SkyFarms

On 8/20/08, sailor.barsoom wrote:
(...)
> You may well be right. I'm thinking artificial lighting,
> etc. But I haven't really done any research, crunched any
> numbers. I'd sure like to see something like this happen,
> if it's practical. Maybe even the outsides of the buildings
> could be covered in ferns or ivy or some such.
(...)

I vaguely remember some designs that actually captured solar light
hitting the building laterally. (For instance at dawn or dusk, or in
medium-to-high latitudes any time of the day.) Looking at the problem
energetically, I think that vertical farms would be nice for plants
that grow better under more indirect light (some green leaves come to
mind), but energy-rich crops that naturally need a lot of sun would
not fare well.