Very interesting indeed.

If they wanted to go as high-tech as possible, LED lighting, light pipes to the outside and the use of something other than electricity to keep the facility warm would make the whole thing a lot more energy efficient.

It sort of reminds me of one of the tourist attractions in my area. The attraction is a place called Howe's Caverns. In taking a tour of the cavern, the tour guides will point out the moss growing in the cavern, and remind everyone that the only reason the moss grows there is because of the artificial lights that have been installed so that the caverns can be toured.

I find this very interesting. Now all we need is free energy.

Growing with artificial lighting isn't something people really want to do unless you are in an environment where the natural sunlight isn't available. The japenese garden has to be burning some major kilowatts by the looks of all those lights. Generating the power by means of solar wouldn't make much sense since you would have inefficiencies with the solar collectors and also with the lights. You would need more area for solar panels than you would if you where just to put a garden or greenhouse in the same spot.

This type of technology is good if you want fresh produce somewhere like the north pole or you demand to have a strictly controlled environments. I know that researches have growth chambers for monitoring effects of biological agents on plants and things like this where you dont want some disease to escape into the environment.

You can also use supplimental lighting to manipulate a plants photoperiod.

The university of arizona controlled environmental program (i'm an allumnis) was commissioned to construct a growth chamber for the researchers in Antartica. Since its dark for 6 months of the year with sub freezing temps, you need a growth chamber to produce fresh produce, especially since supplies are shipped in on only certain parts of the year. The lights are 1000W water cooled HPS and the heat is radiated into the ventalation system to suppliment the research facility:

ag.arizona.edu/ceac/CEACr...nal/004.htm
ag.arizona.edu/ceac/CEACg...ary/001.htm
ag.arizona.edu/ceac/CEACg...ary/002.htm

Alternative forms of lighting are available, led lights have hit the scene and boast great efficiencies and low heat generation. Some of the new electronic HID ballast are a big improvement on the traditional magnetic type also. I've seen people working with solar collectors that focus light into fiber optic cable too. This might be practical for growing produce on a space station or something to that effect.