Why vertical farms are a crock. • Hacker News Board

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#41

Post by VladRussian » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 7:34 PM UTC

chadmalik wrote: post #37

Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 year…

"Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history."

And while chewing nobody has been peering into computer screen reading nonsense comments on HN.

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#42

Post by chadmalik » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 7:39 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #40

chadmalik wrote: post #37

Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 year…

The local food movement is quite silly. http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ 99% of human history pretty much sucked. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.h...

Saying "it sucked" doesn't address ANY of the points I made. Wake me up when you can make a serious rebuttal.

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#43

Post by chadmalik » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 7:50 PM UTC

chadmalik wrote: post #37

Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 year…

I'm seriously tired of getting downvoted for good comments. Later hackernews, have fun with your circlejerk.

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#44

Post by kyteland » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 7:57 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #26

Farmland isn't just a place to put some plants while they grow. A farm is a giant solar power facility, one that converts solar energy, carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate. Monbiot doesn't stress the point enough - it's all about light. When we say that we have a shortage of farmland, what we mean in practical terms is that we have a shortage of flat areas with good drainage to function as solar collectors. Go…

I don't buy his argument that the cost of artificial lighting alone would be ~100x the current market value of the produce, especially when you use the solar collector analogy for farmland. Some quick googleing puts wheat in the 1% efficient range or less when converting light into carbohyrates. I have no idea where to find the exact number but it's not efficient at all. In a controlled environment the remaining 99% of the energy could be recycled. On top of that his calculation was based on the average sunlight for a day in England but that's probably more than wheat needs to grow optimally. I would love to see a more realistic calculation of this number.

That said I don't think vertical farms will ever be practical.

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#45

Post by qq66 » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 8:06 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #22

alabut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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…

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? It takes 1-2 acres of farmland to support one person's eating requirements, which is two floors of the Empire State Building. Alternatively, there's 21000 people working in the ESB so that's about 200 people per floor. If you devoted every second floor to…

$38/year or per month?

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#46

Post by shasta » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 8:26 PM UTC

chadmalik wrote: post #42

mattmcknight wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The local food movement is quite silly. http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ 99% of human history pretty much sucked. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.h...

Saying "it sucked" doesn't address ANY of the points I made. Wake me up when you can make a serious rebuttal.

I think your comment was reasonable, but the point of the "silly locovore" link above is that insisting on locally grown food isn't the way fossil fuel conservation should be implemented, as locally grown does not imply fuel efficient. Rather, the nonlocal food market is a symptom of low fuel prices. But if fuel prices were $20 or $50 per gallon, as you'd probably like it, that would really hit the economy hard. If it turns out that by the time we run out of fossil fuels we have bootstrapped our way to some other reasonable forms of renewable energy, then arguably our resource allocation will have been pretty optimal. Cross your fingers!

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#47

Post by Someone » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 8:49 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #28

jlgbecom wrote: post #21

Vertical farms are kind of a crock, kind of. The idea of indoor agriculture is not, however (just look at Thanet Earth), and there is an advantage of building up a few floors and using grow lights to supplement the loss of passive lighting. A series of low-rise warehouses using hydroponics in the outer rings of a city makes a lot of sense. However, the architectural games people are playing with huge spires in the ce…

Can you identify a single instance of economic use of grow lights for agricultural (as opposed to pharmaceutical) purposes? Green Houses (Thanet Earth) are designed to trap the Sun's energy.

Go visit the Westland in the Netherlands at night, and you will be surprised at what you see. Assisting the sun with artificial lighting is nothing special.

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#48

Post by dalke » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 9:40 PM UTC

kyteland wrote: post #44

jdietrich wrote: post #26

Farmland isn't just a place to put some plants while they grow. A farm is a giant solar power facility, one that converts solar energy, carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate. Monbiot doesn't stress the point enough - it's all about light. When we say that we have a shortage of farmland, what we mean in practical terms is that we have a shortage of flat areas with good drainage to function as solar collectors. Go…

I don't buy his argument that the cost of artificial lighting alone would be ~100x the current market value of the produce, especially when you use the solar collector analogy for farmland. Some quick googleing puts wheat in the 1% efficient range or less when converting light into carbohyrates. I have no idea where to find the exact number but it's not efficient at all. In a controlled environment the remaining 99%…

"In a controlled environment the remaining 99% of the energy could be recycled."

Thus violating the second law of thermodynamics. Do tell how we can recycle that energy, turning waste heat back into light, since that would also make solar cells more efficient, increase farming capabilities in cloudy/cold regions, and reduce our dependency on petroleum by making biofuels easier to grow.

For a starting point of the calculations, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency .

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#49

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 9:50 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #18

philk wrote: post #14

I 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 highl…

[deleted]

Re: Why vertical farms are a crock.

#50

Post by dalke » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 9:50 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #18

philk wrote: post #14

I 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 highl…

Maine once provided food for the northeast. Once the rails went through the Appalachians to the plains, it was no longer profitable. The countryside turned back into forest.

If farmland ever gets that scarce, then we'll start seeing farms in Maine again, and farmers would be buying back the suburbs of Chicago.

Farmland simply is not that scarce, and it's hard to imagine how it would be that scarce. Supposing (for argument's sake, rather than reality) that it was feasible - wouldn't it be better to build vertical farms out in the countryside, away from expensive urban centers?