland]

8. And how many times more energy?

Has anyone calculated it?

[txlibdem]

11. Feel free to calculate the energy of a vertical farm

Our current farming methods use energy as well. Don't forget to also calculate the energy in manufacturing the farm equipment that will not longer be needed, the fuel for those huge vehicles (very poor gas mileage), the processing of oil into pesticides, ditto for herbicides --both of which are used liberally in standard farming, and the fuel needed to truck those to the local retailer and then to truck them to the farm. Also don't forget to include the cost of fuel (and the energy required to manufacture the trucks) used to bring the produce to a middle man, who will truck it to a larger middle man, who will in turn truck it to a regional middle man, who will in turn truck it to a national middle man, then the produce will finally be trucked to its destination --often thousands of miles away (but there are sometimes more middle men during this step as well.

Since you're so keen on calculating energy usage I thought you'd jump at the chance to actually do a fair comparison. :-)

[Nederland]

16. I completely agree with everything you said

All of those inclusions are necessary to make a fair comparison. I simply think that results of a fair comparison won't end up with the conclusion you think it will because you haven't done the math.

Let's use the United States as an example and lookup the raw numbers: there are 954 million acres of farmland in the US. That's 41.5 TRILLION square feet. In comparison, the total retail space in the United States is only 14.2 BILLION square feet.

farmland: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100430110211AA12Krx
retail space: http://retailindustry.about.com/od/storeclosingsandopenings/a/Store_Closings_list_2010_us_retail_chains.htm

In other words, if you add up all the space in all the Home Depots, Walmarts, shopping malls, and super markets in the whole country you have less than 0.03% of the total farmland area. Yes, I know that vertical farming is more productive than regular farming, but you still need to build an absolutely enormous amount of enclosed space. And unlike all those Home Depots and Walmarts which are built with few windows and only one or two stories tall, vertical farming buildings would need to be be very tall with huge areas of glass--both of which require lots of energy to accomplish. I think the energy required just to construct the buildings you need to house all those vertical farms, let alone operate them, would make the whole idea impractical.

Who knows though. Maybe I'm wrong. Run the numbers and post them...

[txlibdem]

19. Now there are some interesting facts

I had no idea that there were so many acres of farmland here in the USA. But it's not all actively being farmed. Much of it is lying fallow, some is poisoned by toxic waste and runoff and one of the other posters here on DU said that 50% is not being farmed at all. And then there are the government payments to farmers to NOT grow anything on their land. You figure that one out, will ya? I just don't think that an acre by acre comparison would yield any meaningful results.

Vertical farms use hydroponics, not dirt farming methods, first off -- it is soilless so there are far fewer contaminants, no soil-borne pests or diseases that have to be knocked out with pesticides and herbicides, and the plant can get the perfect amount of oxygen and nutrients at its roots so it grows the most produce per acre. Crop yields for hydroponics are many times that of dirt farming. I'll give you a "fer instance" from the expert in the field, Howard Rech, in his book Hydroponic Food Production (Sixth Edition) which I own a copy of, page 33 he gives an idea of the yields for various crops. Here's an excerpt:
Crop.............. Yield in Soil................. Soilless yield.
Soya ................ 600 lb ......................... 1,550 lb
Beans ............... 5 tons ......................... 21 tons
Peas ................ 1 ton ......................... 9 tons
Wheat ............... 600 lb ......................... 4,100 lb
Rice ................ 1,000 lb ....................... 5,000 lb
Oats ................ 1,000 lb ....................... 2,500 lb
Beets ............... 4 tons ......................... 12 tons
Potatoes ............ 8 tons ......................... 70 tons
Cabbage ............. 13,000 lb ...................... 18,000 lb
Lettuce ............. 9,000 lb ....................... 21,000 lb
Tomatoes ............ 5-10 tons ...................... 60-300 tons
Cuccumbers .......... 7,000 lb ....................... 28,000 lb

That was in 2004, of course, and I've read reports of higher yields even than that in hydroponic (soilless) crop production.

"The dramatic increase in yields with hydroponics is best illustrated if we consider the actual production figures of soil grown and hydroponically grown produce. Field grown tomatoes average yields ranging between 40,000 to 60, 000 pounds per acre; on the other hand top growing hydroponics facilities in the US and Canada report average yields of more than 650,000 pounds of tomatoes per acre. Additionally, given the fact that only 10 years ago top hydroponics producers were producing around 400,000 pounds per acre, the increase in yields with improvements in growing practices has been truly phenomenal. Similar production figures can be quoted for other agricultural produce like cucumbers with 10,000 pounds per acre for field production and 200,000 per acre for hydroponic greenhouse yields. Hydroponics lettuce and pepper yields too average around four times the corresponding yields of agricultural production."

