<
https://www.wired.com/story/the-ultra-efficient-farm-of-the-future-is-in-the-sky/>
"Five stories off the ground at Colorado State University, a highly unlikely
garden grows under a long row of rooftop solar panels. It’s late October at 9
am, when the temperature is 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind is cutting. Not
long before my arrival, researchers had pulled the last frost-intolerant crops
out of the substrate underneath the panels, a total of 600 pounds for the
season. In their place, cool-season foods like leafy greens—arugula, lettuce,
kale, swiss chard—still grow, shaded from the intense sunlight up here.
This is no ordinary green roof, but a sprawling, sensor-laden outdoor
laboratory overseen by horticulturalist Jennifer Bousselot. The idea behind
rooftop agrivoltaics is to emulate a forest on top of a building. Just as the
shade of towering trees protects the undergrowth from sun-stress, so too can
solar panels encourage the growth of plants—the overall goal being to grow more
food for ballooning urban populations, all while saving water, generating clean
energy, and making buildings more energy efficient.
“When you stop and think about what we’re going to need as a society—our
building blocks—it’s going to be food, energy, and water, just like it always
has been,” says Bousselot. With rooftop agrivoltaics, “you can produce,
especially in a primarily unused space, two of those things and conserve the
third.”"
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-rail-education-ethiopia-conservation-congo/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
