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Vertical farming does not save space

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#81

Post by mutatio »

kibwen wrote: post #7

> Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. This doesn't have to be the case. Plants don't use all the sunlight that hits them, because available light isn't generally the bottleneck in plant growth. Note how most plants are green, whic…

Plants use green light: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/green_light_is_it_important_fo...

In fact the idea of light frequency restriction is dying a death in LED grow lights, sun-like full spectrum with deep red and UV ranges have proven to be superior to specific ranges (blurple).

Light being a bottleneck isn't very meaningful as plant growth is adjusted by a bunch of levers, e.g. increase respiration and nutrients and more light energy can be utilized - obviously there's limiting factors in plant biology.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#82

Post by airza »

tux1968 wrote: post #74
maxharris wrote: post #59

Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. The vertical farm is a paradox unless fossil fuels provide the energy. In that case, there’s not much sustainable about it. This entire piece is based on the assumption that the only sources of…

The other thing to remember is that there is a lot of land that isn't suitable for farming for one reason or another that can be used for solar.

It's such an important point that's the core value proposition of vertical farming. Arable.land is unlikely to keep up with the combination of population growth and climate change. That's the whole point of the exercise! Solving that problem!

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#83

Post by hctaw »

Majromax wrote: post #56
gm wrote: post #53

This is one of those headlines that are missing the word "yet" at the end. All of the problems brought up are solvable, given enough time and resources. Also given some f-ing ingenuity. This quote is just disingenuous: "the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels". Can't you just install solar panels vertically as well? A single web search for "vertical solar panels" brings up altern…

> This quote is just disingenuous: "the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels". Can't you just install solar panels vertically as well? More to the point, solar panels don't need to be installed on arable land . Solar panels can be installed in low-fertility areas like deserts; offshore wind turbines are absolutely not displacing farmland.

On the homes, offices, and industrial parks surrounding the vertical farms as well.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#84

Post by aaron695 »

Making thousands of commuters drive past your 'city' farm to get to work burns a lot of fuel too.

It's hard to know what to do with people who don't get even that.

I guess get them to pay $$$ for their energy intensive crops in their fancy cafes. Which if they are happy doesn't make that bad. The environmental movement doesn't help the environment, but it does make people happy, if they would just stop proselytizing it'd be ok.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#85

Post by Ekaros »

bee_rider wrote: post #68
the_gastropod wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood the point to be more about the energy inputs. The gist of it is: plants are more efficient at capturing energy from the sun directly than indirectly via solar panels -> light bulbs -> plants (which seems obvious, when you state it that way). The only thing that makes vertical farming make any financial sense, today, is the access to cheap (subsidized) fossil fuels.

The cost of transporting the conventionally grown plants would have to be accounted for as well, but I'd be pretty surprised if that got anywhere near tipping the scale over to vertical farming.

I wonder if that could be solved more easily. Build sufficient rail network and hydrogen/electric/other zero-carbon trucks to move produce from production to there and then train it in. And this is really a sector we could fully automated almost already.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#86

Post by mannerheim »

hctaw wrote: post #61
worker767424 wrote: post #42

Vertical farming mostly feels like a solution in search of a problem. It uses relatively expensive technology to produce low-value products. Putting seeds in the ground, tilling, and waiting is absurdly cheap compared to building growhouses. For some perspective, what farms actually do extend growing seasons is put "greenhouses" around cold-sensitive crops like tomatoes, but a "greenhouse" in this case is a wire hoop…

The greater problem to solve is maximizing nutrition for communities while minimizing the carbon costs of providing it. Vertical farms fit into that equation by moving production closer to the people that eat the produce, and making it more available to food/nutrition deserts in urban areas. Extending growing seasons or returning farmlands to wildlands miss that point. The bigger problem in the latter is livestock an…

Most of the carbon costs of providing food comes from the process of growing it, not transporting it. Most of the carbon costs in transportation also come from consumers driving to and from grocery stores. See: https://www.salon.com/2012/06/16/eating_local_hurts_the_plan...

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#87

Post by nostromo »

> Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels.

Is this true?

Plants use specific ranges of light (narrow bands of red and blue). Solar panels absorb a broad array of wavelengths. So isn't it at least possible that one solar panel could produce more than its size worth of productive sunlight for the purposes of photosynthesis?

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#88

Post by SimianLogic2 »

jseliger wrote: post #54
SimianLogic2 wrote: post #43

This article is more about indoor farming than vertical farming (is it even vertical if there's only one row?). I grow lettuce indoors. It serves as a nice houseplant and fresh source of salad greens for lunch. It's fairly new, so the cost isn't that much different than just buying lettuce. Once I start building my own "pods" instead of buying the brand-name pods, though, I expect it'll be a bit cheaper than buying 4…

Have you written comprehensively about the system you've set up and how it works? I've thought about a Zipgrow system or similar: https://shop.zipgrow.com/products/small?variant=316809164227... , but, as you can see, it's fairly costly to set up. I don't think it'll be cheaper than the grocery store, but it also seems fun and like the final product may taste better.

I'm just using a 9-plant Aerogarden Bounty right now (think it was ~$175 on Black Friday). My wife says I can upgrade to an indoor Tower Garden or Lettucegrow if I do 3-4 cycles on this thing without getting bored.

I also built six 4ftx4ft raised (dirt) beds in our back yard a few years back. I plant fairly densely (usually using 1x1 squares for most things, 2x2 for tomatoes) and I'm thinking about trying one of the tower gardens as a replacement for a single 4x4 bed this growing season. It's been a minute since I ran the numbers, but I think you can plant 20-25 plants on one tower vs maybe 4-16 in a single bed and theoretically not have to weed/water as much (but then you get pump maintenance/ph balance/feeding/cleaning instead).

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#89

Post by Hammershaft »

marshray wrote: post #80
maxharris wrote: post #59

Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. The vertical farm is a paradox unless fossil fuels provide the energy. In that case, there’s not much sustainable about it. This entire piece is based on the assumption that the only sources of…

Yes, please include the cost of nuclear power in the considerations. (The joke here is that the true cost is undefined because we here in the US have no method to store the long-term hazardous waste it produces. Current cleanup costs for just the military reactor waste are estimated at $500B, for civilian reactors the costs are said to be higher.)

In the short term nuclear energy is expensive, but in the long term nuclear energy is one the cheapest sources of energy available. Source - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY

(this is even more true when you consider the cost of externalities)

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#90

Post by hinkley »

tux1968 wrote: post #74
maxharris wrote: post #59

Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. The vertical farm is a paradox unless fossil fuels provide the energy. In that case, there’s not much sustainable about it. This entire piece is based on the assumption that the only sources of…

The other thing to remember is that there is a lot of land that isn't suitable for farming for one reason or another that can be used for solar.

Or restoring native habitat.
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