WEBVTT - Tall Tales With Vertical Farming 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:06.720 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:19.599 Forward Thinking. Welcome everyone to Forward Thinking. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.520 I'm Lauren Vocaldam, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.320 wanted to talk about something that we think is an 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.240 interesting subject. It's a bit problematic, but we wanted to 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.400 talk about vertical farms, what they are, why they might 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.760 be important, and some of the challenges that we could 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.000 see if we decided to try and pursue vertical farms 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.279 as an actual solution. But before we get too far 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.080 into it, I guess we really need to talk about 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:50.160 what exactly is a vertical farm. Uh. Really, it's kind 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.600 of what it sounds like. It's it's a farm that 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.600 is arranged vertically as opposed to horizontally, so instead of 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:01.000 a big farmland exactly you start us stacking it kind of, Joe, 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.240 you were talking about it sort of being like, imagine 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.240 a greenhouse. Yeah, Well, essentially, the main ideas you would 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.240 have a mostly glass structure that allows sunlight to penetrate, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.600 and it would be as if you were to take 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.400 a greenhouse and put a greenhouse on top of it, 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.240 and then at another greenhouse and keep building up as 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.960 far as you can go. And the main idea is 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.520 to see if you can create a farm that stretches 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.880 up towards the sky instead of out in all directions, right, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.920 So you're taking advantage of a vertical alignment so that 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.680 you don't you don't need as much land to produce crops. 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.679 And obviously the purpose of this is to fit it 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.080 within a city, right, because if you've got plenty of 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.000 land out in the countryside, why not use it, right, 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.040 assuming that, of course the environmental impact would not be 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:53.640 so negative as to actually harm the production of crops 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.320 over a certain amount of time, And obviously that's something 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.440 that you have to take into account. But yeah, so 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:04.240 so really it's kind of an idea of producing crops, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:09.160 even livestock within an urban environment so that you aren't 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.600 draining the resources of all the land around you. Well, yeah, 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.959 I looked this up. Apparently according to the U. S 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.359 d A that's the Department of Agriculture, about the land 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:25.160 use in the United States is is agriculture farming? Yeah, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.640 that's a huge number, right, right, and as populations grow, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.400 obviously that that is only going to increase, so uh, 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.520 putting aside the the issue of waste, how much of 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.200 that food or how much of those crops go towards 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.200 a food source as opposed to force something else, whether 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:48.560 it's to feed livestock or to use an energy Our 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.440 cars are that gets exported to feed other people. Right 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.320 Once you once you take out those factors and you 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.000 just look at the food that we need. It still 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.440 is one of the things where we need to look 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.720 at salute oceans besides just just just farms. And could 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.440 vertical farms be that solution? Um, Joe, what was it 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.200 that you wanted to say? Well, I guess we need 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.200 to talk about, uh, what are the advantages of a 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.560 vertical farm? Right? Well, and and to to the version 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.680 that we're really concentrating on is one that was proposed 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.920 by Dixon Despomier, who is a Colombia professor. Uh. He 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.799 kind of posed this question in his class and sort 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.919 of got to think about this vertical farm idea, and 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.119 and why would you want that? And how how could 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.800 it have an advantage over traditional farms? And one of 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.080 them we already answered, which is that it takes up 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.400 less real estate, less horizontal real estate than your rate. Um, 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.920 so that's that's one advantage right there. Another is the 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.200 idea of producing your food very close to where the 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.920 consumers are. Uh, there's a large percentage of the world's 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.720 population located in urban areas, and that that numbers actually 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.000 growing more and more people are moving towards cities, or 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.520 you could look at it as cities are sprawling out 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.040 to slowly envelop and swallow hole all the people, right, Yeah, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.000 because that's where the jobs are, right, That's yeah, Metro Atlanta. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.880 I mean, that's a great example. It's definitely more of 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.800 a sprawl rather than growing up, which is kind of 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.560 what we're talking about here, is really the concentration is 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.440 building upward rather than outward. But but that that's one 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.560 of the big advantages, right that you have the food 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.400 where you are where you need it. Right, if you 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.960 could make a vertical farm work, and will introduce some 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.320 challenges to that in a few minutes here, but if 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.800 you could make it work, you would have fresher produce 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.640 in the city. For one thing. I mean, that's just 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:47.279 an advance an advantage in the culinary tasty food. Yeah, 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.720 that we're picked an hour ago, right before you get them, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.679 and then maybe maybe on the floor above you, right exactly, 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.159 they came down the elevator. Um. And also you would 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.279 have much less transportation cost and so that it's a 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.120 we can look at the economics of that in a minute. 