This arugula is the bomb
I do understand why they’re doing this, but I’ll admit that when first reading the summary here, the notion struck me as odd: capturing wind energy to power underground lights feels like using power from a hydroelectric plant to run distribution pumps, rather than just letting the water flow unimpeded.
I want a photo of HughHowey standing in one of these.
Absolutely not carbon neutral. If the growers were using sunlight rather than wind power, the wind power could go somewhere else to displace high-carbon sources of electricity. It’s all about where one draws ones borders for the life cycle analysis.
It is much easier to manage agriculture with this level of isolation, so this might have all sorts of benefits, but carbon neutrality isn’t one of them except to the extent the marketing department says it is…
Yea, sounds a bit like “carbon neutral, as long as you only consider the electricity used to run the LED’s”.
Talk about gilding the lily…
talk about trampling the flowers…
I always wondered how the Morlock got started…
Apparently their produce is packaged in plastic containers.
That does not look very carbon neutral.
That’s… not what they eat.
Of course, the French will tell you they did it first, and better.
Well exactly - the most efficient way of using the sun’s energy to grow plants, is to plant them in dirt in a place where the sun will shine on them. Manufacturing turbines, power distribution infrastructure, hydroponic equipment and fertilizers - it’s a massive investment of (mined) materials and (often coal) power.
I mean, it makes sense if you’re growing marijuana illegally - the operation is hidden and well fortified, and the extreme markups the War on Some People Who Make and Use Some Drugs makes possible allow you to pay off the extreme inefficiency of the whole operation.
I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations a little while ago, and as far as I can tell, wind energy is effectively 25% fossil fuel, just from mining and smelting materials, and then manufacturing the turbines. Another way of looking at it - over a turbine’s 20 year expected life, the first 5 years or so are spent breaking even on the energy expended manufacturing the turbines.
Shutup shutup shutup! TOMATOES! I swear it’s just tomatoes!
Perhaps if they pumped CO2 in the chambers to foster growth (not carbon neutral, but would be good marketing material).
Is there another (publicly acceptable) thing these shelters could be used for more effectively?
Unless they’re installing their own wind turbines, I don’t see how this is carbon neutral.
If they didn’t purchase the energy, would it not get used? No, it would simply go to someone else. Instead, that person now has to buy “dirty” energy. Electricity is fungible, and flows where ever it’s needed.
You increase the carbon-neutrality of electricity by building more green energy sources, not simply by consuming from existing ones.
I have terrible SAD. so there’s… lights. Yes. Winter you see. Awful…
Arugula is also called “rocket” in Britain.
Now I know where the DC metro stations got their design.
