Waste coal fire reduction is a global environmental consensus, so there will be more and more coal mines in the future to choose to close, the University of Nottingham (University of Nottingham) scholars began to think about the future use of waste mines.

They put forward the concept of "vertical farm", thinking that the mine is a ready-made greenhouse, only need to add light and irrigation system, can become a fully functional farm.

According to reports, scholars believe that deep farms have some obvious advantages: they are not affected by the weather, and the underground temperature does not change much, and they do not need expensive temperature control equipment.

Saffa Riffat, from the University of Nottingham, said: "Tunnels and shafts require less heating equipment and, if they do, less power consumption, so they are very attractive for food production. We have designed a central shaft to install mechanical arms. These mechanical arms will take care of crops and harvest. The construction cost of the whole system is only about US $38000. After that, the operating cost is lower. The LED lighting system we envisage does not consume electricity."

Vertical farms are suitable for vegetables and fruits with short growth cycles, such as spinach, kale, basil, mint, strawberries, mushrooms, carrots, eggplant, etc.

They estimate that a small deep well farm can produce 80 tons of crops per year, and the production is not affected by the season, and can reach 10 crop cycles per year, while the outdoor farm in the UK has only 4 to 6 times.

Researchers believe that this is a perfect starting point for the UK, which has more than 150000 abandoned coal mines.