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/hydroponics-in-commercial-food-production.html

In his essay Dr. Despommier (http://verticalfarms.com), he states that a 50 floor building with a 1 acre footprint (thus, 50 acres) will be able to provide food for 50,000 people. In his example the building produces fish in aquaculture, chickens for consumption and eggs from laying hens as well as all manner of fruits and vegetables. Others have said that an 18 floor building would suffice. So how many buildings are there a large city that might be able to be turned into a vertical farm. New York City has thousands of acres of government owned land that could be used. How many would be needed?

Imagine a cluster of 30-story towers on Governors Island or in Hudson Yards producing fruit, vegetables, and grains while also generating clean energy and purifying wastewater. Roughly 150 such buildings, Despommier estimates, could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Using current green building systems, a vertical farm could be self-sustaining and even produce a net output of clean water and energy.
http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/

[txlibdem]

22. Wrong URL, verticalfarm.com not verticalfarms.com

eom

[GliderGuider]

18. Here's a stab at calculating the cost and energy needs of a vertical farm

First let's set the basic assumptions. We're going to grow as many calories as possible in a custom-built 30-story vertical farm in a densely populated urban location.

The costs include: mortgage financing, electricity for the grow-lights, and general operations and maintenance. Nothing for distribution, and nothing for fertilizers or pesticides (though there's enough imprecision in the numbers that some fert/pest costs could be included). We are not including any transportation or heavy machinery costs. All water is recycled, and there are no fossil fuels used. The electricity comes from the lowest cost supplier. The location isn't specified, but is assumed to be an average large American city for this analysis.

Construction

The building will be 350x350 feet x 30 stories. That will give us 30 hectares of growing space - one hectare per floor on 30 floors.
The cost of building an "average" skyscraper like this is $400/sq ft. This one has lower finishing costs, so I cut that to $150/sq ft.
The capital cost of the building is therefore $450 million.
Assume a 30-year mortgage at 4% interest, with 1% property taxes.
That comes out to around $30 million per year in mortgage and property taxes. Probably a bit more with insurance, but we'll ignore that cost.

Electricity

According to the article on vertical farming in the Economist, vertical farms need to be lit throughout 24 hours per day if one wants to grow high yields.
The lighting budget is assumed to be 10 watts/sq ft of high-efficiency lighting.
That requires 30 megawatts of power, for about 250,000 MWh of energy per year.
At $0.08/kWh that comes out to $20 million annually for electricity.

Operations and Maintenance

We need to factor in general O&M costs. I assumed a cost of $7 per square foot per year.
That adds $20 million per year in O&M.

Total Operating Cost: $70 million per year.

Crop

In order to grow the greatest number of calories in that space, I chose to grow potatoes.
The record yield for dirt-farmed potatoes is about 30 tons/acre (the world average is about 12 t/a).
I assume a yield of 50 tons/acre, since we will be growing in optimum conditions, 24x7.
That gives us a crop of 3,750 tonnes per year from the building, 125 tonnes per floor.
That provides 15 billion kCal per year - enough calories to feed about 14,000 people.

Cost per Pound

The production cost is $8.50 per pound - without adding any insurance, distribution costs or profit. Add 15% profit and the cost goes up to $10/lb. It would feed 14,000 people a 2500 calorie/day diet of just potatoes for $115 a week each.

This isn't even a yuppie solution at that price, let alone a Bolivian or Bangladeshi solution.

The only solution I can see to the cost of production would be to extend the mortgage, lower the lighting costs and reducing the general O&M costs still further. However, I think my assumptions in these areas are already pretty generous.

The other solution is not to go for maximum calories, but maximum financial value (without turning the whole thing into a 30-story pot grow-op). But if the goal is to actually feed local people with significant calories, rather than grow organic kale and Swiss chard for the carriage trade, the idea looks like a non-starter to me.

[GliderGuider]

20. The yield numbers from above sent me back to my calculations.

At 70 tons/acre instead of the 50 I was guesstimating, the cost of the potatoes comes down to $6.15/lb without a profit margin, and $7.00 with a 15% profit. The cost of feeding someone comes down to just under $12 a day. Much more affordable :evilgrin:

[txlibdem]

23. Taking the figure of $450 million for construction...

Would the city of New York be able to afford to build a vertical farm? Could individual investors be found to pony up the funds?

