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Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

theguardian.com

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Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#91

Post by lhopki01 »

Retric wrote: post #90
lhopki01 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need 50% efficient solar collectors. That'd be the case if 1 meter squared of plants had 1 meter squared of leaves. Even at full growth there are large gaps and for most of the growing time there are even larger gaps. 1 meter squared of solar panels is always going to be 1 meter squared. Also plants can't use light above 10,000 lux while solar panels will just generate more power. And again how do you stack…

Your solar collectors are not operating at night either. Break even means having 10 square miles of solar farm and 1 square mile of dense indoor farming needs to be more efficient than 11 square miles of farming and that extra needs to cover infrastructure costs. You can play with the arrangements of plants in a greenhouse just as easily as a factory. EX: Stacking plants using clear trays and nutrient bath allows for…

Where are you getting 10 square miles of solar farm to support 1 square mile of dense indoor farming? Energy can be stored or brought in from other areas during the night.

And no you can't stack in a greenhouse for the same reason that there are hardly any plants growing on the jungle floor.

This sort of thing is already being done in London and Sweden. It's the level of automation that is making this news. Of course it starts at the high end but eventually all food will be grown like this just because it'll be the most efficient overall.

You focus entirely on the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants when there are so many other variables as for why this is a good idea.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#92

Post by IkmoIkmo »

What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water.

One can hardly call that farming in the sense of the word people expect when hearing about robot-run farms. This thing doesn't really produce meaningful food, it produces fluff in a salad, i.e. when you eat half a lettuce on any given day, you'd get about 1% of your calories that day from lettuce.

Further, the robotisation isn't really meaningfully new, either. Controlling lighting conditions for food? Old news. Moving around plants with machinery? Old news. It doesn't get much fancier than that. For example this factory-farm still requires you to plant the seeds yourself, no giant innovations here.

Is it cool? Absolutely, and it's fun to explore. But I'm not seeing the thesis on a new way of farming that I'm hoping to see. The economics and sustainability of traditional farming, when done well, seems overwhelmingly better, and the practicalities of producing real food in meaningful quantities, economically and sustainably, in an automised facility, is far away and quite different from this project.

Lastly, as most Guardian articles on tech, completely devoid of technical/economic details. What's the lettuce going to cost? Who knows.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#93

Post by Retric »

lhopki01 wrote: post #91
Retric wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your solar collectors are not operating at night either. Break even means having 10 square miles of solar farm and 1 square mile of dense indoor farming needs to be more efficient than 11 square miles of farming and that extra needs to cover infrastructure costs. You can play with the arrangements of plants in a greenhouse just as easily as a factory. EX: Stacking plants using clear trays and nutrient bath allows for…

Where are you getting 10 square miles of solar farm to support 1 square mile of dense indoor farming? Energy can be stored or brought in from other areas during the night. And no you can't stack in a greenhouse for the same reason that there are hardly any plants growing on the jungle floor. This sort of thing is already being done in London and Sweden. It's the level of automation that is making this news. Of course…

Running these for decorative lettuce in a big city is one thing, when farmers use this for corn in Iowa you might have a point.

Shipping bulk rice from US to China is cheaper in terms of energy than shipping electricity required to grow that same Rice.

PS: Another sanity check. The US has 922 Million Acres of farmland. At 1kw/m * 8h / day that's vastly more than the world total energy usage. You can't even replace that with fusion power as the waste energy would directly produce significant global worming. (4046 sq M / Acre * 8kwh/day = 32 Megawatt hours per Acre * .92 billion = 30,000 Twh per day, world electricity is under 30,000Twh per year. ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#94

Post by toomuchtodo »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #92

What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water. One can hardly call that farming in the sense of the word people expect when hearing about robot-run farms. This thing doesn't really produce meaningful food, it produces fluff in a salad, i.e. when you eat half a lettuce on any given day, you'd get about 1% of your calories that day from lettuce…

> What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water.

Which crop would you be more interested in seeing farmed robotically? Pick one and I'll go get you a link to the machinery that does so.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#95

Post by iamcurious »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #94
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #92

What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water. One can hardly call that farming in the sense of the word people expect when hearing about robot-run farms. This thing doesn't really produce meaningful food, it produces fluff in a salad, i.e. when you eat half a lettuce on any given day, you'd get about 1% of your calories that day from lettuce…

> What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water. Which crop would you be more interested in seeing farmed robotically? Pick one and I'll go get you a link to the machinery that does so.

