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Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#31

Post by Trombone12 »

ars wrote: post #20

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what being under the ocean has to do with anything? You can get humidity in a simple greenhouse, and there is no more CO2 in air exposed to the ocean than there is in ordinary air.

My impression is that they take in ocean water that then evaporates as the source of water. This means a very stable humidity, in addition to stable temperature, essentially for free.

Also, the oceans absorb most of the CO2 emitted by various processes, so if you evaporate it I would guess it comes back out into the air.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#32

Post by DanielBMarkham »

It would interesting to see if large-scale production would be feasible. Backyard farms are great, but it's only with the economies of scale that farming makes any sense commercially.

So could there be an undersea farm, with living quarters, hundreds of acres of plants, a system for conserving and recycling the soil, and protection from storms?

It's not a crazy idea. If you could move farming into shallow ocean waters, you'd free up a lot of land. Just guessing, but you also might have natural protection from cosmic events like CMEs. It bears watching.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#33

Post by Shivetya »

imaginenore wrote: post #22
pvaldes wrote: post #10

The real question is if we are changing a very productive system for a not soo good one. Octopuses growth much quicker than strawerries, and are also more expensive. Any aquaculture system in the same area will provide much more human food and better revenues (you are using a 3d volume for production instead a 2d surface). Marine soil is not apt to cultivate, so you need to put terrestrial soil underwater (or hydropo…

Octopuses are some of the smartest animals. Not a vegetarian, but I can't eat one. It's like eating a monkey.

and they don't look good on short cake.

My concerns with this are, how do they deliver power and what its requirements compared to a surface enclosed farm? Do they get sufficient light at that depth to not need artificial lighting?

While it is nice to see the sea life adapting that is merely a distraction from real issue of cost and are there negative affects on sea life?

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#34

Post by pvaldes »

bagosm wrote: post #27
pvaldes wrote: post #10

The real question is if we are changing a very productive system for a not soo good one. Octopuses growth much quicker than strawerries, and are also more expensive. Any aquaculture system in the same area will provide much more human food and better revenues (you are using a 3d volume for production instead a 2d surface). Marine soil is not apt to cultivate, so you need to put terrestrial soil underwater (or hydropo…

You compare apples to oranges. Octopi would need food to live and that food is a huge cost in resources. Octopi consume a feed that could have been human to begin with. Plants need only water and reused plant material or any other natural fertilizer.

Not, we are talking about space here.

1) First of all, this space is of public nature. We could earn a lot of money for example, if we'll convert Central Park in our private artichoke's field but this will never occur. We could also dream about to privatize the mediterranean marine platform just for our own profit but this is against the current laws. If you can build a greenhouse underwater, everybody could also build a underwater hotel for instance. You can not raise a wall all around a nice beach and then ask money to people that wish to use this beach. Is public space.

2) Is economically crazy. The permits to grant a new marine farm to culture fishes are scarcer than plutonium in Mediterranean just right now and one of the reasons is the contamination. The idea of culturing cheaper products like strawberries in the same place is like to bury a diamond mine under a parking. Those strawberry fields are currently destined to a very profitable culture of marine plants (Agar based companies), fishes, shellfishes, and also turism. Even if you put enough manure to having a good annual harvest of strawberries two months each year (and you are really lucky that fishermen just accept go away and don't destroy your greenway with their trawl nets) you are just losing money.

3) Is not scalable. What they are doing would be clearly illegal for any of us. If the goal is "to feed the planet", to substitute the essential proteins provided by fishes and shellfishes by a harvest of lattices or strawberries is plain wrong. Poor people need (imperatively) more proteins in their diet, not more sugar.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#35

Post by rwmj »

aaron695 wrote: post #28
ars wrote: post #20

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what being under the ocean has to do with anything? You can get humidity in a simple greenhouse, and there is no more CO2 in air exposed to the ocean than there is in ordinary air.

I'd think of it as part art project, part developing technology that might one day be useful else where. The dangers in sending down divers to pick strawberries alone make it not practical as a business.

Yeah it seems odd they use divers, instead of some sort of pulley system to lift the balloons to the surface for maintenance and harvesting.

For comparison, you don't (usually) dive to lobster pots. They have a buoy on the surface and you pull them up.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#37

Post by amelius »

myhf wrote: post #25
ars wrote: post #20

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what being under the ocean has to do with anything? You can get humidity in a simple greenhouse, and there is no more CO2 in air exposed to the ocean than there is in ordinary air.

Ocean-floor real estate is very abundant.

Except you will probably need a very specific depth-range.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#38

Post by pvaldes »

Shivetya wrote: post #33
imaginenore wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Octopuses are some of the smartest animals. Not a vegetarian, but I can't eat one. It's like eating a monkey.

and they don't look good on short cake. My concerns with this are, how do they deliver power and what its requirements compared to a surface enclosed farm? Do they get sufficient light at that depth to not need artificial lighting? While it is nice to see the sea life adapting that is merely a distraction from real issue of cost and are there negative affects on sea life?

I guess that strawberries are specifically choosen by the relatively low light requirements.

I'm very sceptic about other hidden costs like hand polinization vs minute of bottle diving, or how they had solved damages of amphibious marine snails in the fruits.

Re: Underwater greenhouses are growing strawberries

#40

Post by PepeGomez »

Trombone12 wrote: post #31
ars wrote: post #20

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what being under the ocean has to do with anything? You can get humidity in a simple greenhouse, and there is no more CO2 in air exposed to the ocean than there is in ordinary air.

My impression is that they take in ocean water that then evaporates as the source of water. This means a very stable humidity, in addition to stable temperature, essentially for free. Also, the oceans absorb most of the CO2 emitted by various processes, so if you evaporate it I would guess it comes back out into the air.

Salt is toxic to most plants.
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