Not Your Old McDonald’s Farm

December 11th, 2012 in Current Issue, Fall 2012, Life & Physical Sciences 1 comment

Vertical farms could provide the food of the future.

Article by Katie Griswold

Overcrowding effecting countries worldwide. Image credit | Flickr via Wikimedia Commons

According to a growing body of evidence, the human species may be in crisis.  Earth is becoming overpopulated, polluted, and drained of resources at an alarming rate. The basic issue is simply about numbers: there are a whole lot of us, and not much land. The planet is currently populated by 7 billion human beings, and projected to rise to 9.5 billion people by 2050.¹ In order to feed the growing population, we would need an area of additional farmland approximately the size of Brazil.² Yet we cannot create much more arable land than we have. The productivity of plant life may already be at maximum capacity even as we try to increase crop yield year after year.³ We need to work with what we have already taken to meet our needs.

Unfortunately, we are not using our resources wisely.  Commercial agricultural practices typically have high-energy costs due to irrigation methods, fertilizer, and fuel usage.  As the cost of fuel increases, so does the market cost of food. While products like corn ethanol reduce fuel costs in the short term, this means more of our limited crop supply is not available for consumption and may further increase the cost of food. The current system also forces us all to depend on a select few countries to produce enough to feed the whole world, causing high shipping costs, and one poor growing season can place dire limitations on all of us.⁴

The mass majority of fresh water used is for irrigation needs. Credit | USDA via Wikimedia Commons

Furthermore, current irrigation methods waste more water than any other human activity. Between 70% and 90% of the world’s freshwater supply (which is a mere 3% of all water to begin with) is used for irrigation of farmland and then rendered unsanitary for human use due to pesticides.² On top of these issues, modern agricultural practices cause high outputs of pollutants in our air and water and lead to food-borne illnesses due to unsanitary animal overcrowding. Our only hope is to change the way we feed ourselves, to reduce waste and to maximize efficiency without increasing our consumption of materials. What we need is another agricultural revolution.

Solving a Growing Problem

The vertical farm is a potential solution for these global issues. Ideally, a vertical farm would be a large, independently operating structure centrally located in a major city. It would feature two multistory, skyscraper-like buildings working together- one to manage food production with nutrient film techniques, and another to manage waste through living machines and generate energy with photovoltaic cells and carbon sequestering. Popularized in recent years by Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University, the concept originated in the 1950’s with a “Glass House” and has been further developed by several innovators over the years.⁵ Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), which allows for control of temperature, pH, and nutrients, has also been employed in for many years in commercial greenhouses in order to produce crops unsuited for the local climate. Although these greenhouses are often high-yielding, they typically require fossil fuels that produce considerable emissions, and do not eliminate agricultural runoff. In contrast, the vision of the vertical farm is one of grand scale: sky-scraping, glass-paneled buildings placed in every major urban center to provide affordable, carbon neutral, pollutant-free food to the cities’ residents. A project of this scale involves a huge number of factors, all dependent on the ratio of cost to potential yield. This could completely change the way we get food from the ground to the table. Instead of shipping produce from several states away, or from outside of the country, grocery stores could stock fruits and vegetables grown right in the heart of their city. It would reduce pollution, increase production, and be healthier for ourselves and the planet.

Designing the Future Farm

Illustration by Evan Caughey

Constructing vertical farms within major cities may eliminate the problems of land shortage, pollution, deforestation, water shortage, and unsanitary practices commonly found in the agriculture industry around the world. Office spaces could be located nearby for the business and management end of the operation. This design would have high initial costs, but over time would recoup these losses and become highly profitable while benefiting urban centers and the environment. Savings from reduced energy and maintenance costs would over time compensate for initial losses, and sales profits are projected to be comparable to stock market averages.² Despite high costs for technology and construction at the upstart, vertical farms could have astounding effects on local and global populations. The cleanliness and convenience of an environmental friendly food center would improve the property value of surrounding urban neighborhoods and improve quality of life. It would be an economic boon to cities and generate a wide range of new urban jobs, but would cause employment and sales losses for rural farmers. Global effects could be even more important. This design would be especially effective in tropical and subtropical locations, where incoming solar radiation is at a maximum and controlled climates are easiest to maintain. If implemented in less developed nations in these locations, vertical farms could transform those economies and be a catalyst to slow excessive population growth as urban agriculture is adopted as a strategy for sustainable food production. It might also reduce or eliminate the occurrence of armed conflict over natural resources, such as water and land, as both would be more available thanks to successful conservation.

