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Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
An interesting proposal was discussed by some people on Twitter recently. They discussed it around using Bitcoin mining to create a larger demand for electricity when prices are cheap. Then when an event happens such as in Texas recently, electricity prices would go up, causing mining rigs to turn off since it's no longer economical. There would then be more available electricity for heating homes & businesses. One w…
So, burn tons of fossil fuels to mine bitcoin, thus forcing tons of fossil fuels to be burned to build new generating capacity? Nope, can't think of any issues with it.
Yes we want things to use less energy & be more efficient. I hope that goes without saying.
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.
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…
Edit: also it's supposed to use a lot less water
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can put farms in the desert. Some of the most productive farmland is in deserts. Arizona and California are both noted for producing large quantities of high-quality cotton.
and those productive farms also use copious amounts of water that isn't available otherwise. (IE: piped in from rivers far away causing no shortage of ancillary problems: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/magazine/the-water-wars-o... )
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.)
2. We will continue to have nuclear waste if we want to have nuclear weapons
3. You can store all the waste you need to store in a football field (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...)
Nuclear waste management is messy, but it's something we need to solve no matter what. It is now a sunk cost we have to deal with because of what we have already done and what we plan to keep.
So if we already have to pay the fixed cost, we should reap as much benefit as possible.
> 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…
Solar panels can be more efficient, but if your comparison is between “sunlight -> plants” and “sunlight -> solar panels -> electric lights -> plants”, you have to include the actual efficiency of e.g. photovoltaics and LEDs in your calculations. Photovoltaics these days have something around 15-20% efficiency and LEDs have conversion efficiency around 50-60%. The magenta grow lamps are colored for more efficient use…