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I agree. Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? This is an example that some scientifically minde

I agree. Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? This is an example that some scientifically minded people forget an important aspect in the world: economics. Can your New Way of Doing It^{TM} do it cheaper than existing solutions? If not, it most likely does not have a future.

fragmede 7y ago
The sun is free, but not all plans will grow everywhere. In many cases, there just isn't enough sun, or the climate is wrong. The economics of growing, say, pineapples in England don't work out, in part because it's so expensive to grow them there (if that's even possible in a highly climate-controlled room), but also because transportation costs are so low.
- MandieD 7y ago
  It is possible to grow them in English greenhouses: wealthy Britons with skilled gardeners had them in the 18th and 19th century, and the growing middle class often rented pineapples to display at fancy dinners. As you said, cheap transportation is what ended UK domestic pineapple production. https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pineapples.htm https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pin...
namirez 7y ago
> Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? For many reasons: 1) Using vertical space rather than surface area; 2) Producing closer to population centers; 3) Producing year around irrespective of seasonal changes; 4) Not having to use pesticides.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  1) and 2) round to “transport costs” economically and freight is cheap except in areas where people don’t have enough money to be worth selling to, like Afghanistan.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Freight might be cheap, but what about the carbon footprint?
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      Carbon footprint of growing tomatoes in the wrong climate is like 4x higher than growing it in the right climate and transporting it. Heating is one of the most power consuming activities in the world. The research has been done. The result can also be estimated numerically, carbon intensity of transport and of heating are well known. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Thanks for the link. The results presented surprised me. WRT. tomatoes, I'm not an expert, but in colder climates, don't they grow in greenhouses? Greenhouses should have zero operational carbon footprint.
        xsmasher 7y ago
        In colder climates you must heat the greenhouse, which probably generates CO2. I say "probably" because a heat pump run on renewables is possible, but not likely.
        ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Yes, heating is the key issue. While elaborate setups are possible, there are more productive ways to apply that effort.
    - Hextinium 7y ago
      I would love to see a carbon analysis on the CO2 from the LED lighting vs the CO2 from freight transport of food.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  3) and 4) are easily solved with glass or transparent polythene, as is already done commercially on a vast scale. https://portalexport.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/greenhouses-almeria-25.jpg https://portalexport.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/greenhouses... 1) and 2) are essentially irrelevant, because the fundamental limiting factor on both agriculture and sustainable energy generation is surface area. Plants are effectively photochemical solar arrays that turn light and CO2 into food energy; nobody would be crazy enough to propose a "vertical solar farm" where LEDs are used to illuminate photovoltaic panels, but vertical farms are exactly as bonkers.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    > nobody would be crazy enough to propose a "vertical solar farm" where LEDs are used to illuminate photovoltaic panels, but vertical farms are exactly as bonkers This isn't true: at least in theory, you can take white sunlight, produce electricity by the photovoltaic process and power LEDs in a spectrum optimized for plant growth (blue and red light instead of green). In practice the LED efficiency (150-200%) doesn't yet make up for the inefficiency of the best commercially available solar panels (25-30%), but the idea is not fundamentally ridiculous. And solar power is not always the cheapest form of electricity, or even necessarily competitive. Consider Iceland, with abundant cheap renewable geothermal energy but a shortage of sunlight, and LED-illuminated farms make even more sense (and are already operating at scale).
  - thecolorblue 7y ago
    > Plants are effectively photochemical solar arrays You are right here, however, not all plants are created equal. The value of a plant in not tied to how much energy they produce.

fragmede 7y ago

The sun is free, but not all plans will grow everywhere. In many cases, there just isn't enough sun, or the climate is wrong. The economics of growing, say, pineapples in England don't work out, in part because it's so expensive to grow them there (if that's even possible in a highly climate-controlled room), but also because transportation costs are so low.

MandieD 7y ago
It is possible to grow them in English greenhouses: wealthy Britons with skilled gardeners had them in the 18th and 19th century, and the growing middle class often rented pineapples to display at fancy dinners. As you said, cheap transportation is what ended UK domestic pineapple production. https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pineapples.htm https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pineapples/pin...

namirez 7y ago

> Why pay for the energy to grow food when you can get the enegy for free by putting it out in the sun? For many reasons: 1) Using vertical space rather than surface area; 2) Producing closer to population centers; 3) Producing year around irrespective of seasonal changes; 4) Not having to use pesticides.

barry-cotter 7y ago
1) and 2) round to “transport costs” economically and freight is cheap except in areas where people don’t have enough money to be worth selling to, like Afghanistan.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Freight might be cheap, but what about the carbon footprint?
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    Carbon footprint of growing tomatoes in the wrong climate is like 4x higher than growing it in the right climate and transporting it. Heating is one of the most power consuming activities in the world. The research has been done. The result can also be estimated numerically, carbon intensity of transport and of heating are well known. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-miles
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Thanks for the link. The results presented surprised me. WRT. tomatoes, I'm not an expert, but in colder climates, don't they grow in greenhouses? Greenhouses should have zero operational carbon footprint.
      - xsmasher 7y ago
        In colder climates you must heat the greenhouse, which probably generates CO2. I say "probably" because a heat pump run on renewables is possible, but not likely.
        ClumsyPilot 7y ago
        Yes, heating is the key issue. While elaborate setups are possible, there are more productive ways to apply that effort.
  - Hextinium 7y ago
    I would love to see a carbon analysis on the CO2 from the LED lighting vs the CO2 from freight transport of food.
jdietrich 7y ago
3) and 4) are easily solved with glass or transparent polythene, as is already done commercially on a vast scale. https://portalexport.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/greenhouses-almeria-25.jpg https://portalexport.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/greenhouses... 1) and 2) are essentially irrelevant, because the fundamental limiting factor on both agriculture and sustainable energy generation is surface area. Plants are effectively photochemical solar arrays that turn light and CO2 into food energy; nobody would be crazy enough to propose a "vertical solar farm" where LEDs are used to illuminate photovoltaic panels, but vertical farms are exactly as bonkers.
- dmurray 7y ago
  > nobody would be crazy enough to propose a "vertical solar farm" where LEDs are used to illuminate photovoltaic panels, but vertical farms are exactly as bonkers This isn't true: at least in theory, you can take white sunlight, produce electricity by the photovoltaic process and power LEDs in a spectrum optimized for plant growth (blue and red light instead of green). In practice the LED efficiency (150-200%) doesn't yet make up for the inefficiency of the best commercially available solar panels (25-30%), but the idea is not fundamentally ridiculous. And solar power is not always the cheapest form of electricity, or even necessarily competitive. Consider Iceland, with abundant cheap renewable geothermal energy but a shortage of sunlight, and LED-illuminated farms make even more sense (and are already operating at scale).
- thecolorblue 7y ago
  > Plants are effectively photochemical solar arrays You are right here, however, not all plants are created equal. The value of a plant in not tied to how much energy they produce.