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Results for “Controlled Environment Agriculture”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Applications of CELSS technology to controlled environment agriculture

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is defined as the use of environmental manipulation for the commercial production of organisms, whether plants or animals. While many of the technologies necessary for aquaculture systems in North America is nevertheless doubling approximately every five years. Economic, cultural, and environmental pressures all favor CEA over field production for many non-commodity agricultural crops. Many countries around the world are already dependent on CEA for much of their fresh food. Controlled ecological life support systems (CELSS), under development at ARC, KSC, and JSC expand the concept of CEA to the extent that all human requirements for food, oxygen, and water will be provided regenerated by processing of waste streams to supply plant inputs. The CELSS will likely contain plants, humans, possibly other animals, microorganisms and physically and chemical processors. In effect, NASA will create engineered ecosystems. In the process of developing the technology for CELSS, NASA will develop information and technology which will be applied to improving the efficiency, reliability, and cost effectiveness for CEA, improving its resources recycling capabilities, and lessening its environmental impact to negligible levels.

Bates, Maynard E.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Technology Of Controlled-Environment Agriculture

Report discusses controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) for commercial production of organisms, whether plants or animals. Practiced in greenhouses to produce food on nonarable lands. Describes conceptual regenerative system that incorporates biological, physical, and chemical processes to support humans in extraterrestrial environments.

Bubenheim, David L.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Minimizing Electric Lighting Use With LASSI Lighting Controls in Controlled Environment Agriculture

The majority of energy use in controlled environment agriculture is typically from electric lighting. Certain lighting controls can help minimize the energy required in these operations. This analysis simulates a greenhouse with different types of lighting controls in different U.S. climates to explore the effects of the lighting controls on energy use.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2026

Technology pathways for energy- and water-efficient controlled environment agriculture: A review of technologies, implementation pathways, and regional use cases

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) offers high-yield, climate-resilient food production, but high energy and resource demands challenge its sustainability. This paper synthesizes technologies that can improve outcomes across six categories—energy, CO 2 utilization, building envelope, hardware, water, and process—plus colocation strategies. We evaluate 80 technologies and define ten implementation pathways bundling complementary technologies to reduce energy use, optimize water consumption, and minimize emissions. Regional application is demonstrated through five U.S. case studies spanning different climates. A logic framework guides pathway selection for case studies based on climate, infrastructure, and regulatory context, informing context-sensitive technology deployment. Results show energy intensity reductions of 3–55 %, ranging from energy management programs to comprehensive lighting retrofits; water savings of 20–40 % through closed-loop recirculation; and emissions reductions of 3–100 %, with strategic energy management achieving 3–5 % and renewable electricity paired with electrified heating achieving up to 100 %. Text mining revealed that energy, hardware, and process technologies account for 91 % of literature coverage. Water, building envelope, and CO 2 utilization remain underexplored, indicating priorities for future research. This integrative approach to technology assessment supports growers, developers, and policymakers in aligning CEA system design with local conditions, improving resource efficiency and addressing gaps in cross-domain technology coverage.

Controlled environment agriculture↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA's Contributions to Controlled Environment Agriculture

It may come as a surprise, but NASA has been a long-standing sponsor of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) research. This is based on the potential for using plants (crops) for life support systems in space. Through photosynthesis, crops could produce food and oxygen for humans, while removing CO2. In addition, plant transpiration could help purify waste water. NASAs interest in bioregenerative life support dates back to the late 1950s. At that time, much of the testing focused on algae, but over the years moved toward higher plants as CEA techniques improved. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, extensive testing was carried out at different universities to gather horticultural data for a range of crops, including wheat, soybean, lettuce, potato, sweet potato, cowpea, rice and more. These studies examined different electric light sources, mineral nutrition, recirculating hydroponics, effects of CO2, temperature, photosynthetic photon flux (PPF), and photoperiod on the crops, and identified cultivars that would be useful for space. Findings from these studies were then used to conduct large scale (20 sq m), closed atmosphere tests at Kennedy Space Center, and later at NASA Johnson Space Center, where plant growth chambers were linked to human habitats. Results showed that with high light input and careful horticultural management, about 20-25 sq m of crops under continuous cultivation could produce the O2 for one person, and about 40-50 sq m could produce enough dietary calories. The ability to sustain these production levels and accurately assess system costs and failures needs further study. In all likelihood, the use of plants for life support will evolve, where for early missions like the International Space Station, crops will be grown in small chambers to provide supplemental fresh foods. As mission durations and distances increase, the systems could expand to assume more of the life support burden. But the constraints of space travel require that these approaches be efficient in terms of mass, volume, and energy, which are similar to challenges facing terrestrial CEA, such as vertical agriculture systems.