Putting the Design to Work

Vertical farming proposes to be the ultimate design for sustainability and conservation of resources. A controlled climate allows for high yield, year-round crop production. Consider strawberries as an example: 1 acre of berries grown indoors produces as much fruit in one year as 30 outdoor acres.² Generally, growing indoor crops is four to six times more productive than outdoor farming. This method also protects plants against inclement weather, parasites, and disease, so fewer crops are lost and toxic chemicals are not needed for pesticides. Using special dirt-free hydroponic systems and re-circulating ‘living machines’, we can even recycle city waste water and turn it into clean water for irrigation.⁶ This method of water use would drastically reduce consumption, eliminate most pollutants found in runoff, and lead to cleaner rivers, lakes and oceans.  Additionally, a vertical farm could add energy “back to the grid”, rather than consuming nonrenewable fossil fuels. Tractors, plows and shipping trucks, all “gas guzzlers”, would be unneeded in a vertical farm.  A combination of solar panels and sequestered methane generated from the composting of non-edible organic materials could generate the heat necessary for a controlled climate.⁷ Essentially, the building could run on sunshine and garbage. Waste from other parts of the city could even be reduced if we were able to incorporate it for methane generation in our farm. Vertical farming might be our answer for low waste, high yield farming of the future.

However, we likely won’t see this solution implemented any time soon.  While technologically possible today, urban vertical farms are unlikely to find a place in society in the near future because of the finances required to begin this endeavor. Hope lies with universities and private institutions to expand the idea with further research and with far-sighted investors to provide the funds to implement this incredible solution. Perhaps with more information, a corporation could be convinced to finance the first commercial vertical farm.

References

¹ United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2011): World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. New York.

² Despommier, Dickson D. The Vertical Farm: Feeding Ourselves and the World in the 21st Century. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2010. Print.

³ Li, Sophia. “Has Plant Life Reached Its Limits?” New York Times. New York Times, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. .

⁴ Lowrey, Annie. “Experts Issue a Warning as Food Prices Shoot Up.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 4 Sept. 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2012. .

⁵ Hix, John. 1974. The glass house. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

⁶ Ives-Halperin, John and Kangas, Patrick C. 2000. 7th International Conference on Wetland Systems for Water Pollution Control. International Water Association, Orlando, FL. pp. 547-555. http://www.enst.umd.edu/files/secondnature.pdf

7 Concordia University (2011, October 4). From compost to sustainable fuels: Heat-loving fungi sequenced. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 18, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2011/10/111003132441.htm.

Tagged agriculture, architecture, energy, farming

Powering Up the Economy

April 27th, 2009 in Applied Science, Fall 2009 0 comments

Perhaps it's time to back the dollar with energy.

Article by Neil Datta

Is it time to consider alternative currency valuations?

Every time you turn on the TV or surf the Internet, you are bombarded with news ofthe current economic crisis. Although the media has portrayed an abysmal future for us, President Obama has declared that he will fix it. Despite President Obama’s New Deal-like policies, it is still clear that the US dollar has not recovered from the financial meltdown. The idea that the dollar could be undervalued or considered weak seems preposterous. After all, wasn’t the US Dollar (USD) backed by solid gold at some point in time? How has the USD reached a point where its value fluctuates based on people trading the dollar instead of being valued at the same price as gold?

The Dollar - Off the Gold Standard

Unfortunately, the dollar is not backed by gold today. Despite starting off as a specie currency that is supported by equally valued goods or services, the USD has not been backed by precious metals since 1971. Facing a mountain of economic issues, President Nixon took the USD off the gold standard. At the time, he faced a trade deficit of $4 billion as well as unemployment and inflation rates of about 5%. In the face of these issues, the gold-backed currency was deemed too inflexible.¹ His action removed the last fixed link between paper money and real goods. Since then, the US dollar has been a fiat currency, which is a type of currency that is not backed by any item of value. Instead, its value lies in a government’s order (fiat) and people’s trust that it must be accepted as a means of payment.² As long as the government continues to guarantee this currency, the banking system is functioning properly, and most members of the general population agree to accept the fiat currency as a form of payment, the economy and daily life continue. Should any one of those conditions change and cause the currency to lose value - such as a weakened banking system - the entire economy may collapse.

The economic crisis we now face can partly be attributed to the USD’s valuation by agreement. Despite Nixon’s attempt at fixing the deleterious financial situation he was in and making the money supply less inelastic, he may have made the situation worse. Freeing the dollar from a physical standard has allowed it to be subject to wild inflation and fluctuation. In fact, Richard Douthwaite, an economist and co-founder of Feasta, The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, argued that our current economic predicament is caused by the fiat nature of not only the dollar, but of most global currencies as well. The world currency market, now detached from a concrete reality, fluctuates from day to day and causes economic misery.¹

Let us examine how the USD’s value has changed since it was detached from the “concrete reality.” The value that dollar bills have is almost purely theoretical. Wouldn’t it then seem logical that the US can solve this situation easily by backing our currency with real goods (such as gold and other precious metals) once again? Although it may seem practical, the idea is not feasible. There is simply not enough gold or any other precious metal in the government’s possession to back all the currency in circulation. In other words, it just costs too much. When the dollar’s value was set in 1873 (the first time the USD was gold-backed), it was equated to 1.505g of gold. Though this seems like a small amount of gold, it is quite valuable. In reality, an 1873 US dollar would be worth much more today than the current dollar: $31.96 current USD/g gold * 1.505g = $48.10 current USD.³ This enormous depreciation of the dollar demonstrates why a precious metal system is not practical - it is simply too expensive.

