Farming in the Sky

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is so brilliant, i could not imagine our government allowing it to happen. If this could improve the world, we probably won't see it come to fruition until half of America is dead from starvation. Maybe then someone will notice the pile of corpses and come to the conclusion Soylent Green is a viable option.

I completely agree that farming needs some serious overhauls, but I am not sure this is the best way, or that it is even possible in the near future. The idea of growing food close to where it is needed is nice, but I am skeptical about the rest. I seriously doubt any companies ability to clean fully a cities waste, so that the carbon could be burnt and the water used by the plants. People flush so much junk down the drains, something would have to start getting into these plants. If they are using mussels to filter the water, then what happens to all the mussels that are dying from all the cocaine and draino in the sewer systems, and are people going to want the equivalent of coal power plants releasing exhaust into the city. And I gaurantee there are other chemicals needed by plants besides nitrogen, and where are we getting those from. We are probably refining them from petroleum or mining them from the earth in some distant location. Don't just get swept up in this ask the right questions. What about vertical farming in dirt that uses sound, age old methods. We could still use human waste and let it compost with other organic waste naturally over longer periods of time that could actually break down harmful chemicals

A lot of the methods are reflecting what some home growers have been working on perfecting for there Garage variety crops.
Some tricks are using CO2 to help improve the speed and growth of there crops, why can't we take these new coal plants and use the CO2 that they storing in the ground to help, this would reduce the Green house gasses. You will have an abundance of these gasses from existing and future coal plants.

@popoflojo
I think the waste is used to create the electricity the farm requires, rather than cleaned and dumped into the plants. Hydroponics is more water efficient than traditional farming in the long run. You're idea of vertical farming with soil would be less plausible than with hydroponics I think, first of all, dirt is heavy when wet, needs to be tilled and ploughed, and where are the going to get all this dirt from? removing large amounts of good quality soil from fertile regions to put them in cities is a pretty bad idea for a whole lot of regions, even if it was possible.also, various plants remove various nutrients from the soil, and so everything has to be grown on alternate fields,sometimes every year, to let the soil regain its nutrients. not the case with hydroponics.

I like the idea in this article, but I think in 50 years time we will look back on this article and laugh at its absurdity, the same way we laugh at old popular science and popular mechanics magazines today.

SKYSCRAPERS FILLED WITH LAB-GROWN MEAT

Just to set the record straight, this isn't just some crackpot idea or unrealistic dream. This system has been fleshed out on all levels of practicality by students, scientists and engineers, including economic factors. This model is truly revolutionary, and is a great hope to relieve and protect our environment, resources, and food supply, utilizing vertical space to provide quality organic produce to urban centers.

The model was originally developed as a "closed system," in that all waste products and nutrients, air, water are recycled in the building. Hundreds of plants/vegetables have been studied and found suitable for this system, and the BEST part is, it generates energy beyond what it uses! Healthy pesticide-free food, energy, and waste management, without threat of drought/flood, insects, diseases, etc., all by putting the farm indoors. The idea of channeling waste into it I have not heard, but bio-remediation is not a new concept and could be feasibly integrated.

Seriously, it is imperative that we look beyond our traditional conception of the family farm, which is now mega-agribusiness using chemicals and polluting fuels. The most important goal is no longer profit, but to safeguard our food supply from climate change and disease, and to conserve our precious water and energy resources.

Visit www.VERTICALFARM.org to see for yourself the levels of efficiency it can attain, there is more than enough evidence to persuade even the most skeptical. Not just claims, but numbers and evidence. Let us make a rational decision to provide food for more people with less environmental consequence, it's time to make this the reality.

Really, really, REALLY cool!

But now get out your calculators, at $200 million, by 50,000 people, average four in a family. That's $160,000 per family! And that's just to start, then there is labor costs, seed and soil costs, water costs, and all those costs fluctuate through market forces. Still like the idea though. It would take very dire circumstances to make it happen. And the "end of times" folks tend to forget that humans won't let things get that desperate.

Now that I think of it... there's a guy down the street that employs a similar contraption to grow, um, his own, uh, shall we say, personal crop.

Great idea!

Check your math please. $200 000 000 divided by 50 000 people equals $4000 per person so it would be $16 000 for a family not $160 000.

You all have some good points. Building the first one is always more expensive, the price will come down as they look into the different possibilities as it has with computers and space travel. There were a lot of things that appear in the older issues that are a fact of life today. These are minor problems that will be overcome with time and interest. The first computer in 1948 filled the basement of Penn University, took an entire day to physically program and could only perform basic addition and subtraction. I do not think the cost was ever disclosed.

