Ygdrasyl, Efficient and Cheap Vertical Farm

After BIOO Lite, here we are with the presentation of the second project that will take part in the Energy Close-up Engineering Column #StartUp4Energy. As I explained in the first article, in this section I will put together technical and economical technologies in which everyone, if we want, can invest through CrowdFunding webites, joining the worthy Startup projects from all over the world.

Today I present you Ygdrasyl, a new and original concept of farm, the vertical farm, in which is possible to cultivate food, convert energy and release clean air. Julian Ruiz, ideator and creator of the project, works in Norway and there he wants to build the first example of the pecular technology. In the project’s website it is written “after months of researching, I had still one question: how do you plant and harvest 50.000 heads of Lettuce on multiple floors efficiently and cheaply? My answer came one day whatching Mission Impossible (Ghost Protocol). I was enjoying the film when I saw a fight scene with Tom Cruise in a car park building with a robot in the middle. It turns out Volkswagen in Wolfsburg Germany, constructed 2 of these buildings for their cars. Instead of moving cars why not move food in a farm? Ygdrasyl is possible today simply because of the technology available today. It’s cheaper, more advanced and more efficient than what it was 10 years ago. This is important because it makes the Ygdrasyl concept feasible and realistic. Below is just some examples of the innovations available at the moment: Transparent Solar Panels from a Silicon Valley startup Ubiquitous Energy, Batteries from the Tesla Giga Factory, Aeroponics by Aerofarms,  Rainwater harvesting systems by Brae“.

Food is a problem, or it will be soon. During the last years more than two billions of people grew their comfort and, as a consequence, their need of resources, food and energy included. In few years more billions of individuals will want to live better, because, maybe, they have the economical resources, but at that point we won’t be one billion, the richer, but 4 or 5 or who knows… And here is the real issue. How do we solve the problem of feeding 5 times the people with the only same planet Earth? Ideas like Julian’s one – the vertical farm – help us to build a road, arduous but doable.