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Environment

Vertical farm cuts energy use 75 per cent by using sunlight

A vertical farm built inside a greenhouse in Texas can produce hundreds of thousands of heads of lettuce with significantly less energy than usual

By James Dinneen

7 April 2023

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Rows of lettuce growing in Eden Green’s vertical farm in a greenhouse

Eden Green

Walking into the newest greenhouse run by vertical farming company Eden Green on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, I am greeted by floor-to-ceiling walls of lettuce. The greenhouse is warm, bright with sunlight and busy with workers tending to the more than 300,000 heads of romaine, butterhead and red oak growing in hydroponic pots.

“It never stops growing,” says Jake Portillo, the company’s head grower, as he shows off the stringy taproots of a romaine almost …

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