To give you constructive input: Has anyone thought about building a barge, or an oil tanker, instead of the land? They can be mass produced and hauled to where they are needed. Major cities are built along the waterways. A long, wide barge would have a lot of room for solar panels and water resources to treat for hydroponics and fish. I have been looking at some sketches and ideas, this could be better.

Isn't this a little too... radical?

We're still producing an enormous surplus in food. The only reason there are starving people is because of corruption, war, and the other host of problems in developing countries.

I might not have any figures, but I'm positive that only a minority of countries in the world are using the most modern techniques to farm efficiently. Instead of getting the rich to race ahead in farming technology, we could just try getting the poor caught up with the rest of us.

This will work great until the first natural disaster rolls around e.g. earthquake...hailstorm...tornado or hurricane.

A few years ago a company built a huge state-of-the-art hydroponic facility to grow tomatoes in central Nebraska. A huge glass greenhouse covering several acres said to withstand hail...they even purchased a "hail cannon" to modify the atmosphere ahead of approaching thunderstorms. The project worked until the first wind-driven one-inch hailstorm. You can buy the facility today for cents on the dollar...which includes the hail cannon.

It appears to me this design would only meet the needs of a few people and would be far from cost effective especially with maintenance and insurance considerations.

Wonderful idea, but it still needs to be hooked to the power grid.

(Energy in food going out) > (Small area of solar panels and wind turbines + small percentage of food energy recycled from sewage, coming in)

This statement:
“With waste in and food out, a vertical farm would be like a perpetual-motion machine that feeds a lot of people,”
is wrong.
He forgot to mention that the waste no longer includes the energy that was used to power 50,000 human bodies.

Wonderful idea, but it still needs to be hooked to the power grid.

(Energy in food going out) > (Small area of solar panels and wind turbines + small percentage of food energy recycled from sewage, coming in)

This statement:
“With waste in and food out, a vertical farm would be like a perpetual-motion machine that feeds a lot of people,”
is wrong.
He forgot to mention that the waste no longer includes the energy that was used to power 50,000 human bodies.

Popmech and Popsci have have been great magazines for generations, but it has almost always been the smaller articles that have had greater significance years later. I have a November 1959 copy of popmech here: the main article says we will all be flying at at least 2000mph through space by the 70's. good idea, lots of worked went onto it, but never happened. but look at some of the smaller articles that seemed of less significance at the time: miniaturized circuitry( smaller than a clothes peg), masks that deliver oxygen to newborn babies, and the oxygen blast steel furnace.

as I said before, I like this idea, but it just wont happen.not enough incentive, too radical, too expensive, and largely untested.maybe a smaller prototype might be built in one of the planned 'eco-cities' mentioned, but it wont replace existing agriculture.

It's a start to helping grow the food we actually need. But don't change the farmland into places for trees to grow, we will still need that farmland for food while we are transitioning into enviromental-friendly ways of growing food.

It's a start to helping grow the food we actually need. But don't change the farmland into places for trees to grow, we will still need that farmland for food while we are transitioning into enviromental-friendly ways of growing food.

@popoflojo
i'm sure that there are bacteria that can filter out the bad things. and you'd be surprised as to where the plants will get the other needed molecules for successful growth

""Hundreds of plants/vegetables have been studied and found suitable for this system, and the BEST part is, it generates energy beyond what it uses!""

Wow, a system that outputs more energy than you put into it! Awesome! Once I finish ordering the zero point dilithium energy crystals and herbal cures for aids and cancer, this one is next on my shopping list! Honestly, the technology is already being worked out and advances in genetic engineering that have produced commercially viable crops with incredible yields are a much more realistic approach. I MIGHT be able to see this in a place like Tokyo where farmland is as common as flying giraffes, but I think we got a few hundred billion more people until the local Piggly Wiggly needs strobe lights to keep commercial airliners crashing into it.

Also, as for factoring in the energy use, did they even calculate the costs and resources needed to build the ugly monstrosity?

I think the idea of using sewage to power this thing is great. My question is would it be piping in the sewage from the entire city, or just what's generated by the tower itself? If it's the former, then it would be the perfect recycling system!

It is a neat idea, something that could even be adapted to urban/suburban lifestyles on a smaller scale. I do have issues with the statement, "Agriculture is broken. Traditional techniques use too much energy and produce too little food for our growing planet." Its simply not true. We aren't even using all the agricultural space we have in the US by far. Possible drought or not, we have a LOT of usable land still. And if a drought is coming, we have the means to produce an infrastructure of clean water from a good many sources.

