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Vertical Farming
SolFire writes "The BBC is running a look at the potential for Vertical Farming in the Big Apple, a concept that promises to reduce the environmental impact of farming and increase the efficiency of food production by building multi-story farm complexes in urban areas. The vertical farm is envisioned as a self sustaining complex of greenhouses stacked on top of each other. More details can be found on the project web site."
Boy, my not knowing that cities have skyscrapers means that I must really be stupid.
Since I have been proven stupid, the point I made about there being only a limited amount of sun hitting urban areas must be invalid, and the conclusion I made that there will be increased pressure on this limited resource in the upcoming solar boom must be flat out wrong.
Since Scrameustache is quick to point out how other people are stupid, he-she-or-it must be really super smart.
I know that I am too stupid to do such things, but I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that once solar energy hits that sweet spot where massive rollout of panels is cost effective, there will be an inundation of lawsuits regarding access to sunlight and solar panels. I also put forth the assertion people in urban areas will continue to see less of the sun.
Vertical farms would be competing for the same resource.
Of course, since I am too stupid to notice that this process is already underway in the skyscraper age, then my assertion that a trend people have complained about since the beginning of the skyscaper age is about to get worse must be way off base.
There is absolutely no indication that people today are exposed to less sunlight than they were a hundred years ago. Well, other than the fact that a century ago, just about everyone wore a hat.
This will work. This won't work.
As a demonstration project, and a tourist attraction, this will work beautifully. Your typically 100 miles or less organic veggie loving hippie will gleefully pay a rather outrageous price for organic tomatoes grown locally in New York city, and if you figure that you can get at least 5 school tours each school day ($5.00 a head), and have most of those kids eat a "healthy, local, organic vegitarian lunch", (another $5.00 a head), yes, you can keep the place completely busy.
As far as a replacement farm. No way. But tourism and edutainment are big markets for a single demonstration "vertical farm" in NY, LA, Hong Kong, etc.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.