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Vertical farming does not save space

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#361

Post by kebman »

I think there are several misconceptions in this article, the first of which is the assumption that a prototype will be as efficient as the final product. Sure, the prototype does seem to use a lot of energy, but will that be the case for later iterations? Surely it would be the first things engineers would try to minimize, since it's a direct cost associated with production.

More importantly, it does not really matter much if the area used for the production does not save on space. That's not really the point, although it would be nice. The point is to bring agricultural production closer to urban environments, in order to save on the energy cost related to the shipping of said product, and possibly to bring far fresher products to customers. The article seems to portray that as a pipe dream. Again, these are things that can surely be minimized in order to compete with shipping between rural and urban areas.

With that out of the way, yes, currently urban farms do seem pretty ineffective and useless. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't explore and develop these ideas. Once upon a time cars were pretty inefficient toys of the ultra rich too.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#362

Post by nindalf »

This article seems to be making a few assumptions that might not be correct. It assumes that all land is the same so it doesn’t matter if agriculture is replaced by solar panels. But this isn’t true. Some land is fertile, other land might not be. So if fertile agricultural land is replaced by vertical farming powered by solar panels in the desert, that fertile land can now be reclaimed. It could be used to grow a forest, certainly something you couldn’t do in the desert.

Secondly, it assumes that there’s some limit on vertical farming. But it’s possible to build several storeys on the same land.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#363

Post by jariel »

gh02t wrote: post #165
benjaminjackman wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about commercial by 2030 but leap frogging ITER doesn't seem far fetched at all because of the all signficant advances in superconductors achieved after ITER was planned out. Also, if the new superconductors do work out, it's very likely that all other forms of energy generation and grid level storage will become almost immediately obsolete and any additional focus moving forward would be only on improvi…

I'm a nuclear engineer working at a laboratory known for fusion research. Commercial fusion power at any scale is not happening by 2030. 2040 or 2050 are more realistic and may still be a stretch.

Help me answer this:

If it's 'likely' to happen, then why are we not allocating 10's of billions towards it right now, to accelerate it so that it happens in 5 years?

Many, many things can be done in parrallel. Some effort would be wasted, bit it'd be worth it.

If fusion works, it's basically going to be priceless in terms of impact and value.

Even starting to account for climate change ... we could suck Co2 out of the air on demand.

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#365

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#366

Post by [deleted] »

gh02t wrote: post #165
benjaminjackman wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about commercial by 2030 but leap frogging ITER doesn't seem far fetched at all because of the all signficant advances in superconductors achieved after ITER was planned out. Also, if the new superconductors do work out, it's very likely that all other forms of energy generation and grid level storage will become almost immediately obsolete and any additional focus moving forward would be only on improvi…

I'm a nuclear engineer working at a laboratory known for fusion research. Commercial fusion power at any scale is not happening by 2030. 2040 or 2050 are more realistic and may still be a stretch.

[deleted]

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#367

Post by klodolph »

Armisael16 wrote: post #336
klodolph wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Green light has too many peaks and valleys and can overload the photosynthesis systems so they reflect a lot of it. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would peaks and valleys overload something? Why would green light have more peaks and valleys? I was a bit sloppy with the way I phrased that—what I really meant was “the reason why plants use specific quanta of light is the same reason why photovoltaics absorb s…

I don’t know if this is what the previous poster was getting at, some there is some theoretical evidence that the absorption wavelengths used in photosynthesis are not tuned for maximum power input but for stable power input: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.12281 If this is the case it would be a motivation that is fundamentally very different than that of a multijunction solar cell.

I've read that paper, I didn't realize the comment was referring to that.

> If this is the case it would be a motivation that is fundamentally very different than that of a multijunction solar cell.

Solar cells are designed by humans with human motivations, and plants are "designed" by evolutionary processes which lack motivation entirely. Yet, in spite of this, there are astonishing similarities between the limitations of solar cells and the limitations of plants. Isn't that fascinating, that processes with such disparate origins have such similarities?

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#368

Post by Ekaros »

jokoon wrote: post #137
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…

It's certainly not cheap in carbon, which is the main problem in farming. Vertical farming optimizes water and transport. I admit that I'm not entirely convinced about vertical farming, but I'm confident it has a future. I'm still curious about using leds and yield.

And when we start talking about skyscrapers I start to really wonder the sunke co2 on those. Plus all the equipment used to run the stuff... How will it compare at scale?

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#369

Post by jpadkins »

airza wrote: post #82
tux1968 wrote: post #74

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.

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!

but isn't aquafarming vastly superior to vertical farming for that problem statement?

Re: Vertical farming does not save space

#370

Post by Jetrel »

ben_w wrote: post #155
tux1968 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do you do that in say the desert? Solar is KISS in many situations.

Are greenhouses in deserts harder to build or maintain than PV farms and power lines in the same desert? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely don’t know. I assume it varies by desert, but farming and power are both way out of my domain.

I'm also just an armchair intellectual speculating here...

Not "per se" a knock against greenhouses, but definitely one of the things you're looking for is a closed system rather than the sort of greenhouse you'd get in many places in America, where it's just a robust plastic tent-on-a-concrete-slab, and they don't care much if the water runs off. In a desert you'd be really concerned about making sure the whole works has very, very low water-losses.

The key thing to make this useful is to conceptualize it not as the sort of area, like the Nile, where they've already got an ample water supply. To make this useful, it's best to think of something where there's basically no water supply at all, and we're trying to crack the problem of "okay, how could we grow crops here?" Something that right now, is just bone-dry barren desert. Most of the solutions we rely on in the wetter world just don't really care much about water loss.

Something that could fit the definition of a greenhouse, with windowed ceilings, might well be a viable solution. But I do suspect there's some correlation between making a grow site more bunker-like and lowering water loss (especially if it's recessed into the earth).

The other huge upside of a truly sealed system is it's another approach to pest control. Sealing the system could potentially completely eliminate the need for pesticides and herbicides. Right now those have huge negative externalities.

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