The capital of Nunavut has nearly completed construction of the first industrial agricultural facility north of the arctic circle.
Vertical farming in the arctic? This is, of course, April 1st, and we're not going to try to fool you for a minute that this story is true. But what if it were true? Consider the merits: Iqaluit is the only capital city in Canada not accessible by highway. Fresh fruit and vegetables must be brought in by airplane, and sometimes, in summer, by boat. Despite the high costs of building such a structure, the ability to grow food locally in a vertical farm might make more economic sense in the Arctic, than it would in Calgary or Charlottetown. There are high-rises in Iqaluit, which means that there are no intrinsic structural or economic impediments. The population of Iqaluit is 6,184, which means that you could build a structure an eighth of the size of the standard vertical farm designs, which are intended to feed 50,000. As such, it would be less costly to build than a full-size vertical farm, but with more economic rationale—lower capital costs, larger payback. There are definitely factors I'm not taking into consideration, like the potential difficulties of building a zero-net energy building in a place where the winters are much colder. But with a little license for April Fool's, it's actually not such a crazy idea.
And it's those "not such a crazy idea" notions that I want to address today.
In the lead-up to April 1st, I asked myself what kind of green headlines might you see (or might want to see), which would be surprising, maybe even a little startling, but sufficiently plausible that you might believe them.
Although this is more about resilience than bright green futures, one "headline" that came to mind was "Canada builds Strategic Petroleum Reserve". Seems a little crazy, given that we're a net exporter of oil, but as the Parkland Institute recently pointed out, Western Canada is a net exporter of oil, while Eastern Canada imports 90% of its oil. It turns out that there there isn't enough pipeline capacity to supply Eastern Canada from the West, even in a crisis. "Canada Builds Strategic Petroleum Reserve." Hmmm... maybe not so crazy after all.
Another headline idea was: "Hydrogen Village Built at Ontario Place". The Hydrogen Village idea is one which is being shopped around in PEI as part of their efforts to make the province electrically self-sufficient. There are a variety of ways that you can store the variable power output of wind-turbines. One of them is to make hydrogen when the wind is blowing, which you then use to generate electricity when the turbines are still. If we're going to deploy renewables as part of our electricity grid in a serious way, especially for meeting Base-Load power requirements (keeping the lights on and industries running), we need to think seriously about how to store that electricity.
Some of the headlines that will make a bright green future possible will look a little like an April Fool's gag: perfectly plausible with current technology, but a little out there. Not quite crazy, but definitely unfamiliar. Certainly not the obvious solution to a problem. Or maybe a solution to a problem that was not obvious. And that's the essence of a Worldchanging idea.
See Karl Schroeder's Worldchanging Canada article, Rewilding Canada, for more on Vertical Farm technology.
Front and Inside Images: Wikipedia entry on Iqaluit composited with Chris Jacobs' vertical farm design at www.verticalfarm.com
