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A square mile is a huge chunk of land. It's nearly 640 acres. For comparison a large suburban plot is usually only 1/8th of an acre. That is to say nothing for
by shiftpgdn 7y ago
A square mile is a huge chunk of land. It's nearly 640 acres. For comparison a large suburban plot is usually only 1/8th of an acre. That is to say nothing for cost of keeping the land irrigated, free of pests and running tractors and other ag equipment to harvest the hay during growing season.
We then don't take into account the most expensive part, buying the land. In Texas a 500 acre ranch already prepped for hay or other crops costs about 1-2 million dollars to buy.
Furthermore, plants aren't perfect. Many plants also respirate co2 as well as oxygen. It's not a perfect equation like in grade school.
- ajross 7y agoDoesn't really matter how efficient the process is biochemically. Buried carbon is buried carbon, and the production cost of biomass is dirt cheap. A more focused criticism would be: it's not enough for that fancy plant to work, it needs to be cheaper than a hayfield at scale to be worth it. And I'd want to see numbers showing that. Farms are not, in fact, particularly expensive relative to venture backed startups.
- DerekL 7y ago> A square mile is a huge chunk of land. It's nearly 640 acres. By the way, a square mile is exactly 640 acres.