Old coal mines can be 'perfect' underground food farms

[kmo]

"Mine shafts and tunnels are seen as "the perfect environment" for growing food such as vegetables and herbs."

"Advocates say subterranean farms could yield up to ten times as much as farms above ground."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46221656

Light will be provided by cheap leds.
Doesn't mention how much electricity will be consumed though.

 

[Bald Rick]

Have to be hydroponic due to the flooded shafts too

 

[Paddington]

Don't think I'd like to spend 10 hours a day down there tending me caulis.

 

[TripleSix]

Will it be a shared venture?

As in "What's mine is yours"?

 

[Frodo2]

Are there many safe disused mines? When I have read about them generally they have collapsed and the shafts filled.

 

[Dr. Alkathene]

Will it be a shared venture?

As in "What's mine is yours"?

No it will happen if Corbyn becomes PM, what is yours is mine.

 

[Courier]

However one 7m-sq shaft can produce 80 tonnes of food per year, according to Prof Riffat, approximately eight to 10 times the amount of food grown on the same area of land above ground.

"You're looking at about £30,000 to set up one shaft and the running costs are very low - less than the energy consumed by three houses each year. With natural sunlight, the costs are even less."

So it would cost £30,000 to provide 49m-sq of growing area which equals £61 billion per hectare - (I think my maths must be wrong because even an academic such as President of the World Society of Sustainable Energy Technology, Prof Saffa Riffat, couldn't actually think that could be anywhere approaching viable ....

( Is 7m-sq actually 7 square metres or is it 49 square metres in which case the equivalent growing area would only cost £8.7 billion)

 

[Hilly]

The rats will eat it all.

 

[Against_the_grain]

Sorry am I missing something? What's wrong with growing our food in fields?

 

[farenheit]

However one 7m-sq shaft can produce 80 tonnes of food per year, according to Prof Riffat, approximately eight to 10 times the amount of food grown on the same area of land above ground.

"You're looking at about £30,000 to set up one shaft and the running costs are very low - less than the energy consumed by three houses each year. With natural sunlight, the costs are even less."

So it would cost £30,000 to provide 49m-sq of growing area which equals £61 billion per hectare - (I think my maths must be wrong because even an academic such as President of the World Society of Sustainable Energy Technology, Prof Saffa Riffat, couldn't actually think that could be anywhere approaching viable ....

( Is 7m-sq actually 7 square metres or is it 49 square metres in which case the equivalent growing area would only cost £8.7 billion)

Your maths is off, its 6 million

 

[Paddington]

We'll all get shafted !

 

[Courier]

Your maths is off, its 6 million

Thought as much .......

These academics will have done their homework and decided that the sale price of the produce will be going up, up, up.

Bodes well for regular land prices then, £2.4 million per acre investment equivalent for viable food production !!

 

[SilliamWhale]

Surely harvesting will be dearer?

 

[Barleymow]

could let the vegans tend to the crops , they could live down there would be no need to surface and bother us !

 

[primmiemoo]

Sorry am I missing something? What's wrong with growing our food in fields?

It's the welfare aspect.

Crops needs need to be accommodated, y'know.

 

[primmiemoo]

could let the vegans tend to the crops , they could live down there would be no need to surface and bother us !

Anybody watched The Time Machine right to the end? Or read HG Wells's story?

 

[kmo]

"An underground cannabis farm has been found in a sewer system underneath a residential street in Palermo.

Officers in the Sicilian capital found 77 cannabis plants being grown in tunnels beneath a suburb in the north of the city,
They also discovered a heating system designed to create an ideal microclimate, lights for each plant and a huge air conditioner"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-32066857

Looks like it will work for "High" value crops.

 

[Courier]

I would congratulate anyone for finding their niche, but it has little to do with providing food to sustain a population at an affordable cost .

 

[Cowcalf]

they will all be full of folk growing dope far better returns

 

[uztrac]

I would congratulate anyone for finding their niche, but it has little to do with providing food to sustain a population at an affordable cost .

Who mentioned food ? Other products can grow very well,and under a nationalized Corbyn administration can be sold through government controlled outlets !!!!