What about population control? There is no environmental problem that cannot be solved by having fewer people. If there were 6.6 billion wolves on earth, people would say there are too many for the deer.

Are people supposed to keep populating the earth until...??

I would like to believe people are more reasonable then that...but the empirical evidence is contradictory.

Environmental issues cannot and should not be discussed without also discussing the human population issue. Are humans mindless creatures that explode in population until nature takes its course and can no longer support us; with starvation and disease the final "answer"? Or are we better than that? Are we merely another animal or do we actually have a brain?

Mega farming on land or in a building and you still get mono-cultured crops, less jobs and a central management as inflexible as the tomatoes are tasteless. Better go with smaller distributed systems, varied crops, lower technical and chemical requirements that don't promote cancer or need a college degree to do. Food should be grown local for local consumption that way it won't have to endure shipping to feed the world. The system should be able to be scaled up or down. I might could replace my present garage with a greenhouse food producing unit or rehab a vacant building or this towering agri-edifice built from scratch.
So, my recommendations is smaller scale, distributed systems, varied crops, people need to work (don't over automate) and local consumption.

I agree, If you need food, you should buy it local, to help support your town's economy, and to save on fuel and energy consumption.

This is a brilliant idea. I read about it in the Popular Science magazine sometime last year. It never really interested me until today. I re-read the article and came on the website to find out what other people think. There are a few specific things that I am not crazy about, and since I know you all care so much I'm going to list them here.

1. AUTOMATION: In a time of world wide economic crisis, we need to be creating jobs, not reducing them. And while one could argue that manufacturing the machines the will create jobs, chances are, those factories would also be automated.

2. SEWAGE FOR POWER AND WATER: I don't like the idea very much. I think it's probably just that I don't fully understand the technology. I plan to do some more "research" and hopefully what I find out will alter my opinion.

3. LAB GROWN MEAT: This is a technology that I am not at all happy with. Its just so unnatural and currently unnecessary. I believe that research should be continued in this field so that when the time comes, the technology is there. What I'm saying is that I'd prefer to wait to utilize this technology, until its needed.

The End

P.S. If anybody has any informative links, please email me at plysaxaphone@aim.com

It's an interesting proposal, but it could be approached in better ways.
I agree with viktory that population control needs to be put into effect. Humans need to realize that there is a population issue. Child tax, anyone?
The system cannot be energy independant, but it could be powered by the sewage from, say, 500000 humans. Yeah, so it's 10 times more than are being fed. So what? Regualar farming methods will provide food for the others. This is not a substitute, but rather an augmentation of normal farming.
mazingercomics mentions Soylent Green. Okay, maybe not the best idea, but a little less radical but related idea... Why do we waste all of the dead bodies? They're dead; they really couldn't care less. We're gouing to run out of cemetaries. And, although we don't want to be come cannibals, there are other uses for dead bodies. One is energy manufacture, particularly methane. After making methane, the remaining carbon-rich matter could be used for agriculture. At the time, it seems fairly disgusting. But eventually it may become commonplace.

For years we (as mankind in general) have known that we will be facing agricultural problems. Our cities are growing so large that the number of people needing fresh fruits and vegetables are finding that in order to eat healthy – they need to pay an extreme amount.

In these cities, the sheer number of pollution producing entities has grown to exorbitant amounts. There is so much pollution in many areas that our children and adults are developing:

Asthma- Thus making it difficult to do the many things that children and adults do.

Weight gain- Hence playing, running, and exercising is difficult-it is no felt as a good experience.

Diabetes- Many families don’t have the funds to pay for the expenses associated with fresh farm produce. We, as a nation, are seeing expenses associated with trucking increase as the gas prices increase. This drives the costs of fresh produce up. Our society is seeing increases in unemployment and general job loss, so the notion that it will be just simple to spend more money increasing farm sizes is really somewhat difficult to accept as plausible. It is a nice thought for those of us who are able to afford the extra amounts, but not for those of us who really need it.

Skyscraper farms: This idea puts greenhouses in the midst of carbon rich areas where they can help to off-set the amount of air pollutants being. These farm “buildings” would be nearer to highly populated areas, thus decreasing the driving expenses that current farms are suffering from as well. By using bacteria to clean the water that is currently just sludge under our cities to help grow these plants seems to be incredible, but still plausible. Plus, these skyscraper farms will not be putting farmers out of business any more than they are currently being put out of business from bankruptcy. If anything, their cultivated experience will allow them to come to work in these “farm-scrapers” and allow us the benefits of their accumulated knowledge.

