Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaonashi | Hacker News Reader

The LED grow lights seem to be a real game-changer; the most modest estimates put the power savings at ~%50 (over HPS).

However in the article's example there is only negative power savings as the plants used to get fed for free from the sun, now they're consuming electricity from the grid.

Now that might be recoverable via reductions in waste and lower water consumption (see article) but it isn't automatically a net win, it might be a net loss overall. Need data.

'The LED lights are a key part of the farm’s magic. They allow Shimamura to control the night-and-day cycle and accelerate growth. “What we need to do is not just setting up more days and nights,” he says. “We want to achieve the best combination of photosynthesis during the day and breathing at night by controlling the lighting and the environment.”'

Also: 'He is also able to cut discarded produce from 50 percent to just 10 percent of the harvest, compared to a conventional farm. As a result, the farms productivity per square foot is up 100-fold, he says.

By controlling temperature, humidity and irrigation, the farm can also cut its water usage to just 1 percent of the amount needed by outdoor fields.'

These are serious productivity gains, but, as you say, they have to be balanced against electricity use.

The water consumption savings certainly could outweigh all other factors. Extended droughts, climate movements, and off-world colonization all would benefit.

A more immediate opportunity would be placing production close to the area of consumption. The developing and developed world will fail to address their problems with diabetes and obesity induced diseases as long as the population has limited access to fresh produce. Being rich in NYC or SF it is easy to take fresh produce for granted, in some major urban areas even if you are rich fresh produce is virtually non-existent.

Additional productivity gains might be made by operating the "indoor farm" within dense urban areas and thus closer to the consumer, thereby removing transportation costs associated with a typical farm.

Those are overblown. Modern mega-scale logistics are stunningly efficient. Food shipped by freight-ship and truck are supposedly more efficient with less polution than a local farmer driving hir* produce to market in a car.

* I hate that term. So clumsy-sounding.

Sure, anything at industrial scale is going to me more efficient than a mom and pop operation. But with a system like this you've got scale and proximity. Instead of having a network of trucks delivering lettuce from California thousands of miles cross country, you can have a small fleet of trucks delivering lettuce within a 2 hour radius. Less spoilage, far less gas, and far less planning and logistics.

This could be huge in cities with abandoned/run down industrial districts that have been hard hit by globalization.

how about "their", no need to bring gender into it.

He/She = They

His/Hers = Their.

Him/Her = Them.

Agreed. More data is needed to see clearly if on a larger scale this is economically feasible to do. From my little experience with hydroponics, water and land use are the two major wins. Electricity can be a deal breaker but that depends on a lot of factors (type of produce, electricity prices, closeness to city, production vs consumption quantities, etc).

From a personal point of view, I strongly support this type of growth for a couple of reasons: more food for less cost, cities gain food independence, natural land use and abuse gets curtailed dramatically. Now if we could only switch more people (me included) to a vegetarian diet.

Another huge advantage with indoor farming is the decreased need for pesticides. Decreased production and environmental costs + a healthier, organic product for consumers... what's not to love?

It uses fractional water resources, which from a substitution value in California at least, is a net 'savings'. Should we ever get to a point where power is massively abundant (fusion) the water use will be a factor as it is easier to transport electrons that desalinated water.

I an industrial setting, one could use a light pipe during the day augmented by LEDs on either side. In a near hermetic environment pests could be kept under control w/o chemicals.

Light pipes, like green houses, have an issue that the light source is blocked by the first plant it hits :-). The thing the article calls out that is different is that by using these thin GE grow LEDs they were able to have stacks and stacks of grow rows in a relatively small space.

That said, I would not be surprised to see some farmers in the central valley move to more green houses given their water rationing.

Right; the savings (over conventional growing, not indoor w/HPS) would have to come from increasing yield due to the controlled environment.

I remember seeing bleeding edge cannabis growers experimenting with LED lights several years ago. Now most growers I know use use supplemental LED lights in their operation.

I built some of those early prototype lights. It was nothing remotely close to cost effective at the time, but I was doing a lot of work with LEDs and thought it would be interesting to see how the power consumption and heat management problems would improve using LEDs. It was enough to convince me that LED grow lights were absolutely the way of the future.

Now that cannabis growing is legal here in Washington, though, it will be interesting to see whether outdoor growing can compete. The advantage of being able to precisely control your plant's growth cycle is pretty significant even compared to getting your power for free from the sun.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com