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.520 But one of the things that has concerned people is 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.520 this idea of food miles. Right, how far does your 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:11.800 food travel before it gets to you, and how much 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.200 energy is spent taking the food from a farm in 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:21.479 Kansas or Mexico, or Chile or China, southern California, any 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.560 of these places to get it to your grocery store. Sure, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.520 so we've got the advantage of the food being right here. 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:30.120 We have the advantage of you don't have to worry 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.880 about the transportation costs, although we'll we'll get into that 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.600 in a second as well. Um, the other advantage not 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:41.400 just the transportation costs from an economic standpoint, you also 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.159 have uh greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation. You've got 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.680 toxin emissions associated with that. Now, granted, there are greenhouse 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.520 gas emissions and toxins that are associated just with the 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.040 production of food, so you're not going to get around 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:00.240 that as much as you would the transportation issue, but 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.359 that's still something that you can take into consideration with 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.280 the vertical farms. Another potential advantage, at least that I've 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:11.480 wade about, is the ability to reuse materials, especially water. 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.480 Um there's a lot of water that goes into agricultural production, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.159 and one idea that's been floated is that you could 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:25.719 reuse gray water from residential areas or even in a 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.679 mixed use building, say water that comes from the drain 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.360 in your sink or in your shower, and that goes 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.680 to water the crops right. And then of course there's 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.720 also the fact that you would not necessarily need to 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.479 use up so much soil. We were talking before we 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:45.320 started recording about the idea of hydroponics, and essentially hydroponics 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.800 is growing crops using a nutrient base that does not 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.920 require actual soil. You don't have to plant the plants 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.600 and soil. You use this nutrient base, and usually you 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.960 have the plants suspended in something like they might have 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.839 their roots surrounded by a kind of inert gravel or 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.880 some other uh item that keeps them upright, or you 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.640 could even in theory, have them suspended. As long as 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.440 you were able to supply the nutrients to the the 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.400 root systems, then you would be able to continue growing them. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.080 Another advantage is the idea that you don't have seasons anymore, 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.960 because if you have a climate controlled vertical farm, meaning 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:29.000 that you have control over how much light is introduced, 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.520 you have the control over the actual temperature, the moisture levels, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.760 the nutrient levels. If you can control all those factors, 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.760 then you could grow crops all year round. You wouldn't 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.240 have a season, so you wouldn't have to worry like, well, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.240 you know, I want to get ocrab, but it's not 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.200 in season right and you don't have to worry about 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.480 the expensive importing oranges from somewhere extremely far away. They're 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:54.880 can grow them right there. So this all sounds so great, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.560 but I'm not seeing them everywhere yet. Yeah, So I 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.240 wonder if there are some curious challenges that we would 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.680 have to overcome in order to implement something like this. 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.920 There are both serious and humorous challenges to this. Uh No, 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.280 there are a lot of challenges. One of the big 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.080 challenges comes down to energy. How much energy do you 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.000 need to be able to make a vertical farm work. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.840 Even when you're talking about conserving water by recycling it 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.120 as much as possible, Even if you're talking about say 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.080 co location, where you try and put other things that 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.920 generate heat so that you can use that heat as 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:33.920 part of the HVAC system. If you have a server 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.240 farm next to your food farm, then you can use 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.080 the heat from one to heat the other. Right, So 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.160 like Google headquarters is right next to the cornfield, right, 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.679 that wouldn't that wouldn't the corn towers Actually wouldn't surprise 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.559 me one bit knowing the way Google works. But uh, 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:51.680 and in fact Google does have some of the largest 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.640 data farms out there. But that's you know, that's still 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.440 that's still just one part of the problem. I mean, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.240 the taller you build the building, the greater your energy 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.720 needs are to keep that system going. Because you know, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.199 it's it's water circulation, it's the heating and cooling, it's 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.840 the artificial light. Because one of the issues you have 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.480 is how do you design a tall building to take 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.600 advantage of sunlight because it's not going to be the 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.160 sunlight is not going to be evenly distributed across each 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.280 floor for an entire day. In a horizontal farm, the 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.000 sun is free and yeah, it's yeah, it becomes a 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.600 whole separate problem, right, And so when you have a 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.880 vertical farm. Then for it to really work, you're going 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.720 to have to supplement the light that any one floor 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.960 gets in some way, whether that is through moving the 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.120 plants around. Because Joe, you were talking about the system 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.040 that was kind of interesting. Well, one thing you've seen 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.640 in a couple of prototypes is something like a ferris wheel. 