Tricks, tips, tutorials, pictures and words

Using Victory gardens to fight government terrorism and industrial piracy

Spending money on food is really a waste if you think about it long enough. Growing crops in the garden is of course a simple solution but you have to go outside to do that. Some time ago I had this revolutionary idea to remove roofs and replace them with glass houses. I was recently impressed by people using hydroponics in combination with fish tanks (with edible fish). Today my idea had evolved more into "growing food in the kitchen", for some time (yes dah) I've been looking at the super LED industry and (to my amazement) the LED's are powerful enough to grow crops under em. I've also been interested in heat absorbing paint that makes electricity (pretty old invention) which today has been "replaced" (at least in theory) by solar paint.

It angers me to see how newspapers and magazines go out of business while non of them dares to make the jump to printing solar. They really don't get it or perhaps they really don't understand the news. I was just looking at printable LED's, this is pretty much the next generation of ink jet technology that didn't happen jet but should actually be taking off like a rocket. The combination of both light emitting and light absorbing electric paint made me invent pain-able wiring just because that seems a lot of fun.

Combining all of the above we can paint our roof, use the power to charge batteries and light up LED's underwhich we may grow our crops allowing us to increase the light density as much as we like. Stick some reflective agents to the inside of the kitchen cabinets and bob is your uncle.

The kitchen would have to be a lot bigger to feed ourselves the year round and it would probably cost a handsome smack of cash to pull it off but... why not? If we would apply this on a large industrial scale and pressure people to get it (in the sense of understanding it) prices shouldn't be that high.

The added value to the home is abundantly visible, ideal would be to contain the crops in reflective materials but having a laminated cover on a glass door would create just the science fiction lighting we only know from the movies.

Of course the solar and the fish tank are entirely optional but given how little light the LED's use and how harmonious the fish grow along with the plants providing nutrition for free - the whole thing combined would be just the ecological gadget we need.

It would be highly profitable, greenish, ecological, nerdy, geeky and nice to look at. We are animals after all, it seems stupid but we like nothing more than looking at vegetation and fish. I also envision it would give a lot of peace to the mind knowing there always is food even if the stores are full of Frankenfoods and require a brain chip to shop in you wont be burning petrol and wasting your time going there.

^_^

Plants have the amazing ability to change light energy through photosynthesis into glucose and oxygen, which they need to thrive and grow. You will want to consider the grow lights you use in your indoor growing area very carefully, because it is a major aspect that will affect the success of your gardening venture. There are several new grow lights, and very popular ones include HID lights, HPS grow lights, LED grow lights, and MH grow lights. These are all hydroponic gardening grow lights, and all can be used with plants grown in soil as well.
Hydroponics - Soil-less gardening.: Grow Lights Guide

Xunlight, a startup in Toledo, Ohio, has developed a way to make large, flexible solar panels. It has developed a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique that forms thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells on thin sheets of stainless steel. Each solar module is about one meter wide and five and a half meters long.As opposed to conventional silicon solar panels, which are bulky and rigid, these lightweight, flexible sheets could easily be integrated into roofs and building facades or on vehicles. Such systems could be more attractive than conventional solar panels and be incorporated more easily into irregular roof designs. They could also be rolled up and carried in a backpack, says the company's cofounder and president, Xunming Deng. "You could take it with you and charge your laptop battery," he says.
Technology Review: Roll-Up Solar Panels

A newspaper printing-like process could be key to making the lighting technology low-cost and commercially viable.GE Global Research has reached a milestone in next-generation lighting, demonstrating the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light emitting diodes.The research group said the newspaper printing-like process is key to making the next-generation lighting technology low-cost and commercially viable.
GE shows how to roll out OLEDs | Cleantech Group

Seiko Epson has made an advance in ink-jet technology that could be used to mass-produce large OLED (organic LED) screens by the middle of the next decade, making them more competitive with rival technologies for big-screen TVs.OLED screens handle fast-moving images better and offer richer color reproduction than LCDs and PDPs (plasma display panels), and are at the center of many electronics companies research into future display technologies.LCDs and PDPs still have the edge over OLEDs when it comes to making large displays, but Seiko Epson hopes to change that by using ink jets to print the components.
Seiko Epson Works Towards Printable Big-screen OLEDs - PC World


bionics, changing, biology, food, energy, efficiency