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Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw
- vanderZwan 4y agoIs it the laws of thermodynamics? Because agriculture being fundamentally solar powered in an ideal situation (you know, photosynthesis and all that), vertical farming it never made much sense to me.
- aeternum 4y agoNo, the issue is you were taking a process that was solar and instead making it dependent on the grid which is mostly fossil fuel powered. Until energy is much much cheaper, vertical/indoor farms just don't make sense.
- vanderZwan 4y agoI guess I should have explicitly mentioned that solar input is largely defined by how many square kilometers one can dedicate to whatever needs solar input. Unless vertical farming adopts the tricks of forests, where plants at different levels prefer different amounts of sunlight, it won't in any way make efficient use of said solar input. But at that point you might as well just call it a high-tech agroforest.
- aeternum 4y agoYes, the other challenge is current energy costs. Right now, vertical farms are likely better off selling their solar back to the grid rather than using it for farming. Maybe they can grow mushrooms for now :D
- calibas 4y agoI've tried this at home, and quickly realized the costs of the lights and electricity don't make this approach very practical. I've been wondering how they overcame this in the larger commercial setups, turns out they never did.
- gamblor956 4y agoVertical farms trade energy cost for efficiency in physical resources like water, soil, etc. The trade-off is worth it if the energy is cheap and plentiful enough, especially if the farm is going someplace where a traditional (open air) farm is impractical or infeasible, such as a desert. In a place like Europe, where farmland is plentiful but energy is relatively expensive, vertical farms never really made sense beyond proofs of concept.