this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Artificial lighting exists.
Let's assume the energy for lighting comes from solar. Panels are only 20% effective. Now your vertical farm needs 5x the space of a basic farm, and you still have to pay for power instead of using free sunlight. There is some video on YouTube from a salt lake city university professor who works for nasa on growing plants in space about this topic.
Consumer panels are up to 23.5% now, and you can get bifacial cells that can boost that by up to 30%, so up to around 30.55%
Also the light is bouncing around that room, not bouncing off and then back into the sky like it would from the sun, and it's not necessarily all full spectrum, it's the spectrums the plants need, also reducing power compared to what the sun gives it.
Edit: Making shit up now, but what if photosynthesis only needs 30% of the spectrum, and the bifacial panels are 30% it might even be near equal.
https://youtu.be/ISAKc9gpGjw?t=832
You realize that this picture addresses nothing of what I said? It's using 15% when we can get 30%. And still has nothing about what spectrum the plants actually need of what touches them.
Edit: Also a quick search showed 2.9umol/j leds now, and maybe we have higher, so that's up to 870 (3.5x more than image or 62.14% of the sun) hitting the plant now of exactly what it needs instead of 1400 that isn't all what it needs.
Edit: another article from 2017 says the theoretical maximum for LEDs is 4.9-5.1 and we should reach 3.5 within a decade (2027). Also I think I didn't understand the measurement and the 1400 from the sun is the 1400 it needs, but I'm not completely sure.
Also that's 9 years old,