Other commenters have noted that this project seems to have folded years ago. It thus completes the circle of tech-forward ag projects: A huge upfront investm

Other commenters have noted that this project seems to have folded years ago. It thus completes the circle of tech-forward ag projects: A huge upfront investment, followed by a press blitz, followed by a runway of varying length that leads to the ultimate scrapping of the project for parts. It's really attractive to think we're just a vertical farm or a novel greenhouse away from an agricultural revolution. But as much fun as is to grow things where they don't normally grow, one isn't competing against an empty patch of sand. The competition is the entire global food supply, complete with its brutally efficient transportation networks. (The usual rebuttal is that these sorts of systems are only for leafy greens and vegetables. Which are nice to have, but not really key to sustaining a population. I’ve noticed that a lot of Youtube gardeners do this handwaving as well. It’s like, “I feed my family of four from my 1 acre farm!” Neglecting to mention that they only grow zucchini and 95% of their calories come from the grocery store.) Sorry to sound salty (heh) about this, but the Hard Problems of agriculture are extremely hard. The people who succeed as farmers do so in spite of tiny margins and enormous operating costs. They're more innovative than most people in the tech world.