Indoor farming the future?

Discussion in 'Science and Nature' started by yurigadaisukida, May 25, 2015.

  1. #1 yurigadaisukida, May 25, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 25, 2015
    This might go without saying for space colonization. But I feel even on earth we will.one day get most of our food from indoor farms


    Plants only absorb a narrow range of energy from the sun.

    Solar panels however should be able to absorb a much wider spectrum of the total energy.

    That being said, hypothetically, if you devoted your square footage to solar panels, and used the panels to run grow spectrum lights, you should be able to give indoor plants even more of said spectrum, than they would get outside because you are converting unused light into red/blue

    This would allow small plots to grow many times as much square footage of plants as its actual footprint.

    And the kicker is marajuna prohibition has already created the demand for efficient led grow lights so the technology is already close.

    We just nneed the actually funding now.

    Problem? Currently its probly much cheeper to have an outdoor farm.

    it might take years to grow enough food to pay for the startup costs of a solar powered indoor farm

    -yuri
     
  2. Plants don't absorb a narrow range though.. they absorb all light except for green and reflect the green light. So between 380 and 750 nm, plants absorb all but the 495-570 nm range.. so they are able to absorb almost 80% of the visible light spectrum. That's not including UV light which they will absorb too unless they have a surface that reflects UV light. Seems like you would know that though because you said about converting the light to red and blue.. so maybe just a brain fart? They absorb a rather wide range of light..
     
    But this would be viable in the future.. probably not anytime soon because our solar panels aren't that efficient yet, like 20% efficient. Maybe if/when we create solar panels with 90%+ efficiency.. but I have a feeling it will be quite some time before we even get near that.
     
  3. the visible light spectrum is a very small part of the em spectrum.

    The point was just that we could convert the energy plants can't use into energy they can use, effectively growing more area worth of plants than we have sun exposure.

    Perhaps not with our current solar technology tho

    -yuri
     
  4. Wouldn't it inevitably be more inefficient because you are going to lose energy being transferred from the panels to the indoor lights. I think it will definitely be beneficial if there is extreme outdoor conditions because you can control the environment but I definitely think it would be much more inefficient. Who knows though? We could see it in a couple decades become a lot more common.
     
  5. it is of coarse just a hypothesis.

    But we do know that plants only use a small amount of the total.solar energy that hits earth.

    Surely there is a way to turn UV light and higher frequency light into visible light.

    Who knows. I'd like to think so.

    -yuri
     
  6.  
    Up until recently, solar panels only used visible light.. and not UV or infrared. They have made progress with solar panels though to where they make use of UV and infrared. Thing is, plants have been around for ages now.. and have had plenty of time to evolve to be using UV and infrared. Most UV light is filtered by the atmosphere, but the lil bit that does come through.. a lot of plants still use because it's not too high of an energy. That's why a lot of older solar panels only used visible light.. because UV light has too much excitement going on. Infrared that is closer to red, plants use too.. but too closer to the end of the spectrum it is more like heat and damaging to plants. So I am not sure why you keep saying that plants use a lil bit of the solar energy.. unless you're talking about a square inch surface area thing? If that's the concern, once our solar panels become more efficient and you focus the new light you create, then this could be a viable idea in terms of efficiency. Just spitballing, but if plants don't use 20% of the visible spectrum (not including the UV and infrared) then you would want your solar panels to be at least 80% efficient.. meaning they'd capture 80% of the light and convert it into electricity for you to power your own lights, but you'd have a lil lose going from light to electricity to light, so you'd probably really need something like 85% efficiency in order to justify growing indoors with artificial light versus using natural sunlight.
     
    But if you'd want to go all hardcore, you could study the plants and find out the specific wave lengths they don't use instead of just knocking out all the green. Some plants might not use like 495 to 510 nm while others might not use 550 to 570 nm.. so if you figure out the specific wave length they don't accept, then it'd be even better.
     
    Ever wonder, why green? My theory is that if life first appeared at the bottom of the ocean, likely around heat vents.. they'll evolve to make use of infrared. Then as life spread and made it's way to the surface, it got nailed with light.. but the UV light would of have the greatest effect on them. So life on Earth started with infrared, then evolved to make use of the UV light.. and green just happens to be in the middle of the two and isn't needed.
     
  7. there is certainly the issue of the earths atmosphere.

