Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#261

Post by busterarm » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #78

busterarm wrote: post #56

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw "Vertical Farming Won't Save The Planet"

The title of that presentation is ‘turning fossil fuels to food’. Fossil fuels are over, finished so the video is probably not forward looking. I will watch it later anyways ...

Way to miss the forest for the trees. That talk is about how inefficient vertical farming is, _even using fossil fuels_ which are much more efficient than solar at the moment.

Where do you think most of grid power comes from right now?

Plants collect the sun's energy better than solar panels do and the sun is significantly more powerful than lamps.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#262

Post by rorykoehler » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #244

throwaway2048 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are never going to beat the efficency of the sun shining down on plants for free, no matter what. I mean the entire idea is absurd, what are you going to have solar panels on the building that somehow collect light and re-emit it, and have that be more efficent than just the plants collecting the light directly? So you take more land area for solar, why wouldnt you just plant crops on that land area instead...

The sun produces a full spectrum of light, like a blackbody of a certain temperature. The atmosphere then selectively absorbs, scatters, or reflects a portion of it. That produces the Earth daylight spectrum, which varies by season, latitude, and time of day. It doesn't ever match up precisely with the absorption spectrum of plant pigments. A grow light can produce the exact wavelength of blue light most readily abso…

Not only that but with careful management you can squeeze 4 seasons into a year

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#263

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #259

jcranmer wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using one (18-wheeler) truck for all of the different kinds of food for the last mile in terms of distribution center-to-supermarket, but one (pickup) truck each for the different sources for the farm-to-farmer's market. Not to mention that the distribution center is likely closer than the farms.

But food doesn't grow in distribution centers. At some point you have to transport the food out of the farm. That would result in the following chains (simplified): Local: Farm -(1)-> Farmer's market -(4)-> Consumer's home National: Farm -(1)-> Distribution center -(3)-> Supermarket -(4)-> Consumer's home International: Farm -(1)-> Harbor/Distribution center of producing country -(2)-> Harbor/Distribution center of c…

I would note it's frequently an 18-wheeler from the farm to a distribution center as well.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#264

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #185

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$993,567,000 is the total value of lettuce production for the year, not the cost.

Would the yield per acre be higher because of no need for pesticides, and less loss of bad quality yields? Cos we know organic is more expensive as it yields far less than gm crops. And would crops grow faster with 24/7 sunlight vs 12 hours?!?

I mean, the reason all of these vegetables are grown in California is basically because it is already a controlled environment. It's sunny all the time, and it doesn't get much rain, so you are just irrigating at the optimal time for the crop in question.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#265

Post by malchow » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

Its Δ value comes entirely from water-saving, but water-saving on traditional horizontal farming is likely to yield larger food benefits than vertical farming. See, e.g. http://waterbit.com. (Disclosure: I am an investor.)

The big thing is that most farms could both use less water and concomitantly yield more crop. It's good to make plants work for it. And IME yields better tasting food, too.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#266

Post by codeisawesome » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #28

There's a lot of misunderstanding of agriculture in this thread. 1) No, land is not expensive. In agricultural areas, land is quite cheap. Organizing shelves of crops vertically solves for a problem that isn't actually a problem. 2) The sun is free and electricity isn't cheap. Putting plants indoors and then buying electricity to create light is going to be expensive compared to using the free sun. (The absurdity of…

If hydroponics eventually leads to deforestation in pursuit of (cheap?) agricultural land becoming unviable - it would have solved a very real problem.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#267

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #257

saalweachter wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm occasionally boggling that there's no electric farm equipment, since it at least suffers from one fewer problem than electric cars: you're mostly driving around in a finite area. You might need to plumb a dozen or so charging stations at various fields, and have the equivalent ability to essentially carry a five gallon jug of electricity to a tractor in a field when you run out accidentally, but you're not drivin…

> I would guess the average farm tractor in the fields today in the US is 20-30 years old. It's actually surprisingly hard to find hard numbers on this topic, but the numbers I've seen have generally suggested that the average age is more like 10-20 years old. The hard numbers I've seen do say that about 10-20% of tractors are less than 5 years old. Realistically, the difficult part of electric tractors isn't the mil…

Eh, not that surprising: you don't need to register a tractor the way you do a car, so there's no central registry of what tractors are still being used.

Re: energy storage, oof, yeah, at 146.5 MJ / gallon for diesel fuel, and 10 gallons / hour, 12 hours of fuel holds 4884 kWh of energy. Assuming you need a similarly sized battery, you're looking at 60 Tesla (car) batteries. That will weigh approximately 36 tons and cost about $700,000, based on Tesla's 141$/kWh stated cost.