Bioregenerative↗
DOE OSTI2025

Controlled Environment Agriculture SiteScout (CEA SiteScout) v1.0

This is a geospatial online decision support tool designed to help identify locations where controlled environment agriculture (CEA) can be cited to take advantage of energy and water resources. It also quantifies the benefits of selected energy and water efficiency measures.

Stokes-Draut, Jennifer [Lawrence Berkeley National↗
DOE OSTI2025

Controlled environment agriculture: An opportunity to strengthen interagency research collaboration in the US government

Challenges facing food production and agricultural systems are increasingly interconnected with economic, security, health, and equity issues, among others. Threats such as extreme weather, economic volatility, and shrinking water resources and arable land, influence our ability to maintain a safe and resilient food supply. One promising solution to these threats is controlled environment agriculture (CEA). In many cases, CEA can drastically reduce the amount of water and land used in crop production while increasing productivity. Operations may be established in nearly any environment and harvests can take place year-round, supporting food system resiliency and sustainability. CEA sits at the nexus of a number of disciplines and industries, making it well suited for transdisciplinary and multi-institutional research coordination. Herein, authors from multiple US government agencies present CEA as a case study in improving cross-agency research collaboration. The federal government houses a range of scientific expertise and research capabilities, positioning scientists to lead national and global efforts in transdisciplinary, interagency approaches to complex challenges. Navigating cross-agency collaboration can be a challenge, especially coordinating across different scientific disciplines, geographic locations, and funding mechanisms. To enhance multiagency efforts, collaborators could prioritize (i) organizing personnel and resources, (ii) enhancing existing multiagency collaborations, and (iii) focusing on further opportunities for coordination. Adopting these approaches could enable federal researchers to reinforce and advance academic and industry efforts to address current CEA challenges while solidifying the United States as a leader in this arena.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Controlled-Environment Agriculture and the Geography of Food, Energy and Water Resilience in the United States

USDA guidelines call for an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption in U.S. households to promote healthier diets. Access to fresh fruits and vegetables are especially lacking in food deserts and food swamps (characterized by a prevalence of food that is highly processed and lacking in nutritional value). Adoption of the recommended healthy diet, which more than doubles the consumption of fruits and vegetables, would have a wide variety of health benefits and would reduce the land footprint of U.S diets. However, adopting a healthy diet would increase phosphate and nitrogen impacts associated with fertilizers and pesticides and would significantly increase freshwater consumption and energy use because of the resource intensity of field cultivation of fruits and vegetables. The majority of these crops are grown in just a few states, including California and Arizona, which are increasingly impacted by climate change. In addition, rural communities are rapidly becoming food deserts, while food produced in these areas is transported long distances to market. In recent years, highly intensified controlled environment (CE) agricultural systems, (i.e., vertical farming) have been developed to provide fresh food closer to consumers. Fruits and vegetables, many of which are amenable to CE culture, occupy a uniquely impactful segment of the food supply-chain, including their value in improving nutrition for vulnerable communities. The objective of this work is to elucidate the location dependency of the energy and water impacts of adoption of distributed CE farming for an important portion of the food system.

controlled environment agriculture↗
DOE OSTI2023

Geographically Dependent Sustainability Indicators for Comparison of Conventional Vegetable Production to Controlled-Environment Agriculture

Many food system lifecycle analyses distill agricultural production and supply chain impacts into single-value sustainability metrics for various food categories. These studies provide an overview of the food supply system that highlight striking results such as the GHG impacts of meat production. The supply chain impacts of vegetable production occupy the middle ground; higher than average food loss and waste, lower than average overall energy use, etc. However, aggregated results obscure the sustainability implications of the location of food production, especially for vegetables. Moreover, the increasing instability of food production systems are not captured, as illustrated by a recent Washington Post article. According to a UC Merced study conducted for the state, California farmers left nearly 400,000 acres of agricultural land unplanted last year because of a lack of water. The result, the study found, was a direct economic cost to farmers of $1.1 billion and the loss of nearly 9,000 agricultural jobs. (The Washington Post, March 21, 2022.) Previous work quantified the food-energy-water nexus implications of transitioning vegetable production from large, centralized agricultural operations to smaller distributed production in controlled-environment farms (CEA). The importance of location-specific data is especially evident for water use. Water impacts of the food system are primarily local to the region where food is produced, water impacts vary significantly between locations, and water stress is a major concern in locations that currently host large agricultural operations. Location-specific data is needed to accurately assess the water impacts of transitioning to CEA. The location of farms in relation to consumers impacts transportation energy use, food loss and waste, and requirements for food processing (e.g., to reduce weight, preserve foods for long storage, and package foods to reduce damage and loss) Reducing transport is particularly relevant for agricultural products that could be grown in CEAs (fruits, vegetables, protein). Access to nutritious food is not evenly distributed in the population. Remote communities, communities in harsh environments, and economically-disadvantaged communities often have poor access to healthy foods. CEA is ideally suited to these environments. However, the energy and water use of CEA, while in many respects lower overall than conventional supply chains, are concentrated within communities and could have significant local impacts. This paper reports on development of sustainability metrics that seek to capture the tradeoffs between the current supply chain and a CEA supply chain for vegetables; focusing on the location-dependent implications of water use, the transition from largely fossil fuel based energy use to electricity, and the food access, resilience and wellbeing implications of urban versus rural food production.

