Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#31

Post by tremon » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

user568439 wrote: post #19

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually a…

On top of that: this style of farming is additive to other uses of the same land area, not exclusive. Having a traditional 100-acre farm demands a loss of 100 acres of land in opportunity cost. Vertical farming allows to use the same land for residential or commercial development, or it allows for 100 acres of food production in only 10 acres of land.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#32

Post by andi999 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

ranguna wrote: post #13

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

Did you even read the article? Water consumption is 250 times less that typical agriculture flat fields. Also, instead of using 1 meter square to grow 1 meter square of crops, you can use the same space to grow 14x the amount of crops.

As far as I understand, water is not a sparse resource in Denmark (but might be an expensive one)

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#33

Post by sgeisler » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:56 AM UTC

I wonder if this will eventually lead to even more efficiency (less people involved in per output). Vertical farms lend themselves much more to standardization than conventional ones imo (many small machines instead of few big ones). If all the often-failing parts could be built in a way that they can be replaced automatically I can imagine a giant farm being run by a single guy who's main task is receiving replacement parts and sometimes untangling messes the bots don't know how to manage.

The other big benefit of being independent from environmental factors might also come in handy in space or as a cheaper alternative to fighting climate change.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#34

Post by pm90 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

Food is absolutely the most important, foundational aspect of any nation. It is so fundamental, that countries will rather create stockpiles and let it rot rather than risk running even the remote chance that they will run out of food. When you run out of food... everything breaks down, quite literally. It is thus in every nations interest to be as self-sufficient in their food production as possible.

This is a very welcome development. Currently, only countries blessed with large sizes and specifically large arable lands are even capable of being self sufficient in their food production. This kind of hyper localized food production might just be the answer for nations of the future that don't want their population or geo-political influence to be limited by their size.

Additionally, climate change has the possibility of severely disrupting both the production and supply chains for food. Being able to grow food anywhere, without worrying about soil fertility, is incredible.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#35

Post by qayxc » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

user568439 wrote: post #19

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually a…

> but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor

Correlation ≠ causation.

I did some experiments years ago growing food under various conditions. The difference in taste is dominated by two factors: variety and time of harvest.

Most industrial fruit is harvested long before it's ripe and ripens artificially in warehouses.

This is the main factor that determines taste as this is the process in which taste develops. The longer the process, the more time the produce has to collect and store the relevant substances. Artificial ripening only takes a day or two compared to weeks for naturally grown food.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#36

Post by hobofan » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #29

user568439 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually a…

> but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor, even if it's not relevant to produce the fruit, because I really feel a big difference of taste between hydroponic food and classic farming. Is this a real thing? Interesting! I wonder if, much like food additives, we could figure out what particular nutrients would be required to impart a specific flavor to produce.

AFAIK the compounds that make up the flavor are mostly known.

The problem is more that if you optimize plant growth for weight per time (because weight is what you are payed for) and leave flavor out of the equation, you'll end up with fruit that has a lot of weight with little flavor. If you switch to a growth regimen that gives the plants a bit more time, you will generally get a better flavor, even under hydroponic settings.

Given that you can sense a lot of compounds that make up a fruit non-destructively, I'm pretty optimistic that you could optimize for flavor too in a robotic/vertical farming setting.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#37

Post by riffraff » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:02 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #29

user568439 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually a…

> but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor, even if it's not relevant to produce the fruit, because I really feel a big difference of taste between hydroponic food and classic farming. Is this a real thing? Interesting! I wonder if, much like food additives, we could figure out what particular nutrients would be required to impart a specific flavor to produce.

AFAIU, the main problem is that hydroponic growers maximize for volume/color not taste. They could use richer nutrients, but decide not to.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#38

Post by DrAwdeOccarim » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:05 AM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #29

user568439 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 250x less water - Sun/heat/light maybe needs to be converted but it's always used in the right amount for each crop - Controlled environments protected from plagues, floods, fires... Crops are not lost due to uncontrollable events and a lot of savings in chemicals to protect them from bugs - Saving the cost of SCM (transport and intermediaries) which is sometimes much bigger than producing. In farming is actually a…

> but the real soil somehow must add a lot of flavor, even if it's not relevant to produce the fruit, because I really feel a big difference of taste between hydroponic food and classic farming. Is this a real thing? Interesting! I wonder if, much like food additives, we could figure out what particular nutrients would be required to impart a specific flavor to produce.

It's likely only genetics that determine taste. Abiotic Soil contents probably have no contribution.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#39

Post by bumbada » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:06 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #10

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

Same, but at the same time, it's preparing for a future where the borders and international shipping may be impossible, where overpopulation means we can no longer use land for farming, and where farmland becomes unusable or at least unpredictable due to climate change. Plus something about colonizing space. It's far future and dystopian, but not improbable. Anyway, it's not the most efficient way to grow food; I liv…

It is not far future and it is not dystopian.

Anyone that have lived in China or India knows how much people those places have.

There is already a tremendous pressure from the food those countries demand on the world. Chinese fishing fleet just obliterates anywhere they go, and they are destroying the Amazon forest in Brazil and Argentina with soya(proteins for pigs) plantations and equatorial jungles for Palm Oil.

Anything is inefficient at first, including agriculture itself. Wheat and corn grains were super small at first. At first, solar panels did cost hundreds of times more than what it does today.

Technology will improve and the future will be better.

Re: Europe's Biggest Vertical Farm Will Be Powered by Wind and Planted by Robots

#40

Post by fnord123 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 11:10 AM UTC

achow wrote: post #16

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

I'm gonna be honest I do not understand the economics and logic of vertical farming. You're basically putting plants in expensive, complicated buildings operated by extremely expensive and complicated robots, then you turn energy from the sun into electricity and back into light so you can grow the plants when you can just... farm in sunny places instead? Plants have the ability to turn sunlight into tasty nutrients…

Earth: 29% Land, 71% Ocean Land: 71% Habitable, 29% Not Agricultural: 2.3% of all habitable land Livestock: 8% of all habitable land Looking at the stats, your question is very valid. We can drastically increase food production by marginally decreasing land dedicated for livestock and/or utilizing unused habitable land. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/11/Global-land-use-g...

Those stats also do not indicate how much the agricultural land is being used to grow animal feed. In fact if a crop is grown but inadequate quality for selling for humans, it is sold at a massive discount as animal feed. Reducing the variability in crop yields, as vertical farming should do, should make the 2.3% more efficient.

We need to be careful about how we reduce livestocks globally. Naively interfering in the market such that the price of meat goes up could be disastrous as Brazilian farmers could accelerate the slashing of rain forests to make way for more profitable livestock farming.