3 ms·

If cost is the only issue we should be subsidising it and turning farmland into succession forest.

oillio 6y ago
In addition, it is more dependant on modern supply chains. Modern farms are already pretty dependant to get their yields. We should think long and hard if we want a long term power outage to cause food shortages.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  We could just use solar panels to power the batteries used to light our plants!! Wait...
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    It’s actually more efficient to capture all wave lengths of solar store it in a battery and then only produce the wavelengths that the plants can absorb. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-photovoltaics-at-capturing-sunlight/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-pho...
    - schemy 6y ago
      In the same way that it's more efficient for me to drink high octane fuel rather than eat food.
      - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
        Probably better to think of it as eating mushrooms rather than trying to chew on he bark of a tree. Chewing on bark will work, if you have enough bark, but it’s significantly more effective to use a fungus as an intermediary.
the8472 6y ago
Here "cost" is a euphemism for stupendous amounts of energy. Producing it would take up a lot of land in PV panels. That'll only give you a little extra forest and entire agricultural states covered in PV and vertical farming towers instead. I could imagine some rich, arid countries trying this but not ones with fertile soil and rain. It's hard to compete with the free fusion reactor floating up there. From the appendix¹ (assuming I am reading this right): Value of production 405,329$/year Cost of energy 15,987,286$/year Area of field for equivalent yield 6,333,272m² Land Area Required for PV Array 4,157,293m² ¹ https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/07/22/2002655117.DCSupplemental/pnas.2002655117.sapp.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/07/22/200265511...
- Johnjonjoan 6y ago
  Appreciate this info. Thanks.

In addition, it is more dependant on modern supply chains. Modern farms are already pretty dependant to get their yields. We should think long and hard if we want a long term power outage to cause food shortages.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
We could just use solar panels to power the batteries used to light our plants!! Wait...
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  It’s actually more efficient to capture all wave lengths of solar store it in a battery and then only produce the wavelengths that the plants can absorb. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-photovoltaics-at-capturing-sunlight/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-pho...
  - schemy 6y ago
    In the same way that it's more efficient for me to drink high octane fuel rather than eat food.
    - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
      Probably better to think of it as eating mushrooms rather than trying to chew on he bark of a tree. Chewing on bark will work, if you have enough bark, but it’s significantly more effective to use a fungus as an intermediary.

the8472 6y ago

Here "cost" is a euphemism for stupendous amounts of energy. Producing it would take up a lot of land in PV panels. That'll only give you a little extra forest and entire agricultural states covered in PV and vertical farming towers instead. I could imagine some rich, arid countries trying this but not ones with fertile soil and rain. It's hard to compete with the free fusion reactor floating up there. From the appendix¹ (assuming I am reading this right): Value of production 405,329$/year Cost of energy 15,987,286$/year Area of field for equivalent yield 6,333,272m² Land Area Required for PV Array 4,157,293m² ¹ https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/07/22/2002655117.DCSupplemental/pnas.2002655117.sapp.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/07/22/200265511...

Johnjonjoan 6y ago
Appreciate this info. Thanks.