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I found this on Reddit this morning: http://www.gereports.com/post/91250246340/lettuce-see-the-future-japanese-farmer-builds

I found this to be a very interesting article, especially in that they were able to create a farm that grows lettuce 2.5 times faster, is 40% less wasteful, and uses 1% of the water needed by outdoor farms. I could definitely see this being a solution in places like California that's in a severe drought and there's a lot of debate over how to conserve the fresh water that they have. By building on different rooms with different conditions, you could raise all manner of crops without regard for location or season. My only question is how much power does it use...the article says it uses 40% less power than if they were using fluorescent lights, but how much is that really?

It's exciting that this is already happening somewhere, even if it's more of a proof of concept thing at this stage.

Well, Indoor farming has been used for ages...(see: Green House)
The only problem is that with indoor farming you have to have electricity to power all the necessities of keeping the plants healthy without natural resources (artificial light vs. sun, rain water vs. processed water, artificial compost vs. natural compost).
I am not necessarily against it. It definitely could work, hydroponics produces some great stuff

A lot kinks to work out, but who knows...with all the fracking that is going on..it might be a necessity.

I know indoor farming has been used before, but not to his scale or efficiency.

Just the freedom that this solution could provide...opening up agriculture on a large-scale to areas that are in hostile climates...you could even grow tropical fruits in arctic climates. I imagine buildings made for this could use solar power...just put the panels on the roof and include batteries or an emergency hookup to the main line in case of extended bad weather.

Makes me wish you could buy this sort of setup on a small scale for the home.