A 30 floor building would feed 50,000 people so one could assume that 50,000 investors might "buy in" to the construction in return for either a share of the profits from selling said produce, or to receive food for themselves for no or low cost forever. The excess energy production of the vertical farm would pay for operating costs such as labor and taxes so the venture would be profitable (though as a "proof of concept" it needn't actually be profitable, that's just icing on the cake).

To the math: 450 million, divided up among 50,000 people comes to $9,000 a person.

That sounds like a lot but for New Yorkers is not really that much, food isn't cheap there. According to this (2008) site (http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-york-city/512512-cost-eating.html) organic food is $90-$120 a week and "non-organic" (aka pesticide full, salmonella special) food is $65 to $80 per week.

This site claims you can eat for $150 a month (since I can't do that in Dallas I highly doubt it) http://askville.amazon.com/money-live-York-City/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=16670263

I think the organic cost of $120 a week should be the upper value and $65 a week the absolute low end cost:
$65 * 52 = $3,380.00 annual cost of food, now using the "gazintas" we divide $9,000 by that to find out how many years to receive full pay back: 2.66
$120 * 52 = 6,240.00 annual cost of food, dividing $9,000 by that to find out how many years to receive your full pay back: 1.44

So you either get free food after 2.66 years or 1.44 years. Would anyone jump at that opportunity? Salaries in New York are usually much higher than other parts of the country and for many of them $9 grand is chump change.

[GliderGuider]

24. The whole thing rests on calorie production.

That's why I chose potatoes - they're the highest caloric-yield vegetable out there. I can't imagine how one could get a yield of triple what the books claim for hydroponic/aeroponic potatoes, and that's what you'd need to get enough calories to feed 50,000 people out of a 30 hectares (75 acres) of growing space. To do it out of 50 acres would require four times the stated yield.

You won't be able to do it with meat because of the space and energy requirements for feed, movement and waste removal. Aquaculture might be an exception, but I haven't done the numbers.

The claim of 50,000 people out of 50 acres is utterly suspect, but the cost of electricity for lighting and operations far outweigh the up-front capital costs. In this case there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

[txlibdem]

32. It's not just calorie counting

Human Dietary Needs
The human diet must provide the following:

• calories; enough to meet our daily energy needs.
  
• amino acids. There are nine, or so, "essential" amino acids that we need for protein synthesis and that we cannot synthesize from other precursors.
  
• fatty acids. There are three "essential" fatty acids that we cannot synthesize from other precursors.
  
• minerals. Inorganic ions. We probably need 18 different ones: a few like calcium in relatively large amounts; most, like zinc, in "trace" amounts.
  
• vitamins. A dozen, or so, small organic molecules that we cannot synthesize from other precursors in our diet.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/N/Nutrition.html

That is why a person cannot survive on a diet of potato chips alone... ;-)

[NickB79]

33. But if you don't supply the necessary calories, all the other points become moot

Which is why using calories as a basis for evaluation makes sense.

If you're starving to death due to insufficient calories, you don't really worry that much if you're low on calcium or B12.

[txlibdem]

34. It is all needed, not just calories. That was my point.

Look at the list I linked to: calories is there along with vitamins, minerals, fats, etc.

You will die if you eat food that has the proper amount of calories but none of the vitamins, minerals and fats.

[NickB79]

39. Yes, but my point was you will die faster from lack of calories than lack of minerals and vitamins

Calories come above all else when you are struggling to survive. Yes, in the long term your body will suffer and possibly die without vitamins, minerals and essential fats, but you need sufficient calories just to survive the short term.

It's like worrying about your car being 500 miles past the due date to change the oil, when your brakes just failed at 75 mph and you're careening towards a brick wall.

[txlibdem]

35. There are calories in fruits and vegetables, too -- look at the following link

There are 95 calories in a banana,
http://www.healthyweightforum.org/eng/calorie-counter/calories_banana/

There are 65 calories in a cucumber,
http://www.calorieking.com.au/foods/calories-in-vegetables-fresh-cucumber-green-common-raw-peeled_f-Y2lkPTQ3MDMzJmJpZD0xJmZpZD0xNTE4MjYmZWlkPTExNTQ1ODUyMCZwb3M9MSZwYXI9aHdmJmtleT1jdWN1bWJlcg.html

Use the search box at the first link to put in any fruit or vegetable and you will see the number of calories in healthy food.

[NickB79]

40. Well, obviously, but there are MORE calories in potatoes

As GliderGuider pointed out, on an acre-for-acre basis there are more calories in potatoes than any other crop commercially grown crop. And, if you can't get sufficient calories to feed 50,000 people from potatoes, you surely won't do it with bananas or cucumbers.

