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WWII Bomb Shelter Becomes Hi-Tech Salad Farm
asjk points out a story of how a World War II bomb shelter, situated 33 meters beneath the streets of London, has been turned into a high-tech hydroponic farm. "The growing system uses energy-efficient LEDs instead of sun, no pesticides, needs 70 percent less water than growing plants in open fields, and less energy than a greenhouse." The computer-controlled environment is designed to shorten the growth cycle of plants like coriander and radishes. They're currently only using about a quarter of the gear necessary to fill up the shelter, but they can produce 5,000-20,000 kilograms of food per year, depending on what they raise. Co-founder Steven Dring said, "We've got to utilize the spaces we've got. There's a finite amount of land and we can grow salads and herbs — which start losing flavor and quality as soon as you cut them — in warehouses and rooftops in cities near the people who will eat them. Use the rural land for things like carrots, potatoes and livestock."
This *is* organic farming. There's nothing to compare here.
they need light, so converting it to something else and back has to be less efficient than letting it shine on them directly.
Plants only absorb light in the red visible spectrum and parts of the ultraviolet spectrum. In principle, we could make farming more effective by absorbing infrared and green light, converting to electricity, and using the electricity to power red light for the plants to absorb.
So, I had to type "led gree" into Google to have it auto-suggest "led greenhouse lights", and get hits from Amazon, Home Depot, Phillips, and a bunch of other sites.
Maybe your current knowledge of LEDs for growing plants is outdated and thy actually have the technology for this? Because the sheer number of hits I got tells me it's real technology.
I have no idea about the pesticides, but people did farming for thousands of years without pesticides ... so I'm not convinced it's not possible to grow plants without pesticides.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Actually, the no pesticides claim is completely true. First, by having the crops indoors, you seriously cut down on attracting open air pests. Second, the crops are seeded in a cloth mat. After harvest, the mats are removed, cleaned, and if too worn destroyed. The cleaning process happens every 20 days, which is much shorter than the insects life cycle. So, the insects never get a chance to settle in. The cleaning process is like a laundry, removes any eggs.
Someone you trust is one of us.