[net.space] Growing Plants with Concentrated Light

dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (01/04/86)

The 1/13/86 issue of Business Week mentions (page 125) a Japanese company,
La Foret Engineering & Information Service Co., that is building light
pipes to transmit light from the top of skyscrapers to plants inside.
The light pipes filter out UV and IR light, so the usable frequencies
can be concentrated above normal levels without frying the plants.
According to the note, La Foret has been able to grow algae cultures
to concentrations 100 times higher than is possible with normal sunlight.

This technology may have significant applications to closed
environmental systems in spacecraft and space stations.  It should
permit great reductions in the mass of tanks and water needed to
produce oxygen from algae, at the cost of using filter windows and
light reflectors.