[idibidiart]

Hand wavy arguments as to why this is a bad idea are ... well, just hand wavy.

<<

Solar is ~20% efficient LED's are less than ~40% efficient so you would need more land area for solar farms than you save by growing indoors. On top of that you need to pay for all your capital costs. There are other issues, but if this was close to cost effective you would be seeing this in Iceland which gets little sunlight in the winter and has cheap energy costs. Instead they use suplimental lighting inside green houses to boost production.

>>

I thought the vertical stacking makes more efficient use of the light than the single layer you find in a farm or green house. It means that even though the light is produced inefficiently the vertical stacking is intended to cancel out that inefficiency by using the light more efficiently. Moreover, the optimization of the plant's exposure to light through automated means adds to increased efficiency in the plant's use of the light.

If every grower did this, it would (or could) destroy Monsanto's business model. I love it.

[Shivetya]

well normally farms cannot grow up, skyscraper style. Also, situating the building properly should allow for some of it to also be used for power generation. Then lets go further, make it tall enough that the warm air rising from the bottom could be used to generate power.

[idibidiart]

right, that's the point of stacking and other structure-wise efficiency enhancement... I didn't go as far as the warm air rising =)

[idibidiart]

see this other structural pattern for maximizing use of available light (be it LED light or sun light)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020355030...