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Why vertical farms are a crock.
11–20 of 98 posts
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
And with that number in mind, you also see another problem with vertical farms: pure space availability. Modern farms are hundreds and even thousands of acres to grow enough food to feed the masses we have today. You would need > 100 of these buildings (ignoring all the other issues for now) to be able to replace one major farm. Frankly hydrogen vehicles are more feasible than this, but only barely.
" You would need > 100 of these buildings (ignoring all the other issues for now) to be able to replace one major farm. " So what if it didn't replace one major farm and just a small local one? And what if the vertical farm and office building idea were combined, so that you had alternating floors of greenhouses for plants and office workers that ate them? I'm surprised I haven't seen the ideas brought together befor…
Alternating floors would be kinda harsh on the environmental systems of a modern building (one problem: humidity). The other problem is economic. The builder will make more money on more office space than farming.
Also, a lot of farmers really don't want to live in skyscraper land.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#13What if you covered existing skyscrapers with hydroponic trellises?
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#14I have to admit to being astonished that there was a need in the first place to explain that vertical farms are a crock[1].
The long list of articles from prominent news sources was actually rather sad.
[1] The question how do you propose to grow over a thousand bucks worth of wheat each month in your tiny apartment? comes to mind.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#15Quite possibly. Here's a group who are actually building one now, in Chicago, and blogging about it:
http://www.plantchicago.com/?page_id=2
Be interesting to see how that works out.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#16Every time I read of these, my thought was always "how do they get light?". I just assumed that this was somehow solved, otherwise why would everyone be so excited about it? I figured some day I would have some time to properly investigate it and find some cool tech. It saddens me greatly, and in numerous ways, to find out that "How do they get light?" is a killer question.
I always assumed that the light would be artificial. And that they were relying on hypothetical cheap energy of the kind that reliable fusion would provide. This may be possible a hundred years from now but surely not in today's energy economy.
But once you've got reasonably cheap and plentiful energy, what's the big incentive for growing locally. If trucking it from Kansas to NYC doesn't pollute as much, reasons for building those towers diminish somewhat.
Of course, it's slightly different if you've got plentiful energy, but no good way to transmit/store it. Lots of solar panels all over the city to power its greenhouses. Or windmills in Chicago.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#17What if you covered existing skyscrapers with hydroponic trellises?
Structural issues. Adds weight, in ways buildings aren't designed to take. Requires soil, and water in the soil, which is more weight. Water causes damage to building structure. Some plants will be impractical because they'll want to burrow into the structure. It's dangerous to collect the produce. There are insurance issues around stuff falling off onto people. It becomes difficult to clean or replace windows. Once plants are on it will be difficult to change damaged trellises. Change to fire risk profile of building. Security and insurance considerations from people climbing on the structures. Buildings not designed to supply water to the plants. Freehold issues from one person's plant growing into another's area. Allergies. Bees. Rats. Effect of plants growing into air-conditioning systems. Council complications over the change to the view profile of the building from sleek thing to tentacled thing.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#18I have to admit to being astonished that there was a need in the first place to explain that vertical farms are a crock[1]. The long list of articles from prominent news sources was actually rather sad. [1] The question how do you propose to grow over a thousand bucks worth of wheat each month in your tiny apartment? comes to mind.
If farmland is as scarce as Monbiot proposes then vertical farms could work. Most of the value of a $1000 a month apartment is in consumer surplus. Yes, a vertical farm in manhattan will probably never work, but one on some existing farm land in New Jersey probably will. Vertical farms currently won't work but any real scarcity in farmland will drive up prices until it becomes economical as the price of food is highly elastic.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#19I have to admit to being astonished that there was a need in the first place to explain that vertical farms are a crock[1]. The long list of articles from prominent news sources was actually rather sad. [1] The question how do you propose to grow over a thousand bucks worth of wheat each month in your tiny apartment? comes to mind.
The profit margin for a grain farmer in the US is about $100/acre in a good year. There are 43,560 square feet per acre. The ballpark estimate for construction of 10-20 story office space is $125-150 per square foot.
To break even, you'll have to build something that requires zero maintenance that also lasts about 60,000 years and of course you'll need zero point zero interest rates over those sixty millenia just to break even.
Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.
#20As important as the specific theme (Vertical Farms are a crock) was this line, "Magical thinking is a universal affliction. We see what we want to see, deny what we don’t. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, we burrow back into the darkness of our cherished beliefs. We will do almost anything – cheat, lie, stand for high office, go to war – to shut out challenges to the way we see the world."
So many of the inane approaches to solving some of our economic and environmental challenges make absolutely no sense, have almost completely consensus that they violate laws of physics, and quite often result in Net-Negative results. "Local Growing", except as a hobby, is one of those insane ideas that seems to be underlying the silly "Vertical Farms" concept. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html)
Ironically, if there is government funding, the fact that an idea makes no economic sense doesn't mean it won't be pursued. There may be peripheral advantages or developments in technology that take place, while we tilt at these windmills.
So - I say let's build a couple of these vertical farms, see what we discover, do the math and realize it will never make sense, and maybe discover something else that we never even considered!