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In that case, lets add the environmental and biodiversity costs of farmland.
by tonyhb 6y ago
In that case, lets add the environmental and biodiversity costs of farmland.
- busterarm 6y agoNot at all. The farmland is highly unlikely to be used for any other purpose. We're trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison here, not moral judgments.
- TT3351 6y agoRemoving native flora and fauna and replacing it with domesticated varieties has a clear impact on the environment
- busterarm 6y agoWhat was the environmental impact of replacing whatever was in these urban environements with concrete, steel and asphalt? Literally just looking at the economics here, I'll say again.
- TT3351 6y agoOf course that has an impact too; I hope you do realize the exploitation of and the health of the environment is actually very closely intertwined with the economy. There is fundamentally no way to "literally just look[] at the economics." All land use has an impact.
- criley2 6y agoUn-used land serves a purpose for biodiversity and maintaining ecosystems and plays a role in the climate. Deforestation for farmland has major implications here. If you want to make and apples-to-apples comparison, you have to consider what turning a thousand square miles of forest into farmland does versus stacking these containers up. This solution also claims to use 10X less water, so we can start to factor in energy use related to water production as well.
- busterarm 6y agoSee my other reply about replacing whatever was in these urban environments before with concrete, steel and asphalt.
- criley2 6y agoA fine argument to counter with, however when we look at population density, you'll see that the vast majority of concrete, steel and asphalt goes to support a tiny fraction of the number of people. Thousands of miles of roads... to connect just thousands of rural people. Meanwhile, thousands of people can live in just a few acres in the city. Far more people per kg of asphalt and concrete! Which is the kind of efficiencies you expect with economies of scale. You'd be surprised how much asphalt and concrete we use to give every 500 person village roads and infrastructure!
- Chris2048 6y agoAren't you tilting the scale by assuming every m^2 farmland displaces m^2 forest? If you want to every manufacturing side-cost (metal/copper wire tractor turbine) and amount of CO2 you'll end up with an impossibly difficult calculation, at least for these comment sections. I don't care to aim so high. I'm happy to compare $ cost farm costs & transport versus $ vertical-farm cost & electricity bill. > energy use related to water production Isn't that highly location dependant? Do these farm not run off the public water supply? If so, I'd assume the energy cost was higher for drinkable water.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoFarmland is good for more than one crop. If the lettuce is all grown vertically, most of the farmland won't go back to "nature", it'll be used for slightly less profitable crops.
- stretchcat 6y agoA cost worth paying, because the only alternative is billions of people starving. Whereas if vertical farms disappeared, yuppies would suffer from eating slightly less fresh lettuce but life would otherwise go on.