Re:MIT Media Lab Scientist Used Refugees to Tout Food Comput...
by dmurray on Friday October 25, 2019 @04:05AM
(#21352827)
> nobody would be crazy enough to propose a "vertical solar farm" where LEDs are used to illuminate photovoltaic panels, but vertical farms are exactly as bonkers
This isn't true: at least in theory, you can take white sunlight, produce electricity by the photovoltaic process and power LEDs in a spectrum optimized for plant growth (blue and red light instead of green). In practice the LED efficiency (150-200%) doesn't yet make up for the inefficiency of the best commercially available solar panels (25-30%), but the idea is not fundamentally ridiculous.
And solar power is not always the cheapest form of electricity, or even necessarily competitive. Consider Iceland, with abundant cheap renewable geothermal energy but a shortage of sunlight, and LED-illuminated farms make even more sense (and are already operating at scale).
This isn't true: at least in theory, you can take white sunlight, produce electricity by the photovoltaic process and power LEDs in a spectrum optimized for plant growth (blue and red light instead of green). In practice the LED efficiency (150-200%) doesn't yet make up for the inefficiency of the best commercially available solar panels (25-30%), but the idea is not fundamentally ridiculous.
And solar power is not always the cheapest form of electricity, or even necessarily competitive. Consider Iceland, with abundant cheap renewable geothermal energy but a shortage of sunlight, and LED-illuminated farms make even more sense (and are already operating at scale).