Andy <q> wrote:

>Steve Pope said...

>> All this implies is that the vertical spacing from floor to
>> floor must be large compared to the width of the floor.

>>>Artificial sunlight would be the only feasible way to do a city block 10
>>>acre/10 story building. No other way to do it.

>> I completely disagree. Why would you need to build a tall building
>> (as opposed to a flat one) if you're simply piping in
>> electricity for lighting? The whole purpouse of a vertical
>> arangement is to intersect a large segment of sunlight
>> for a given footprint, thus justifying the construction cost
>> of a tall structure.

>OK, let's take the Pentagon, for example. It sits on 34 acrews but has
>149.219467 acres of floor space.
>
>Would you rather pay electricity and water and construction costs for
>building 150 acres of vertical farm or just use 150 acres of God's green
>earth. Which is the greener solution?

The premise of vertical farming is that you can site the
things in the middle of a densely populated area, thus
saving transport cost/energy in taking the product to market
relative to conventional farming. Whether these costs
offset the cost of building/maintaining the vertial structure
are to me unclear, but that's the premise.

Steve