    Plants may not absorb the entire spectrum of the sun, but how much of what actually hits earth do they absorb?

    Time for experiment

    -yuri
     
    • Creative Creative x 1
  8. #8 killset, May 27, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 27, 2015
    There's no way the majority of the earths crops could be grown indoors. Could you imagine the size if the buildings and equipment that would be needed. Electricity supply alone would be insane. The millions if not billions of acres of farm land in the united states alone would be impossible to enclose. Even if some super size indoor crop could grow double the amount of crops in half the space, getting an extra crop a year it would still be impossible to grow the majority of the earths crops inside. I live in farm land
     
  9. Rooms could be stacked underground, there's plenty of space under ground.

    A while ago, I remember reading something on extracting energy from plants, basically stealing the sunlight from plants directly.

    They joked you could plug a TV into your tree outside etc
     
  10. Yep! Its called parametric upconversion and parametric down conversion.
     
  11. your concerns are valid but I'd hardly say impossible.

    Yes the ammount of infrastructure required would be unimaginable

    But that's only because we are thinking of how hard it would be today.

    In 200 years things might be different

    -yuri
     
  12. when were all flying around in space ships with robot maids like on the jetsons then yes maybe. Until then I don't want to spend $147.98 on a can of green beans
     
  13. what if it was 2 for 200$?

    -yuri
     
  14. Now that's a deal
     
  15. well all right then.

    Progress!

    Next up on the discussion of future indoor farm production: invitro meat!

    We are already working on growing human organs in jars for use in transplant patients. And that tech is already being researched as a food production meathod.

    I wonder if we could have some sort of solar powered factory that grows algae, processes it, and then uses it to grow synthetic steaks in jars.

    -yuri
     
  16. Sunlight is light energy.
    Panels convert it to electricity.
    That electricity us stored in batteries.
    And then it us transmitted to the lighting system.
    And then it is converted back to light energy.

    There is a loss of energy in each of those steps. So that process of using the solar light energy in that way would be terribly inefficient. However, direct sunlight gives plants everything they need. They gave their own solar panels. Growing indoors would be too expensive to feed the masses.

    Granted, we are looking to indoor hydroponic farming in space as the perfect solution for space stations but that is just because it's the only solution for space stations.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  17. plants do not utilize the entire spectrum of em energy emitted by the sun.

    -yuri
     
  18. #18 papabull, May 28, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 28, 2015
    I saw you say that earlier in this thread. What I am trying to explain is that the inefficiency of plants utilizing primarily only the red and blue spectrum is substantially less inefficiency than making so many wasteful energy conversions.

    I see your point about the "wastefulness" of plants only using those two bands but unless we are approaching catastrophic maximization of all solar energy directed toward this planet, trying not to "waste" any of the other bands by letting real sunlight touch our plants simply isn't pragmatic or profitable even though it's is certainly possible to do what you suggest if money is no object.

    A more practical approach to this would be maybe some sort of greenhouse panels that stripping out the red and blue spectrum to fiber optic lamps that you can use to light your plants as you wish with precise focus (no waste) and use the rest to generate electricity to fire the fans and pumps. I'm not sure that would be possible or practical but if you like the all-indoor grow future idea, that might be worth some contemplation. ;)


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
  19. That's probly true and as manticore pointed out, out atmosphere filters a lot of energy

    This idea would work better in space for sure
    that actually sounds like a much better idea than mine

    -yuri
     
  20. #20 BRZBoy, May 31, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2015
    Absolutely indoor farming on a massive scale is the future. Great Discovery channel special on some challenges facing humanity by 2050. The projected numbers for America in 2050 would require that 1 out of every 4 trucks going to NY City would simply have to carry food. Thats just one city. Whole states like Texas, California etc it will be a monumental task. The farm must come to the city.
     
    So they went over to Singapore where they are running experiments. Near 100% of Singapore's food is imported at great cost. The idea is to build buildings..multi floor ones where its all glass and you grow inside via hydroponics. The output is enormous when compared to growing on flat land.
     
    They had another experiment encouraging people to convert roof tops since most of the roof tops there are flat into grow areas. Just doing that netted almost a 10% reduction in the requirement for produce imports.
     
    For certain indoor farming but on scales unseen are a big part of the food equation for the world.
     

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