The picture is me over a decade ago, doing microscopic analysis of live plant tissues growing under targeted-spectrum LED lighting in a vertically-stacked hydroponics building, and proving the viability of the very technology being discussed in the thread article.
This isn't even new tech. We've been using it since the 90s. The LEDs are new, everything else is exactly the same as it was back then. Maybe better nutrient profiles.
On the other side of the picture, behind the camera, was a grass-growing system that didn't require light for the grass to grow at all. We were doing artificial photosynthesis over there.
What's REALLY the big thing here is the NFT hydroponics technique being utilized.
Even several decades ago, you got great yields on regular land using far less water. Not even multiple stacked systems.
Now that we have good LED tech, stacked grow systems indoors makes a lot of sense. 1/8 of an acre to produce what 1 acre does, using much less in the way of resources. Water? Hugely reduced depending on the hydroponics system. Yields? Comparable or greater in a reduced footprint. Energy usage? Think about all that fuel those tractors you no longer need are burning to till soil, harvest crops, and do general field work on top.
Everything slowly combines to become an economically and ecologically-sound system.
Not so fast, you just skated right past capital requirements for build out, maintenance costs, and the sun. There was an article posted in here not two weeks ago detailing how the entire stacked grow startup industry is imploding due to increases in energy costs and I'm quite certain you haven't figured out how to grow tomatoes in pitch blackness.
I don't understand "artificial photosynthesis". Glucose in the water?
Elsewhere you write "electrocatalysis-based artificial photosynthesis". Wires clipped to the roots?
Solar Foods, in Finland, has a strain of Xanthobacter agilis that eats hydrogen, nitrogen, and CO2, and produces tasty protein (70% by dried weight) and carotenes. Their plan is to electrolyse water for the hydrogen, using renewable power.
