4 ms·

I'm really curious as to why we have not started to build stacked fields. How deep go root crops ? Could we do, say, 10 stories building and have one story eve

by ldng 6y ago

I'm really curious as to why we have not started to build stacked fields. How deep go root crops ? Could we do, say, 10 stories building and have one story every two filled with soil ? What would be the challenges ? It could be a way to do intensive yet biological agriculture.

messe 6y ago
> I'm really curious as to why we have not started to build stacked fields. How do you propose to light it? They need energy to grow, and it needs to be done in such a way that your overall cost is cheaper that sunlight (which on a bright day provides roughly 1kW per square meter in energy).
- ldng 6y ago
  I don't know, hence my questions :-) Could a good mirroring system could do the trick ? Or like it is already done in a lot a closed system ? At which density does that start to be economically viable ? But my main question really is, is it even being investigated or already considered unfeasible ?
  - messe 6y ago
    > Could a good mirroring system could do the trick ? To get the same amount of energy, the total area of the mirrors would have to be about the size of the equivalent field.
iancmceachern 6y ago
I like this. Not because it's a good idea (it may be, but IMO is not), but because its exactly the kind of high level, open ended, open minded approach that is needed. I think that a lot of folks approach this problem thinking that land, fertilizer and water are the main issues. It makes sense, they are indeed the main inputs to plants. They are not however the main costs and inputs for large scale agriculture. For large scale ag the main costs from a societal standpoint are energy, labor and waste. Land where you farm is cheap and plentiful. Same with water and fertilizer (relatively). Labor needs to be imported, along with energy and managing storage and waste, including the food/grain market fluctuations are the main challenges. These are not solved by vertical farming. These are solved by automating tractors and harvesting equipment, making the path to market from the farm more straightforward and efficient, and figuring our our labor issues and not just ignoring them or hand waving saying robots will do it.

by ldng 6y ago

messe 6y ago

> I'm really curious as to why we have not started to build stacked fields. How do you propose to light it? They need energy to grow, and it needs to be done in such a way that your overall cost is cheaper that sunlight (which on a bright day provides roughly 1kW per square meter in energy).

ldng 6y ago
I don't know, hence my questions :-) Could a good mirroring system could do the trick ? Or like it is already done in a lot a closed system ? At which density does that start to be economically viable ? But my main question really is, is it even being investigated or already considered unfeasible ?
- messe 6y ago
  > Could a good mirroring system could do the trick ? To get the same amount of energy, the total area of the mirrors would have to be about the size of the equivalent field.

iancmceachern 6y ago

I like this. Not because it's a good idea (it may be, but IMO is not), but because its exactly the kind of high level, open ended, open minded approach that is needed. I think that a lot of folks approach this problem thinking that land, fertilizer and water are the main issues. It makes sense, they are indeed the main inputs to plants. They are not however the main costs and inputs for large scale agriculture. For large scale ag the main costs from a societal standpoint are energy, labor and waste. Land where you farm is cheap and plentiful. Same with water and fertilizer (relatively). Labor needs to be imported, along with energy and managing storage and waste, including the food/grain market fluctuations are the main challenges. These are not solved by vertical farming. These are solved by automating tractors and harvesting equipment, making the path to market from the farm more straightforward and efficient, and figuring our our labor issues and not just ignoring them or hand waving saying robots will do it.