solarpunk memes

Using solar panels to power artificial lighting so you can vertically stack farms directly inside cities doesn't make any sense from a sustainability perspective.

But greenhouses in the suburbs that are tied into the city's thermal grid and seasonal thermal energy store is the future of agriculture IMO.

By enclosing fields in greenhouses you decrease the land, water, pesticide, and fertilizer requirements, while also eliminating fertilizer runoff and the possibility of soil depletion from tilling. By tying a greenhouse into a thermal grid the greenhouse can act as a solar thermal collector in the summer while maybe even condensing the water that evaporates through the plants for reuse. Then you can use that same heat to heat homes during the winter or extend the growing season in the greenhouse even further.

https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/storage/world-s-largest-thermal-energy-storage-to-20240409

https://www.dlsc.ca/

https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/heat-storage-for-greenhouses

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152874/a-greenhouse-boom-in-china

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150070/almerias-sea-of-greenhouses

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/netherlands-agriculture-technology/ (Yes I know they use artificial lighting in a lot of these, and yes I know a lot of the value of their agricultural exports comes from flowers, but the point is it's another example of large scale greenhouse use. Also they do still produce quite a bit of food in a small area, in addition to the flowers.)