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.160 You load the plants up to a moving tray or 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.199 card of some kind and it it cycles them through 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.880 with giving them greater access to the light from the 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.400 roof um as the day goes on. But of course 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.320 you're still dealing with a problem there that even if 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.679 you cycle them through the one they're not getting the 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.200 constant actually just planted them in the middle of a field. 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.320 So so really you have to supplement the light in 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.079 some way, either by moving the plants or by by 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.240 creating artificial sunlight. Uh. And that means that you're actually 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.080 expending energy just to give them the energy they normally 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.720 would get for free if it was in a horizontal farm. 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.800 So that's that's something that a lot of people have 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.160 pointed out as a big problem and the idea that 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.439 it's not energy efficient to build these vertical farms. Even 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.080 if you are talking about supplementing the energy they require. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.920 With things like solar panels or wind turbines, you're probably 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.560 not going to generate the energy you need to keep 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.400 that that going without it tapping into the power grid. 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.920 And the question then becomes is it actually more energy 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:00.240 efficient to operate a vertical farm versus a traditional farm? 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.040 And if it's less energy efficient, then why are we 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.199 doing Why are we doing it right? Especially when you're 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.520 talking about artificial light, that's the big one, because you're like, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.440 this is a this is a resource that's literally free 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.960 to us with the traditional setup, and it costs us 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.880 in the vertical setup. So unless we can demonstrate that 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:23.000 the benefit we get from the vertical standpoint is greater 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.040 than the energy expenditure that we we get using this method, 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.200 why do we do it well? So, these concerns are 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.760 out there, and we know that people have had to 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.960 think about them before they've invested in prototypes of vertical farms. 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.280 But so one thing it might help to do is 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.640 to look at where people have tried to build these 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.320 things and and see what reasons might have motivated them. 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.240 One thing I think we all read about it, of course, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.319 is an NPR piece about the sky greens farm right 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.880 in Singapore. Of course, Singapore seems like an ideal location 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.760 for vertical farm because I mean real estate values there. 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.960 It's densely populated places on Earth, is sure, yes, um, 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.400 And so obviously there's no room in Singapore to really 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.800 go out and lay out a unless you're going to 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.040 raise a few buildings. Then yeah, you're not going to 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.040 build any farms out there. So it may be an 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.679 issue of there's an economic conflict here. Um, there are 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.840 great costs to investing in something like this, but in 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.400 tight enough circumstances it might pay off. Right. Yeah, in 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:32.440 certain countries where you either have very little farmable land 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:37.640 that's that's available, or the seasons just don't don't really 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.120 um fall in such a way that makes it easy 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.160 for you to to grow anything, it might actually make 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.080 a lot of sense to do vertical farms, although a 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.640 lot of people have argued that perhaps the greenhouse route 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.880 would be as efficient or perhaps more efficient. So apart 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.280 from the energy barriers that we have here with vertical farms, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.280 there may all so be economic barriers. First of all, 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.360 just building a vertical farm would require a pretty enormous 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.720 initial investment, so that asking for that can be difficult. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.120 And also if it's you'd be taking a risk too, 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.600 because it's somewhat unproven. Sure, and uh, if you are 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.200 spending all this money, that also may mean that in 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.240 order to recapture those costs, that you end up having 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.240 to charge more for the produce you produce in your 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.600 produce you produce within the vertical farm, right, right, although 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:32.880 you know, at a certain point, is it worth it 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.280 if you can get a tomato that is incredibly delicious 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.520 and only have to go upstairs to get it, is 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:39.760 you know, would people pay for them? Right? I mean, 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.000 if you buy greens that are picked today, people would 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.520 pay up for that? I think, well, yeah, that some 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.640 people would. They say in