Note: The only reason that this technology is as expensive – is because it is NOT in wide scale use. Once the demand for such technology would increase, the cost of such technology would go down. One of the reasons that the cost would go down, is because the number of people using the technology and buying the products created from it is almost guaranteed due to the location. IT would be in a big city where people will be readily available to buy the items. You have a guaranteed market, the only thing holding it back is the actually planning and implementation of it.

Wow...soylent green, hm? Any society in their right mind could never consider disgracing the dead to utilize them for energy, be it compost or electricity. Perhaps we could empty the morgues and unclaimed bodies could contribute to such an idea, but I seriously doubt it will ever be widely accepted as commonplace. Its not that the dead will care, but rather their successors, the families who wish to honor them through to their idea of whatever the afterlife entails, will care. The idea of soylent green could only ever be accepted once the majority of human's religion is relinquished.

Population control seems most logical out of the alternative ideas presented, though once again we run into the conundrum of human emotion, theology, and moral principle. We can't kill people simply because there's too many of us. How would we select those who are to die? Obviously the geriatric folk, but there are only so many of those, and they don't really use too many resources anyway. What about the mentally handicapped? Or those who have a particular skin color? Who is it thats going to play God in this scenario? And does anyone besides myself catch the references in such a thought to the Nazi's Arian race? Ideally relocating to an alternate planet would be the solution, but that sort of thing is...centuries away, if it will ever become possible.

Most probable is the ideas presented in this article, to produce food in a more enclosed space, so that we don't need the land to farm. We can still develop the undeveloped portions of our planet, while reducing our emission and pollution levels at the same time. Hydroponics has its disadvantages, tateless tomatoes is one. The plants are usually grown in a water based mineral solution that provides barely enough nutrients for them to survive healthily. In such an environment, they loose the well developed soil and compost we're used to eating them from, and thereby their well developed taste. Practicing such a technology in massive farming gives us the distinct opportunity to control what the taste of the produce is, but for all the research and development it would take, I imagine plants grown in different solutions would warrant different costs...and different standards. Poorer families will be subject to eating less than quality produce, while richer families will have the luxury of deciding whether they want richly enhanced tomatoes or simply standard ones. Hydroponic skyscraping farms will undoubtedly introduce a class system to the produce we know today.

I enjoy the thought of utilizing human, animal and plant waste to produce compost for the farms. While soil is heavier and more cumbersome, it produces more desirable results when considering the end product of fruits and vegetables on our plates at home. If we can recycle our bio-waste in such an application as this, it will reduce our pollutants and emissions immaculately, while maintaining nutrient rich and variant soil for these plants to be grown from. A filtration system in the sewers to get rid of foreign contaminants (paper, illegal drugs, toxic chemicals etc.) is not unimaginable.

Likewise, these farms will open opportunities to inner-city thugs and drug dealers. Automated as it may be, plants cannot be grown without the attention of farmers/gardners, and machines cannot maintain themselves. As far as our automation technology has come, we still need operators and maintainers. The people who staff these farm-scrapers will have unprecedented access to a city's beating heart, and the opportunity for corruption is undeniable. I think it extremely pertinant to consider the security risks inherent in providing a city's saving grace within a skyscraper in its midst.

Here's a sad thought, perhaps the fact that people in large cities are developing such breathing problems, they won't be able to taste the "lack of tomato" taste that is being discussed anyhow.

As for inner-city thugs and drug dealers go, they have done more than their fair share of crop stealing. I ask this question, do thugs and drug dealers use current farm conditions to produce their products? We all know that they do. So, merely dismissing a technology on the basis of it *maybe* being used for something is quite silly. Especially when current things are happening on regular farms. At least with sky-farms, police will have an easier time patrolling those areas rather than driving all the way out into the countryside only to sit and watch a farm that spans more area than they can see from a single location.

That is such a cool idea...only if they actually USED IT!

EO

I was wondering though if anyone knew what the chemicals that they use for cleaning the water are enviro-friendly too?

Iam wondering how tall the building is gonna be becuase it looks like it's going to be supertall

This is really cool. Now lets actually do it.

____________________
http://empoweringparents.com/How-to-Get-Kids-to-Do-Chores.php

The the first vertical farm pilot project is up and running as we speak!! It's at a U.K Zoo and was developed by a company called Valcent, it uses 5% of the water that traditional agriculture does, and produces huge yields, check out the blog for more info http://blog.valcent.net/?p=587

I really don't think this is all necessary, Population Growth is slowing down and it is possible that at some point, the population number won't grow any more, however, a few changes to farming would be nice, like robots to replace a depleting supply of labor and microbes instead of fertilizer that is more productive and doesn't create algae blooms that could kill fish, which are a food source