controlled-environment agriculture↗
NASA NTRS2015

Sole-Source Lighting for Controlled-Environment Agriculture

Since plants on Earth evolved under broad-spectrum solar radiation, anytime they are grown exclusively under electric lighting that does not contain all wavelengths in similar proportion to those in sunlight, plant appearance and size could be uniquely different. Nevertheless, plants have been grown for decades under fluorescent (FL) (1) + incandescent (IN) (2) lamps as a sole source of lighting (SSL), and researchers have become comfortable that, in certain proportions of FL + IN for a given species, plants can appear "normal" relative to their growth outdoors. The problem with using such traditional SSLs for commercial production typically is short lamp lifespans and not obtaining enough photosynthetically active radiation (PAR, 400-700 nm) when desired. These limitations led to supplementation of FL + IN lamp outputs with longer-lived, high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps in growth chambers (3). As researchers became comfortable that mixes of orange-biased high-pressure sodium (HPS) and blue-biased metal halide (MH) HIDs together also could give normal plant growth at higher intensities, growth chambers and phytotrons subsequently were equipped mainly with HID lamps, with their intense thermal output filtered out by ventilated light caps or thermal-controlled water barriers. For the most part, IN and HID lamps have found a home in commercial protected horticulture, usually for night-break photoperiod lighting (IN) or for seasonal supplemental lighting (mostly HPS) in greenhouses. However, lack of economically viable options for SSL have held back aspects of year-round indoor agriculture from taking off commercially.

Controlled-Environment Agriculture↗
DOE OSTI2022

Controlled Environment Agriculture - Farming and Food Access for Healthy Diets

Fruits and vegetables are critical for a healthy diet and USDA guidelines recommend increasing fruit and vegetable consumption for almost all Americans. However, most food system lifecycle assessments do not capture the importance of these food groups in the food system. Moreover, long supply chains and limited access to fresh produce are particularly prevalent in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Many of these communities are food deserts or food swamps characterized by a lack of full-scale groceries, and a prevalence of convenience stores and fast-food restaurants. Stocking of fresh produce is difficult and often unprofitable for small stores. Convenience stores are usually space-limited, unable to achieve economies-of-scale in purchasing and have difficulty managing the short shelf-life of fresh produce. Controlled-Environment (CE) farming, including greenhouses and fully indoor vertical farms, have the potential to address persistent food access issues for disadvantaged communities. CE farming offers several potential advantages for food desert and food swamp neighborhoods, including shorter or non-existent transport distances and fewer middlemen, which could reduce costs. CE farming can be integrated into existing buildings at virtually any scale, providing local jobs and revitalization of community hubs such as shopping malls, or larger-scale farms located in close-in warehouse or industrial areas. Rainwater harvesting and recovery of nutrients from wastewater could further improve food system resilience and circularity. Geospatial modeling of CE farming in case study cities of various sizes and densities will help to quantify the benefits of CE farming. Geospatial modeling can help to answer questions such as whether sufficient collection area is available for rainwater harvesting for a CE farm, and what size of farm would be required to serve the community living within walking distance of the farm. This paper reports on progress in geospatial modeling of CE farming integration into several case study cities.

controlled environment agriculture↗
NASA NTRS2014

NASA's Controlled Environment Agriculture Testing for Space Habitats

NASA and other space agencies have an interest in using plants for human life support in space. The plants could provide food and O2 for the humans, while removing CO2 and helping purify wastewater. Studies to date have shown that a wide range of crops can be grown in controlled environment conditions envisioned for space. Light is a critical factor both for crop productivity and system power costs, and recent improvements in LEDs make them a preferred lighting option for space. Because space systems would be tightly closed, issues such as ethylene build-up and management must be considered. Ultimately, the costs and reliability of biological life support options must be compared with more conventional life support approaches. Findings to date suggest that about 20-25 sq. meters of crops could supply the O2 for one human, while about 50 sq. meters would be required for food (dietary calories).

Bioregenerative↗