You might be thinking of this comment here [1]? The problem isn't the medium used to grow the calories per se, it's the overall cost per calorie which is mostl

You might be thinking of this comment here [1]? The problem isn't the medium used to grow the calories per se, it's the overall cost per calorie which is mostly energy either in the form of fertilizer (which everyone pays, vertical or not) and in the form of photosynthetic input (which most non-vertical farms receive for free at the cost of reliability). The cost of scaling vertically (literally) is significantly more expensive in operating costs than scaling horizontally is in capital costs as long as the latter receives free energy in the form of sunlight. For example, green houses which are half way between bare fields and vertical farms in capital cost are economically competitive all over the world because they get free sunlight and extra trapped heat. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33790631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33790631