Its impracticality aside, precious metal valuation is an illogical system, since it simply places an extrinsic value on the dollar. The pre-1971 dollar was based on gold, primarily because humans have placed such a high value on it. In truth, gold’s actual value to society can be debated. Although gold is useful today in industrial applications, research, and medical equipment, it is used in such small amounts that its high value cannot be justified. Furthermore, the gold industry is a major ecological polluter. Isolating gold has disastrous ecological consequences. In countries like Ghana, where gold is mined, toxic cyanide and acids leach into ground water, poisoning it and subsequently harming the nearby inhabitants. Despite all this damage, the gold really serves little purpose besides taking up real estate in vaults.⁴ The relative rarity of the metal thus cannot justify the inflated valuation of the metal or its use in backing currency.

Uranium - the Next Gold?

Imagine having a currency backed by energy.

Perhaps, the dollar’s value would stabilize if its valuation were changed to one that is neither arbitrarily backed by agreement nor backed by a material of mostly extrinsic value. In 1947, the idea of using uranium to back currency was proposed by many

proponents of atomic energy.⁵ The idea was that atomic fission can convert a part of any mass of uranium directly into energy. Although it would be ludicrous to carry around uranium coins, which would likely be radioactive, a uranium-backed currency would result in a useful, real-world goods aspect to the value of the dollar. Unlike gold, uranium is useful by nature, resulting in a greater intrinsic value. Thus, energy, which is the ability to do work, could prove to be of more economic value than precious metals.

One of the most obvious reasons for considering an energy-backed currency is that energy is highly valued today. Nearly every part of daily life requires some sort of power input, especially after the advent of computers. Thus, the need for energy is ubiquitous. It is only logical that we consider basing currency on one of the most valuable modern commodities - energy.

The Solution: Energy-Backed Currency

Since nuclear energy has many problems associated with it (e.g., waste disposal), uranium is probably not the best commodity with which to back a currency. What if currency were based on energy in general, rather than uranium? The currency could be based on the Joule, which is the scientific unit of energy. This currency would, of course, have to be calibrated so that prices are reasonable. For instance, assume that 1 dollar is defined as the potential for receiving 1kJ (1 kiloJoule or 1000 Joules). If a product was priced according to 1 kJ equivalents, a gallon of gas (which contains 130 million Joules of energy) would be $130,000 and a candy bar (containing 1 million Joules) would be $1000.⁶ This is unreasonable, so the system could be accordingly adjusted so that $1 = 1MJ (1 megaJoule = 1 million Joules) instead of 1kJ, resulting in a price of $1 for a candy bar, instead of an outrageous $1000.

There are, however, two problems with this approach. First, if inflation is pervasive in a fiat currency system, it would also be present in an energy-based currency system, since maintaining a stable amount of currency would be difficult. If a nation wants more money, it simply could generate more energy. In addition, energy generation systems may become increasingly efficient in the future and consequently make a larger supply available than ever before. Arguably, this is analogous to a government simply printing money as needed; even though the “extra dollars” would be backed by generated energy, the increased supply of the dollar and the implicit decrease in demand for the dollar would decrease, leading to goods costing more due to inflation. This is better demonstrated by the quantity equation of exchange, MV = PQ, where M = quantity of money in a society, V = the average number of times money changes hands in a year, Q = the quantity of real goods/services created and sold during that year, and P = average price of those goods/services.⁷ If the amount of goods produced (Q) and the number of transactions (V) does not change drastically, increasing the amount of money available (M) by a significant amount would severely increase price (P), resulting in inflation.

Second, energy is too volatile and it cannot be stored very well. Energy storage technology today is primitive. Even today’s most advanced batteries, such as the lithium-ion batteries, have limited lives. Furthermore, energy is not a solid good: it is highly volatile. According to the second law of thermodynamics, if energy is left un-stored or unused, it dissipates to the surroundings.

Life With the Joule-Backed Dollar

Admittedly, this system is not perfect. Implementing it would require that economists devise strategies for dealing with situations, such as those mentioned previously, that can plague the system. If these limitations can be overcome, it would be advantageous to establish an energy-backed currency. For example, Douthwaite has already proposed a similar system based on the energy-backed currency unit (ebcu).⁸ In his system, an international body would grant a limited number of ebcus to countries based on their populations. This concept promotes energy conservation and trading. It also reduces fossil energy usage and the resultant green house gas emissions. It could conceivably even bring a sense of stability to the dollar’s valuation.

Energy will always be concretely useful for some purpose, ensuring that the dollar always has some value. Unlike the current fiat currency system, the government cannot arbitrarily decide that it will no longer honor an energy-backed currency (a danger of the fiat currency), because of energy’s utility. Consumer confidence would increase as people realize that their money is backed by something useful and that that their investments would not suddenly drop in value. Almost everything on earth, including life itself, is a product of energy from the sun. Napoleon Bonaparte, the ambitious general who nearly conquered Europe, even noted this: “If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.”⁹ An energy-based dollar would, therefore, accurately - and poetically - be a representation of the lifeblood of our society.

Tagged currency, economy, energy, finance, gold standard, joule, money, uranium