4 ms·

However, the study doesn’t seem to include the costs of transportation. I wish they had looked at the wheat supply chain holistically rather than only cost per

However, the study doesn’t seem to include the costs of transportation. I wish they had looked at the wheat supply chain holistically rather than only cost per hectare. Building a close to the city, colocated flour, and/or cereal factory under the wheat farm, allowing gravity to help build automations would reduce holistic costs. I wonder if that makes this farming method profitable?

qppo 6y ago
I think you should take this idea into 2nd/3rd order effects of continuous, controlled food growth that isn't hampered by weather or transportation costs. Immediate second order effect would be the obsolescence of grain futures, you don't need to hedge against a bad harvest. You probably also wouldn't need to go into debt to buy enough seed to plant each season. Another would be a more elastic supply chain without the need for storage/buffering, which we've seen drastically reduce prices and increase production for all sorts of widgets using just-in-time manufacturing. If you can scale up/down wheat production pretty reliably with only 70-80 days forecasting, you can eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies of the food supply chain. Sidenote, a literal vertically integrated bakery would be a sight to behold
- memco 6y ago
  You’d need to think of them less, but disasters that destroy the building or disrupt operations (fires, earthquakes, floods, etc.) still happen so there’s need to be some redundancy and hedging.
sacred_numbers 6y ago
Transportation costs are really not that high. Let's say that the farm is 2000km away from the city. Average freight cost per ton-km via truck is about 12 cents, so an additional $240/ton. Via rail it's about 3 cents, so an additional $60 per ton. CO2 emissions follow a similar ratio, about 97 grams per ton-km for trucks and 22 grams for rail, so between 44 and 194 kg CO2 per ton. Growing a metric ton of wheat with 100% supplemental light requires 150,000-400,000 kwh. That's $3,000 to $8,000 in electricity costs at 2 cents per kwh (very cheap) and would require electricity to generate about a gram of CO2 per kwh at the most to be better in terms of CO2 emissions. If you have free, non-polluting electricity it would be better to use it to synthesize fuel for trucks to carry grain from the fields, or to capture CO2 from the air.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I wonder how that electricity usage compares to bitcoin mining. And by wonder, I really wonder, as I have no idea.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Mining costs money but returns bitcoin which can be sold for money. Miners can't spend more money than they would get by selling the bitcoin and receiving transaction fees. In theory the energy intensity of bitcoin should go down over time because the block reward is shrinking. Of course transaction fees could rise but processing transactions is different to wasting energy to mint a currency out of thin air. Paying transaction fees is like paying your taxi driver. It's expensive but it's absolutely necessary to get a ride.
- ssorallen 6y ago
  “would be better” There are other inputs to growing outdoors: fertilizer usage, water usage, and insecticide/pesticide usage (likely not an exhaustive list). In a controlled environment like an indoor farm the use of each of those is dramatically less than in traditional farming. It would be worthwhile to include all of the inputs of growing food since light and transportation are not the full list. (disclosure: I work for an indoor, vertical farming company)
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    Yes, but does the reduction of the other cost win against the increase of cost of illumination? Do you have a table with an estimation of the cost in each scenario? Some back of the envelope calculations: From [1] the cost of fertilizer is like $150/acre and from [2] you can get about 7 tons/acre, so it's like $40/ton. The numbers change a lot from source to source, so let's multiply that by 2, and we get $40 of fertilizer per ton. So in the impossible best scenario where the indoor production saves you the 100% of the fertilizer, you save $40 per ton of fertilizer that is much less that the $3000 per ton of electricity for illumination. [1] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-in-2017-and-2018.html https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-i... [2] https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yield https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yi...
schemy 6y ago
It doesn't. The sun provides about 300W/m^2 on average at temperate climates, that's 7.2kwh per day. Wheat takes about 4 months to grow and nuclear power costs 0.77c/kwh. That's 665.28$/m^2 at wholesale. [0] https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Energy/Sun's%20Energy.aspx#:~:text=At%20the%20upper%20reaches%20of,level%20on%20a%20clear%20day https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Ene.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comparison_by_power_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comp...
- tuatoru 6y ago
  In fairness one should point out that using artificial light one could just provide the wavelengths that are optimal for photosynthesis by wheat. But this would probably only halve theoretical costs, and then there are all the losses in the power production chain...
- thereisnospork 6y ago
  You ate a decimal place: 77$/MWH per source is 7.7c/kwh, not 0.77. or 6.6k$/m2.
ThomPete 6y ago
The cost of transportation is not even worth mentioning as long as we don't try to install some super expensive electricity grid.

