Re: Agricultural Skyscrapers

Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:17:20 -0800


On Tue, Jan 27, 1998 at 07:16:49PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Yes, there is plenty of land, but that is not the point. The point is
> that you grow the plants right in the middle of the city, next to the
> consumers. Very low transport costs, and you can get extremely fresh
> vegetables directly (with no soil to wash away!). Besides, if you keep
> the hydroponics sealed, you can avoid many pests and have no need for
> pesticides.

Whether or not it would be profitable to grow plants in the middle of a
city probably depends mostly on the relative costs of transportation of
food versus construction and operation of an agricultural skyscraper. Is
there any reason to expect that the latter will fall much faster than the
former?