Don't feel any obligation, but as long as you are offering, I would be interested in rice farmed with artificial light.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#96

Post by vectorjohn »

lhopki01 wrote: post #81
vectorjohn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that actually works in practice. Aren't photovoltaics (commercially feasible ones) like 20% efficient? Sure, its 20% of a bigger spectrum, and plants aren't perfectly efficient either, but I don't know if the math quite works as well as you make it sound. The other benefits are awesome though. And our fusion future will make the photovoltaics issue moot anyway :)

Plants are around 2% efficient.

Ok, so they're going to be 2% efficient at using that 20% that was gathered by PV cells. So it still seems like using 2% of all the light would be more efficient than using 2% of a fifth of the light.

I suspect that by 2% efficient, that means they use 2% of the energy of all light. Since they don't use green at all, going through the PV and then generating artificial light of the frequencies they need does seem to improve things. But probably not by so much as to make up for the 20% efficiency of PV.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#97

Post by toomuchtodo »

iamcurious wrote: post #95
toomuchtodo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is always left unsaid in the article: they're farming lettuce, a food that has 59 calories per head and is 95% water. Which crop would you be more interested in seeing farmed robotically? Pick one and I'll go get you a link to the machinery that does so.

Don't feel any obligation, but as long as you are offering, I would be interested in rice farmed with artificial light.

Bookmarked to come back to when I'm done working for the day.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#98

Post by lhopki01 »

Retric wrote: post #93
lhopki01 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting 10 square miles of solar farm to support 1 square mile of dense indoor farming? Energy can be stored or brought in from other areas during the night. And no you can't stack in a greenhouse for the same reason that there are hardly any plants growing on the jungle floor. This sort of thing is already being done in London and Sweden. It's the level of automation that is making this news. Of course…

Running these for decorative lettuce in a big city is one thing, when farmers use this for corn in Iowa you might have a point. Shipping bulk rice from US to China is cheaper in terms of energy than shipping electricity required to grow that same Rice. PS: Another sanity check. The US has 922 Million Acres of farmland. At 1kw/m * 8h / day that's vastly more than the world total energy usage. You can't even replace th…

Grains will be the last thing to change and that won't be for a very long time.

Also you have to take into account increased yields, faster grow times, lower fertiliser, pesticide, herbicide and tractor fuel costs.

Your sanity check is way off. Solar panels only get about 22W/m^2 though out the year on average and they're more efficient than plants. Second the maximum plants can use is about 100W/m^2 and that is at maximum midday strength. Now lets take into account varying intensity of sunlight, growing seasons, leaf orientation, gaps between plants and other factors and your energy requirements are much lower.

Research is still being done but most plants grow very well with the full red spectrum and 10-20% of the blue spectrum. This vastly reduces the energy required.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#99

Post by Retric »

lhopki01 wrote: post #98
Retric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running these for decorative lettuce in a big city is one thing, when farmers use this for corn in Iowa you might have a point. Shipping bulk rice from US to China is cheaper in terms of energy than shipping electricity required to grow that same Rice. PS: Another sanity check. The US has 922 Million Acres of farmland. At 1kw/m * 8h / day that's vastly more than the world total energy usage. You can't even replace th…

Grains will be the last thing to change and that won't be for a very long time. Also you have to take into account increased yields, faster grow times, lower fertiliser, pesticide, herbicide and tractor fuel costs. Your sanity check is way off. Solar panels only get about 22W/m^2 though out the year on average and they're more efficient than plants. Second the maximum plants can use is about 100W/m^2 and that is at m…

22W/m^2 is either really out of date or your thinking far north.

If you really want more farmland and have a lot of energy there are simply much better options, desalination and irrigation of west Texas for example.

PS: You can bump plant efficiency from 10 to 20% from using a narrow frequency of light, but that's a fairly low cap. And 10%(plant) > {20%(panel) * 20%(plant) =} 4%, which is why I said you need to have 50% panels to 'break even'.

Re: Japanese firm to open world’s first robot-run farm

#100

Post by lhopki01 »

vectorjohn wrote: post #96
lhopki01 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants are around 2% efficient.

Ok, so they're going to be 2% efficient at using that 20% that was gathered by PV cells. So it still seems like using 2% of all the light would be more efficient than using 2% of a fifth of the light. I suspect that by 2% efficient, that means they use 2% of the energy of all light. Since they don't use green at all, going through the PV and then generating artificial light of the frequencies they need does seem to i…

Every plant has a slightly different need but generally speaking you can grow plants very efficiently if you use the entire red spectrum and 10-20% of the blue spectrum. That allows for significant energy savings.
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