qppo 6y ago

I think you should take this idea into 2nd/3rd order effects of continuous, controlled food growth that isn't hampered by weather or transportation costs. Immediate second order effect would be the obsolescence of grain futures, you don't need to hedge against a bad harvest. You probably also wouldn't need to go into debt to buy enough seed to plant each season. Another would be a more elastic supply chain without the need for storage/buffering, which we've seen drastically reduce prices and increase production for all sorts of widgets using just-in-time manufacturing. If you can scale up/down wheat production pretty reliably with only 70-80 days forecasting, you can eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies of the food supply chain. Sidenote, a literal vertically integrated bakery would be a sight to behold

memco 6y ago
You’d need to think of them less, but disasters that destroy the building or disrupt operations (fires, earthquakes, floods, etc.) still happen so there’s need to be some redundancy and hedging.

sacred_numbers 6y ago

Transportation costs are really not that high. Let's say that the farm is 2000km away from the city. Average freight cost per ton-km via truck is about 12 cents, so an additional $240/ton. Via rail it's about 3 cents, so an additional $60 per ton. CO2 emissions follow a similar ratio, about 97 grams per ton-km for trucks and 22 grams for rail, so between 44 and 194 kg CO2 per ton. Growing a metric ton of wheat with 100% supplemental light requires 150,000-400,000 kwh. That's $3,000 to $8,000 in electricity costs at 2 cents per kwh (very cheap) and would require electricity to generate about a gram of CO2 per kwh at the most to be better in terms of CO2 emissions. If you have free, non-polluting electricity it would be better to use it to synthesize fuel for trucks to carry grain from the fields, or to capture CO2 from the air.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jimkleiber 6y ago
I wonder how that electricity usage compares to bitcoin mining. And by wonder, I really wonder, as I have no idea.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Mining costs money but returns bitcoin which can be sold for money. Miners can't spend more money than they would get by selling the bitcoin and receiving transaction fees. In theory the energy intensity of bitcoin should go down over time because the block reward is shrinking. Of course transaction fees could rise but processing transactions is different to wasting energy to mint a currency out of thin air. Paying transaction fees is like paying your taxi driver. It's expensive but it's absolutely necessary to get a ride.
ssorallen 6y ago
“would be better” There are other inputs to growing outdoors: fertilizer usage, water usage, and insecticide/pesticide usage (likely not an exhaustive list). In a controlled environment like an indoor farm the use of each of those is dramatically less than in traditional farming. It would be worthwhile to include all of the inputs of growing food since light and transportation are not the full list. (disclosure: I work for an indoor, vertical farming company)
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Yes, but does the reduction of the other cost win against the increase of cost of illumination? Do you have a table with an estimation of the cost in each scenario? Some back of the envelope calculations: From [1] the cost of fertilizer is like $150/acre and from [2] you can get about 7 tons/acre, so it's like $40/ton. The numbers change a lot from source to source, so let's multiply that by 2, and we get $40 of fertilizer per ton. So in the impossible best scenario where the indoor production saves you the 100% of the fertilizer, you save $40 per ton of fertilizer that is much less that the $3000 per ton of electricity for illumination. [1] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-in-2017-and-2018.html https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-i... [2] https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yield https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yi...

schemy 6y ago

It doesn't. The sun provides about 300W/m^2 on average at temperate climates, that's 7.2kwh per day. Wheat takes about 4 months to grow and nuclear power costs 0.77c/kwh. That's 665.28$/m^2 at wholesale. [0] https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Energy/Sun's%20Energy.aspx#:~:text=At%20the%20upper%20reaches%20of,level%20on%20a%20clear%20day https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Ene.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comparison_by_power_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comp...

tuatoru 6y ago
In fairness one should point out that using artificial light one could just provide the wavelengths that are optimal for photosynthesis by wheat. But this would probably only halve theoretical costs, and then there are all the losses in the power production chain...
thereisnospork 6y ago
You ate a decimal place: 77$/MWH per source is 7.7c/kwh, not 0.77. or 6.6k$/m2.

ThomPete 6y ago

The cost of transportation is not even worth mentioning as long as we don't try to install some super expensive electricity grid.