that same piece we were 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.360 talking about, they said, in Singapore, the greens from that 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.600 vertical farm there costs five to more than standard greens 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:57.480 at the grocery store where people were buying them. Well, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.840 it's not bad. I mean, you know, a five increase 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:01.720 is you know? Yeah, I was thinking of some kind 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.000 of outrageous like fifty kind of increase in food coast 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.440 it was it might and so and so the vertical 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.520 farms may make a lot more sense in particular communities 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.000 you know, where we have these pre existing conditions, like 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.760 for example, there are islands in the Caribbean where they 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.480 have really no agriculture whatsoever, so they import everything or 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.080 their communities, say in Alaska that have to or Hawaii 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.480 that have to import a lot of the stuff they use. Uh, 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.400 and those expenses get pretty high because they're they're in 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.480 fairly remote areas. That's you know, it's a challenge to 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.960 get stuff there in a way that's efficient and economically feasible. 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.040 So it may make perfect sense there. It might actually 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.520 offset some of the prices that they're spending on certain 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.680 items right now. Right if you even if you live 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.760 in a place like New York or something like there, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.200 or even in Atlanta, it might make sense to target 0:14:55.320 --> 0:15:00.240 certain crops for vertical farming, right um to say, you know, well, 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.600 we have fairly close access to the corn and the 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.600 all these other things we teach, but we really you know, 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.040 we've got to fly vegetables in from Europe or from 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.160 South America if we want this special fruit or something 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.000 like that. So if I want my wassabi, I have 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.440 to fly in either from one place in Hawaii or Japan. 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.560 So in those cases it might make sense to invest 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:29.680 in uh, urban farming solutions for for yeah, things like 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.200 like grapes that don't grow very well here in this particular. Yeah, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.640 that's a terrible example, because we totally have wine country 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:37.280 in the Georgia Hills. There's a wine in them their 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.440 hills even even so there, but the point at the 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.800 point being that depending upon where in the world you are, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.840 you may not have access to certain kinds of of foods, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:49.560 and so if you were to design vertical farms that 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.000 specifically targeted that, then that would be a reason to 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.440 do so, right, And this also I wanted to mention 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.960 might kind of go along with I think what is 0:15:58.000 --> 0:15:59.600 going to need to happen, which is a little bit 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.640 of a change in in perception of food because we're 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:04.640 also used to being able to get whatever we want 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.600 whenever we want it, and if we really want to 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.760 live in a more energy conservative way, um, you know, 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.560 we're not always going to have access to green globe 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.560 grapes that we can just run down to the store 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.720 and grab. Um we might need to future is dark 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.520 and frightening, well, but you know, but it's but it's 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.720 not a terrible thing to to to think more about 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.320 eating seasonally and and appreciating really good strawberries when you 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.440 get them, versus having terrible cardboard strawberries six months out 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.880 of the year that cost you five times more than 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:38.640 they otherwise would. Well, and also another solution that people 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.720 could look at for these these problems that we're talking 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.800 about with these vertical farms, some of them involved just 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.200 designing buildings differently instead of we all have kind of 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.280 a stock image in our minds of what a skyscraper 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.560 looks like, but some of these vertical farms look a 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.600 lot different from that image. For example, there are some 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.640 designs that are heard in a way so that each 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.640 level is slightly smaller than the level below it, which 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.360 increases the amount of sunlight the lower levels can receive 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.000 on any given day. And you know, you orient that 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.400 building when you build it to such a way so 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.080 that you get as much sunlight throughout a typical day 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.919 as you possibly can, and you lower the need for 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.760 things like that artificial sunlight we were talking about earlier. 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.720 Of course, then it becomes less like the skyscraper, right, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.879 but it's still a vertical farm, it's just not in 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.800 the form. It's not necessarily a vertical Yeah, it's not 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.480 like a it's not like a multi use building where 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.560 you know, floors one through fifteen or residential sixteen through 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.600 thirty our offices, and thirty one through fifty are farms. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.120 It's it's not like that. But but it would still 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.240 be a vertical farm. It just might not it might 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.000 not stretch up thirty stories. It may be more like fifteen, 0:17:54.200 --> 0:18:00.560 but uh, diagonal farm. Yeah, still vertical. Yeah, I believe you. 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:06.040 I can show you pictures. Uh non audio podcast unfortunately, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:10.000 but these are you know, these are the possible solutions 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.480 we're looking at. And beyond that, there are alternatives there. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.440 You know, we have people work living in urban areas 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:21.480 today who are looking at and or even creating uh, 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.040 gardening spaces and farming spaces within the city limits. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.200 there's you know, lots of park space that is certainly gorgeous, 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.280 but it can be gorgeous and also have apple trees. 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:32.600 You know, it doesn't these things don't. Food does not 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.760 have to be mutually exclusive with urban beauty. And also 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.000 just just roof rooftop gardens are small personal gardens on 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:41.720 a porch are all terrific ways to get a little 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.360 bit extra food. There's actually quite a few community gardens 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.120 in the Atlanta area in particular. In fact, I know 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.960 of three or four that are pretty close to where 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.960 I live now. That can be complicated because depending upon 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.399 what city you live in, there may be very strict 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.040 rules as to what you can and cannot grow. But 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.520 but that's one of those things that could help offset 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.120 the need for going outside the city limits to get 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.080 your food. Those uh, those rooftop gardens have a lot 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:11.960 of advantages, don't they don't They say that they like 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.880 cut down on that urban heat island defects. Sure, yeah. 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.960 They also, of course all plants take in carbon dioxide, 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.120 so there's that there's a as long as we've got 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.160 cars is a pretty excellent thing, right, it's a carbon 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:29.280 dioxide sink. It may not offset that. That's actually that 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.919 brings up another criticism I've read about vertical farms, in 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:37.000 the idea that in in greenhouses and in these vertical 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:42.719 farm models, often you would want to uh pump in 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.479 more carbon dioxide than would normally be in a regular 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.800 mixture of of atmosphere in an attempt to essentially are 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.480 feeding the plants. Right, It's like it would be like 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.080 an oxygen rich environment for us, right, so would be 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.200 a carbon dioxide rich environment for them. And I've said, 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:03.320 I've read some some criticisms that say, well, you know, 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.359 how do you get the carbon dioxide, And one of 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.440 the common ways is through combustion, you burn something in 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.040 common box side is but that just ends up releasing 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.480 other elements. Yeah, so so there so there again more 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.240 problems here, but it's not all all bad and um. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:25.240 And of course, even if we reach the ideal vertical 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.040 farm world where it makes perfect sense, maybe we have 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.560 some energy surplus for some reason, we've we've cracked that 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.879 nut and the energy isn't an issue anymore, so we 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.159 can we can, depending upon your point of view, invest 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:46.480 or waste energy on these vertical fusion reactors online. We've 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.320 we've harnessed the power of the galaxy itself and now 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.040 we're gonna have our vertical farms. Gosh darn it. But 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.800 even if we do that, uh, the numbers really don't 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.919 add up, you don't. It's really hard to envision a 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.879 world where we have enough vertical farms to offset the 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.119 need for our food. So it looks like it's not 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.280 just hard, it's kind of impossible. Right, There's just a 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.040 scale problem. We we we would essentially have to replace all 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:15.199 of our buildings with vertical farms. Even then that wouldn't work, right, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:19.359 I mean, what the vertical farming future, if it is 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:24.720 a feasible possibility, it's supplemental. It's not to replace all 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:30.240 of the farms culture. It can't, It can't possibly, right, So, really, 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:32.480 what we're looking at is a way to kind of 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.960 offset it a little bit, to reduce our reliance upon 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.560 traditional horizontal farms and thus reduce the impact that we 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:46.760 make either through the whole the production process the environmental 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.840 impact of just clearing out land to make a farm. 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.160 We can we can definitely take a chunk of that out, 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.879 which is an important part of conservation and sustainability, especially 0:21:57.920 --> 0:21:59.800 if we do things like Lauren you were mentioning when 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.520 we were meeting about this earlier. You know, if if 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.200 we were to to shift our diets to be more 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.760 of vegetable and fruit heavy diet as opposed to eating 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:11.040 lots and lots of meat, then yeah, yeah, it takes 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.400 something like six liters of water to raise a two 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.800 pound steak. Um, not even not even a two pound cow. 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.280 I mean like a yeah, two pound steak just just 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:26.080 nurturing a two pound steak. How many big gulps of water? 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.840 Is that? That's a lot. It's a lot of big gulps. Um. Yeah, 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.000 that's that. I mean obviously, if we were to shift 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:38.080 to a more vegetarian type of diet, not necessarily strictly vegetarian, 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.040 but but more so, then we would, uh, we would 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:44.360 really a lot of the need for that kind of thing, 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.800 exactly exactly. And also, yeah, there's probably a lot of 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:48.119 crops that are a lot more I mean, you know, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.159