In a world where pollution and population have drastically reduced the effectiveness of sunlight to grow food, would light-panels be capable of completely replacing the sun?

The problem I'm trying to solve is rationalizing indoor farming for 100% of the Earth's agriculture. Piping in water is a big deal, but believable. Fertilizing is believable. Temperature control might be believable.

But is it believable that light panels could replace 100% of the sun for 100% of the growing season?

• For the purpose of the question, the building in question is 14,500 square kilometers (a bit bigger than the U.S. State of Connecticut) It has ten stories (allowing for agriculture roughly the size of the U.S. State of New York). Don't worry about how the building can be that large and carry that much weight. This question is only focusing on the lights.

• The lights are timed to fade-to-starlight-black and fade-to-full-sun with appropriate changes in timing to emulate natural growing seasons. For the purpose of this question, let's assume we're dealing with wheat, which allows for a winter wheat during the cold months and a spring wheat during the summer months.

posted over 3 years ago

CC BY-NC 4.0

3y ago by manassehkatz‭

JBH‭

151 reputation 2 2 21 1