Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

singularityhub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 224 posts

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

#211

Post by foolmeonce »

ben_w wrote: post #191
foolmeonce wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would generally agree, but I see solving the problems caused by "cash crops" as very good and not unlike solar and wind solving the problems of extremes first. If it can replace the 5% of food that is currently handled terribly and has an enormously oversized footprint then that is great. I am not horrified by the ramifications of my staple rice coming from Asia on a slow boat which I then consume 100% of. I am hor…

You’ve accidentally triple-posted, I assume this happened when you tried edit a typo?

Yeah, I had a little incident editing a double negative with noprocrast set, and misremembering reply converting to edit-in-place, sorry about that.

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

#212

Post by throwaway201103 »

wil421 wrote: post #192
ttn wrote: post #101

Disclaimer: I've grown tomatoes, strawberries and weed indoors with artificial lighting. As long as there is no shocking event like global drought or famine I do not think vertical farming or indoor farming will be a norm anytime soon as it takes massive, massive amount of energy/capital. That being said, the moment we figure out using fusion energy, conventional farming will most probably vanish. Also R&D on agricul…

Someone claimed a while back most of these vertical farms would switch to growing weed once it became legal in the state(s) they have farms. I’m not sure if any other crop beside weed would turn a significant profit. You might be able to get a government contract to grow some other controlled substance and turn a small profit. The only other way it would work would be if it was a co-op owned by residents or subsidize…

Presumably the demand for weed is already being met (legally or not). Is there evidence that legalization prompts a large increase in demand? Just thinking about myself, I did not use weed when it was illegal, and legalization has not changed that.

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

#213

Post by bryanlarsen »

ac29 wrote: post #199
bryanlarsen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most crops aren't irrigated.

I came here to dispute this, but when I looked it up, it appears to be true, at least in the US, where irrigated farms produce only 39% of farm products (in $). That being said, its still a nontrivial percentage, and irrigation for agriculture accounts for 80% of the nations water consumption. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/june/understanding...

The disparity would be much larger per calorie rather than per $. Staple foods tend not to be irrigated.

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

#214

Post by esarbe »

dsrees wrote: post #93
esarbe wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite get the point you are making. Can you rephrase it?

You can't plow a mountain side and grow acres of corn or build a feedlot. But you can run cattle and sheep over it which are able to forage the grasses while climbing the terrain. So mountainous people are able to obtain calories from animals in places otherwise unsuitable for more conventional farming methods.

Thanks for clarifying.

Letting cattle and sheep and goats forage in terrain unsuited for agriculture is fine.

I still think we should stop feeding that 1/3rd of our grain to cattle.

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

#215

Post by tpmx »

tpmx wrote: post #128
dsego wrote: post #118

After the success of vacuum trains, underground superhighways, solar roadways and rocket travel, I guess this is the next logical step? At least you have something to sink our money into, rinse and repeat. Maybe even involve some EU green & eco funds.

In this case the money seems to come from e.g. the danish government VC fund Vækstfonden . There was a very similar play in Sweden that went bankrupt last year after consuming a lot of tax money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagon

Amount of money raised by Plantagon is reported to be: 120 million SEK, or $14M. Most of this likely tax money in some form.

Denmark: Please watch out.

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

#216

Post by LockAndLol »

For all the anti-vertical farmers out there with a highly USA-centric view, consider that the Netherlands (the world leader in indoor agriculture aka 2nd largest exporter of vegetables in the world [1]) is investing in vertical farming and research into it. "This won't work in the US therefore it won't work anywhere in the world" is a very limited view. New York, Japan, Singapore and other regions and countries have very good reasons to invest in it [2]. Not every country has the space or disregard for greenhouse gases.

[1]: https://www.dw.com/en/could-high-tech-netherlands-style-farm...

[2]: https://www.climateaction.org/news/netherlands-begins-constr...

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

#217

Post by unearth3d »

Totally agree with Barrin92; the dollars don't stack up. Ballpark estimate here, I've tried this with several crops and its similar Hard comparing field farming and tower-farming but here in NZ good level farmland is ~NZ$40000 Hectare Ha (2.47 acres), most farms >300 Ha. Equipment, fences and buildings are NZ$2M+, so that makes it nearly $47k Ha, round up to $50k Ha to be safer. So you could say their infrastructure cost is $10000/Ha.

But farms don't have to purchase light! Lighting costs for farming $0, for 100% artificial light NZ$1.90 per harvested Kg.

Current production costs for e.g. wheat $2500 Ha (seed, tillage, weed-control, harvest). Wheat NZ has world record of ~17t Ha, but all of this is a lot easier (cheaper) when you can move large machines freely. Wind is also an advantage in strengthening plant stems.

A farming tower needs greater strength than a residential building as there are live loads like harvesting equipment and a lot of 'soil' media and/or water if fully hydroponic. So I'll use costs for a concrete multilevel parking building which is going to be at least $2200 m² (plus lighting, HVAC and fitout - not in calc).

So, say your tower floorplate is 1000m², and taller than residential for extra HVAC and machine space. Assume you buy farmland at $45k Ha and build 10 floors (1000m²/floor), and prob. end with ~700m² growing space per floor, means you need another three floors to get you up to a 1 Ha growing area,

: so 13 1000m² floors at $2200m² = $28.6M / $50k = 570 times.

Plus lighting at $1.90 per kg of harvestable product - which for wheat at 17t/Ha would be $32000 per crop cycle.

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

#218

Post by TearsInTheRain »

elhuddy wrote: post #193
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always true. Tomato from Naples (one of the richest soils in the world, due to volcanic activity e.g. Pompeii) ≠ organic tomato you buy in a good supermarket in the US.

This is also demonstrably false in the wine industry. Soil has a direct impact on the outcome of your grapes, e.g. fields that have water runoff from mountainous/rocky areas produce wine that tastes more of minerals.

Im curious if there have been any blind studies that show this. I think a lot of what is conventional wisdom when it comes to taste in the wine industry is often not reproducible in the lab: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...

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

#219

Post by industriousthou »

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…

I think this kind of thing is really only economical for niche products like micro greens and fancy lettuce with high markups. It can be grown under perfect conditions, then transported and used the same day it's harvested.

So, pretty cool from a technical and culinary perspective, but it's never going to produce staple crops economically. It seems kind of silly to portray it as being particularly eco-friendly or as addressing concerns like food security.

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

#220

Post by elhuddy »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #218
elhuddy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also demonstrably false in the wine industry. Soil has a direct impact on the outcome of your grapes, e.g. fields that have water runoff from mountainous/rocky areas produce wine that tastes more of minerals.

Im curious if there have been any blind studies that show this. I think a lot of what is conventional wisdom when it comes to taste in the wine industry is often not reproducible in the lab: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...

Its tough to taste a $10 wine and a $100 wine blind and say "oh this one is much better than this other one". But it's easy to taste a wine and say "this is earthy" or "this is fruity" or "this is peppery". Earthier wines tend to be from grapes that are in more mineral present soil. Have you been wine tasting in a major region before? It's actually a fantastic experience. There's so much complexity in wine flavor.
Post reply on HN