
Arctic farming: Town defies icy conditions with hydroponics - Mz
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ARCTIC_FARMING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-11-04-14-31-47
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donquichotte
The energy problem is mentioned almost in passing, but it could be a deal
breaker for this type of farming. Ventilation, heating and delivering light
for photosynthesis require vast amounts of electrical energy, which, according
to the article, comes mainly from diesel.

Averaged over a day, the sun provides > 12kWh per m^2 in farmable regions
(estimated). It takes 70 days to grow cabbage, so for 1m^2 of cabbage that
would amount to 168$ at 20cents/kWh.

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tom_mellior
> The energy problem is mentioned almost in passing, but it could be a deal
> breaker for this type of farming.

Indeed. Some harsh places do have lots of essentially free energy, though:
100% of Iceland's electricity comes from a combination of geothermal and
hydropower; 99% of Norway's from hydro (source: Wikipedia). I've been
wondering for a while if they could use that for this kind of agriculture.
Looks like it might work.

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ogrisel
More than electricity, heating can be very cheap when your farm is on top of
an active volcano.

In Iceland many greenhouses can grow tomatoes and bananas because they have
direct access to hot water from the ground bellow.

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malanj
If you're also interested in seeing photos of the setup (and the containers),
I found some here: [http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-arctic-farming-
hyd...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-arctic-farming-
hydroponics-20161104-story.html)

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Mz
To the various critics: A) As someone noted, this is a small town. B) It has a
high unemployment rate and it is very remote, so there is both lack of capital
and high up front costs. C) It is a tribal culture whose traditional diet is
hunter-gatherer based local foods. D) It is so expensive to import produce
that this project is already competitive with existing produce prices. The
value lies in the fact that it is fresher. They hope to get costs down, this
is why they are talking about wind power.

I will add that the article only briefly touches on the lack of roads in
Alaska. Alaska has something like six times as many pilots per capita as any
other state. Due to the extreme weather during the winter, flying is a common
form of travel. This adds to the logistical challenges -- and expense --
involved in trying to import new technologies of this scale.

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aaron695
> But operators are trying to work out kinks and find ways to lower energy
> costs, possibly through such alternatives as wind power.

This is such a wtf.

If wind power was lower in cost, why wouldn't everyone use it over diesel?

It's always a huge warning sign to me.

A project, that looks exciting and new, also powered by renewables.

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bildung
An economics professor and one of her students are walking down the street
together. The student says “Hey, look, there’s a $20 bill on the sidewalk!”
The professor replies by saying “That’s impossible- if it really were a $20
bill, it would have been picked up by now."

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aaron695
And would you pick it up if it cost you $18 and been there for a week?

The meme of funny stories about economics professor wears a bit thin really.
Its a harder degree than many people who create these stories have.

If these $20 bills pay off then do it for real not on top of another risky
project of picking up a $50 bill for $45

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bildung
My point was that you cannot deduce unprofitability of wind power from the
fact that the place currently runs on diesel.

By that reasoning, it makes no sense to install wind power _anywhere_ ,
because surely in most other cases there were existing power plants, too.

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aaron695
I found you point to be, because economists who have done many years of study
are stupid and won't pick up $20 because of their many many years of study in
the subject would for some reason ditch logic and not pick up a $20 bill.

They are stupid people who study at university who reduce brain capacity.

Maybe I'm stupid too but, if wind power worked there then that can be the
project, no need to add the agriculture on top of it.Why the hell make it
harder and use it on only a untested (For viability) growing machine that
might make peoples lives better?

