The Need Is Great

We are facing ever increasing problems from global warming and the ability to produce food in sheltered places may be among the most important of all the things we can do to prepare ourselves for the future.

Studies have shown skyscraper greenhouses are practical and feasible.  I believe the world needs as many high rise and low rise greenhouses as we can get as soon as possible.  Here’s why.

These greenhouses can be power houses in many ways.

Living close to the source of our food allows avoiding the use of large quantities of hydrocarbon fuels. We minimize processing, packaging, and distribution energies. Organic waste from nearby city activities quickly become nutrients for growing food and medicines in complex micro climate environments distributed within these platform structures.

Associated with the high rise greenhouses are cloche fields, subterranean greenhouses, sunken gardens with espalier walls, constructed wet lands, power generators and town scale canneries.

Concentrating solar trough collectors provide heat energy for pasteurization, crop drying, power generation, paint drying, wood drying, and cooking.  By cascading energy systems in these complexes, a great variety of tasks requiring low temperature heat  can be located in efficient sequences to become mutually supporting systems.

These greenhouses can help us protect bio-diversity everywhere by letting us minimize the land surface we devote to tractor farming.

Water recycling saves energy and these greenhouses can do that with mastery.  They can pull water out of the air by cooling the greenhouse air to comfortable working temperatures for people.    Wetlands in the landscaping of the greenhouse complex are great ways to clean water the way nature does it!  There are also a great variety of mechanical systems that can be employed to aid in the water recycling effort.  Living machine technologies use cascades of tanks, each with different kinds of plants and animals living in them, to purify water.  Perhaps most importantly, greenhouses avoid the use of excessive amounts of water because the envelope of the structure is impermeable to water transfer.  Lower temperatures inside the greenhouse also reduce the amount of evaporation losses to the air.

Food drying is the oldest known method for preserving food and greenhouses trying to shed excessive heat during summer months can send that heat to food drying facilities located nearby.

By surrounding the base of high rise greenhouses with architecture designed to reflect sunlight toward the greenhouse, natural light is used to grow the plants and artificial lighting is minimized.

Each greenhouse complex may also contain research facilities for growing and studying plants such as endangered species, newly discovered food plants, or developing medicinal plants.

Below the following pictures are some web links to sites where you can learn more about vertical farming for the future.