Hmmm, I'm guessing you can't put more than 8-10 tons of battery on a tractor that size (the John Deere 7250, which is actually 13g/hr, weighs 13 tons) so you're limited to maybe 3 hours or so of power between charges or swapping out your batteries. For that much battery, you're looking at maybe $175,000; the John Deere 7250 retailed for ~$230,000. Assuming your batteries are swappable and fast-chargeable, you'd need at least two batteries. (Heck, it's a tractor, maybe it can be on some sort of wagon you tow behind, which would make swapping a snap.)

Putting it together, I think we might actually be approaching viability for electric tractors. If you can actually fit 8-10 tons of battery into a 13 ton tractor and build the rest of the tractor for $55,000, you could build a tractor comparable to the John Deere 7250 that would run for about 3 hours; that's not a bad amount of time to run between swapping out the batteries, but you'd need at least another $175,000 battery to swap out, which already makes you ~twice as expensive as a regular tractor. You would probably need the battery weight and cost to drop by half again before you could get a tractor that would run all day (with a battery swap) and not cost more than a conventional tractor.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#268

Post by rmason » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

gepi79 wrote: post #207

rmason wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word no. I spent twenty years as a fertilizer agronomist and I'm very familiar with the costs of producing a crop. The numbers simply do not work. Even when they tried in Detroit and got buildings for five cents on the dollar they couldn't make it work. The investors funding these enterprises do not understand agricultural economics. I keep investigating these stories looking for some kind of 'breakthrough tech'…

"no" to what ? IMO nostromo is right in all points and probably even agrees with you. IMO expensive vertical farming in cities works for expensive vegetables and spices but not for crops. IMO indoor farming is the future of food production because it is efficient (perfect indoor climate, water, automation, less pests and pesticides, less herbs and herbicides) and allows genetic engineering of food producing plants or…

Much higher costs far exceed the advantage you gain from transportation. If you manage well you will have higher yields but not enough to overcome the hole you're in.

You will be able to charge higher prices but outside of a couple of cities the market is too shallow consisting of basically very high end restaurants. You're saving the chef having to go to the farmers market and having lettuce that is say twelve hours fresher.

Don't underestimate a savvy farmer from making deliveries and undercutting your advantage because in some cities it's already happened. Or a Detroit startup I know that is picking up from the farmer and making deliveries, chefs can order from their cell phone.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#269

Post by jcranmer » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #267

jcranmer wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess the average farm tractor in the fields today in the US is 20-30 years old. It's actually surprisingly hard to find hard numbers on this topic, but the numbers I've seen have generally suggested that the average age is more like 10-20 years old. The hard numbers I've seen do say that about 10-20% of tractors are less than 5 years old. Realistically, the difficult part of electric tractors isn't the mil…

Eh, not that surprising: you don't need to register a tractor the way you do a car, so there's no central registry of what tractors are still being used. Re: energy storage, oof, yeah, at 146.5 MJ / gallon for diesel fuel, and 10 gallons / hour, 12 hours of fuel holds 4884 kWh of energy. Assuming you need a similarly sized battery, you're looking at 60 Tesla (car) batteries. That will weigh approximately 36 tons and…

> Heck, it's a tractor, maybe it can be on some sort of wagon you tow behind, which would make swapping a snap.

Well, if you're towing something behind you on a tractor, you can't use the power take-off anymore, which kind of ruins the point of the tractor for most uses.

Re: Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?

#270

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #269

saalweachter wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, not that surprising: you don't need to register a tractor the way you do a car, so there's no central registry of what tractors are still being used. Re: energy storage, oof, yeah, at 146.5 MJ / gallon for diesel fuel, and 10 gallons / hour, 12 hours of fuel holds 4884 kWh of energy. Assuming you need a similarly sized battery, you're looking at 60 Tesla (car) batteries. That will weigh approximately 36 tons and…

> Heck, it's a tractor, maybe it can be on some sort of wagon you tow behind, which would make swapping a snap. Well, if you're towing something behind you on a tractor, you can't use the power take-off anymore, which kind of ruins the point of the tractor for most uses.

Or the three point hitch, or the...

You might be able to set up a convoluted system where you have the power cells being dragged behind whatever equipment you're using, assuming you can get enough tires underneath to not undo whatever work you're doing to begin with (first we plow the field, then we pack it down tight!)

But then you also can't use the ~10 tons to provide extra weight on your wheels.

It just feels like you ought to be able to store your batteries in a way which makes swapping them/carting them around easier, if you don't need to have a sleek aerodynamic package that fits on a highway. Actually requiring a crane to swap your batteries adds a lot of overhead, along with room for comic fuckups.