Achieving this goal - known in the military as objective force - will require big technological improvements and scientific breakthroughs.

"We use the central lab to study things that require major technological breakthroughs."

According to various researchers, to be realized vertical farms would require significant technological breakthroughs with regards to energy consumption and lighting.

But significant improvements in productivity also require radical improvements in education and training, and major breakthroughs in research and development.

It is a field with active developments sharing a common goal with the semantic web vision, an ambitious initiative that still requires breakthroughs in text processing, semantic understanding, artificial intelligence and human-computer interactions.

What might keep these kinds of predictions from seeming ridiculous 20 years from now is that they don't require huge theoretical breakthroughs - just the continued refinement of technology that already exists.

The scientists also stressed that a renewable energy-intensive grid will require breakthroughs in energy storage and ways to enable smart charging of vehicles, among other technologies.

Combating global warming, they say, will require over-the-horizon breakthroughs involving safe nuclear energy, hydrogen power and advanced carbon sequestration - or technologies that have not yet been imagined.

They will require several major breakthroughs: this makes doubt easy.

The system requires technological breakthroughs in dozens of areas.