[txlibdem]

44. That's why it's a vertical farm, not a horizontal farm

Read the links I've provided in previous posts.

[txlibdem]

21. The energy calculation has already been done -- Vertical farms make *more* energy than they need

"Conclusions

The 2005 report assembles answers to remedy the underlying question in years past. Can it be done? Do the inner workings present a viable framework that translates into self-sustainability? Yes, the Vertical Farm's seems to be able to maintain itself without energy from the grid with the potential to make money by selling energy back. Waste products from edible plants and animal wastes have the low-end potential of generating 51,585,612 kWh per year alone. In comparison the energy requirements for maintaining the plants and animals only totals 26.5 million kWh per year. On a weekly basis, an extra 482,415 kWh is available for other processes such as building maintenance. Even more energy will be generated once the potential energy that is to be generated from plants integrating into the living machine is included. The only other large energy expenditures not included are refrigeration and pumping requirements. In all, the Vertical Farm appears to be capable of self-sustainability. The advent of a new era in food production, efficiency, and community relations is no longer a far-fetched product of futuristic movies but a realistic idea resting on the cusp of the horizon. It is only a matter of time rather than innovation until nature and technology are integrated as a breathing building."

http://verticalfarm.com/old/plans-2k5.htm

Thus, a vertical farm produces roughly double the energy needed.


A bit more fleshed-out explanation is in the link but here is a "Reader's Digest" version:

"The 2005 class of Medical Ecology answered the question: What are the energy requirements for a vertical farm 48 stories high by one square city block in footprint? Based on the production of a robust variety of edible and non-edible plants and a few animal species (chicken and fish), the waste products (non-edible plants from living machines, and portions of edible plants and animal products not consumed) have the low-end potential of generating 51.6 million kWh per year. In contrast, the energy requirements for maintaining the plants and animals employing a continuous growth strategy totals 26.5 million kWh per year. On a weekly basis, a surplus of 482,415 kWh is available for other processes such as building maintenance, or it could be added back to the energy grid of the North East corridor. More energy could potentially be generated with the addition of solar panels or wind-capturing technologies. The only other large energy expenditures not included are refrigeration and pumping requirements. In all, the vertical farm envisioned in this report will not only be self-sufficient, but will have the potential of an economic windfall from the sustainable generation of energy from methane digestion of left-over organic waste. The vertical farm is what the concept of urban sustainability should and will be built around."

http://verticalfarm.com/old/plans-2k5.htm

Methane: if you've ever visited a pig or chicken farm then you know very well (from the smell) the potential for massive energy generation.

Read the linked article. With solar panels and a few wind turbines on the roof the energy surplus could be even greater. That adds cost to the project but might be worth it if the vertical farm is in an area of unstable power supply (like many US cities are becoming) and putting wind turbines on the roof may require a stronger structural component to the building so that is a question for the engineers and bean counters (way above my head at this time of the morning...). There will be a happy medium to be found, perhaps, between the "Cadillac" version and the "stripped-down model" version if funds are tight.

Someone needs to build one of these vertical farms to show the world that it can be done. I thought about the possibility of getting 50,000 people to "buy in" to the project, putting up all the money for construction (or renovation of an existing structure). If these 50,000 people were ensured of getting 100% of their food for free (or at most a nominal cost) the first full-scale vertical farm may become a reality.


But then I read:

"Perhaps the answer will emerge out of China, Japan, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, or Australia -- all countries said to be moving toward such a scheme. No vertical farm yet exists, but futuristic prototypes abound. Picture the glass-box Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but five times as tall and insulated as securely as the intensive care unit of a hospital."

http://www.onearth.org/article/vertical-farm-book-review

It seems that if the United States continues to fail in promoting advanced technologies and solutions for the planet then there are a large number of countries throughout the world that still have the ability to improve on the future. Where we fail, others will step forward to fill in the void just as happened with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, advanced batteries, etc.

[Fledermaus]

17. SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

In an overpopulated futuristic Earth, a New York police detective finds himself marked for murder by government agents when he gets too close to a bizarre state secret involving the origins of a revolutionary and needed new foodstuff.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTI1MjcxMzI1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTA5MDAwMQ@@._V1._SY317_CR2,0,214,317_.jpg
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/

[kestrel91316]

50. I didn't ever have kids. I no longer own a car. Somebody else is gonna

have to step up to the plate before I make many more personal sacrifices.