5 ms·

"how did investors think that they could find Silicon Valley-style returns in . . . lettuce?" That made me laugh

ilamont 4y ago
Greater fool theory at work until the music stops. A story as old as the concept of investing.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Not without proper carbon taxing and land use taxing. In a sane world, if vertical farming got even close to traditional farming without taxing in soil destruction, water table destruction, pesticide impacts, and habitat removal from nature, we'd transition rapidly to vertical farming. Politics is not reality. Neither is economics.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  How do you supply enough power to vertical farms without those same externalities? And then how green is it to build and run them? Considering all the equipment, infra and inputs. It is not like that stuff magically comes from thin air with vertical farming.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Renewables, but then you might as well farm on farmland and haul to urban areas with electric trucks. Vertical farms are another solution looking for a problem (unless you’re truly land constrained, like the Maldives)
    - vanattab 4y ago
      I mean traditional farming and photosynthesis from the sun is the original form of renewable solar power we have had since the birth of civilization.
      - toomuchtodo 4y ago
        True! But you can do some fun acts like using heat pumps in certain climates (the Netherlands, for example) to extend growing seasons or create them (if they don’t exist) all year long. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...
    - pwthornton 4y ago
      The biggest argument for vertical farms is that you'd be able to bring high-quality year around produce to more places. We do have most produce year around, but the quality of it varies wildly depending on the time of year. Most produce shipped from California and Mexico during growing off seasons is quite subpar. But this is an argument for quality, of which people would have to be willing to pay a premium for. I could see high-end restaurants and others wiling to pay for this. Greenhouses already extend the growing season. This would ideally be able to do that further.
  - woah 4y ago
    Simple. Generators run on vertically farmed biodiesel.
  - ulber 4y ago
    Maybe we don't, but we should let market forces sort it out by doing our best to tax the externalities of power generation too.
    - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
      Let me know when you sign up for a 5$/gallon carbon tax on gasoline.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        That is something like $600 per ton of CO2. For that amount you can literally capture the CO2 from the air today.
        AtlasBarfed 4y ago
        Alas there is a backlog of a century of emissions to handle. You know, externalizing costs on other people? At this point we'll need active carbon capture not for neutrality, which is its own political boondoggle, but for actual active mitigation of some of the damage. Dont worry, nothing like this will come to pass. Pollute away.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    what if I told you that to be actually sustainable at current population levels long term, we'd need to surrender 70% or more of currently used pastureland and farmland? Oh wait, we aren't going to stay at current population levels. Still at least have, what, another 4-5 billion people to crank out before we allegedly plateau? Wind power doesn't take up a lot of space, especially offshore. Solar? There's this thing called a desert. People, we are in the midst of a mass extinction. We NEED that land for biodiversity. Mass extinctions occurred over long periods of time that enabled evolutionary adapatation to some degree. We're doing ours over the span of a thousand years. Most mass extinctions at least get to "experiment" will all Earth's land surface to find new adapted animals. We've taken a huge portion of the world's biodiverse and fertile lands and industrialized them. Otherwise, yeah, we'll have vertical farms... in space, because we won't be on earth. I guess you think solutions to traditional farming, which is unsustainable, will come out of THIN AIR.
  - Vecr 4y ago
    Nuclear power. I don't think there's any other alternative if you really wanted to grow anything other than "green water" (i.e. leafs like lettuce) for large portions of the planet.
  - smileysteve 4y ago
    Many of the inputs are reduced; You use the natural gas to make energy for LEDs to decrease your time to market by increasing sun. By circulating the water you save 80% of it.
- Hypocritelefty 4y ago
  [dead]
- ilyt 4y ago
  That's suggesting vertical farming is desirable outcome where it really isn't under most constraints. "Just" moving to hydroponics gives you most of the benefits (less pesticide/water usage, higher yield per area) and with birth rates stagnating "just" converting some of current fields would free up the area for mode wild nature.
seizethecheese 4y ago
Reminds me of East of Eden.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  For some reason that part of the story crosses my mind every now and then. The factor of ingenuity requiring appropriate timing, how misfortunate can make otherwise good ideas seem terrible, how things which once seemed bizarre are commonplace today, etc. I really enjoyed that book.
FlyingSnake 4y ago
Just like how they thought they could find returns in Juicero.

Greater fool theory at work until the music stops. A story as old as the concept of investing.

Not without proper carbon taxing and land use taxing. In a sane world, if vertical farming got even close to traditional farming without taxing in soil destruction, water table destruction, pesticide impacts, and habitat removal from nature, we'd transition rapidly to vertical farming. Politics is not reality. Neither is economics.

Ekaros 4y ago
How do you supply enough power to vertical farms without those same externalities? And then how green is it to build and run them? Considering all the equipment, infra and inputs. It is not like that stuff magically comes from thin air with vertical farming.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Renewables, but then you might as well farm on farmland and haul to urban areas with electric trucks. Vertical farms are another solution looking for a problem (unless you’re truly land constrained, like the Maldives)
  - vanattab 4y ago
    I mean traditional farming and photosynthesis from the sun is the original form of renewable solar power we have had since the birth of civilization.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      True! But you can do some fun acts like using heat pumps in certain climates (the Netherlands, for example) to extend growing seasons or create them (if they don’t exist) all year long. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...
  - pwthornton 4y ago
    The biggest argument for vertical farms is that you'd be able to bring high-quality year around produce to more places. We do have most produce year around, but the quality of it varies wildly depending on the time of year. Most produce shipped from California and Mexico during growing off seasons is quite subpar. But this is an argument for quality, of which people would have to be willing to pay a premium for. I could see high-end restaurants and others wiling to pay for this. Greenhouses already extend the growing season. This would ideally be able to do that further.
- woah 4y ago
  Simple. Generators run on vertically farmed biodiesel.
- ulber 4y ago
  Maybe we don't, but we should let market forces sort it out by doing our best to tax the externalities of power generation too.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    Let me know when you sign up for a 5$/gallon carbon tax on gasoline.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      That is something like $600 per ton of CO2. For that amount you can literally capture the CO2 from the air today.
      - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
        Alas there is a backlog of a century of emissions to handle. You know, externalizing costs on other people? At this point we'll need active carbon capture not for neutrality, which is its own political boondoggle, but for actual active mitigation of some of the damage. Dont worry, nothing like this will come to pass. Pollute away.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  what if I told you that to be actually sustainable at current population levels long term, we'd need to surrender 70% or more of currently used pastureland and farmland? Oh wait, we aren't going to stay at current population levels. Still at least have, what, another 4-5 billion people to crank out before we allegedly plateau? Wind power doesn't take up a lot of space, especially offshore. Solar? There's this thing called a desert. People, we are in the midst of a mass extinction. We NEED that land for biodiversity. Mass extinctions occurred over long periods of time that enabled evolutionary adapatation to some degree. We're doing ours over the span of a thousand years. Most mass extinctions at least get to "experiment" will all Earth's land surface to find new adapted animals. We've taken a huge portion of the world's biodiverse and fertile lands and industrialized them. Otherwise, yeah, we'll have vertical farms... in space, because we won't be on earth. I guess you think solutions to traditional farming, which is unsustainable, will come out of THIN AIR.
- Vecr 4y ago
  Nuclear power. I don't think there's any other alternative if you really wanted to grow anything other than "green water" (i.e. leafs like lettuce) for large portions of the planet.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  Many of the inputs are reduced; You use the natural gas to make energy for LEDs to decrease your time to market by increasing sun. By circulating the water you save 80% of it.
Hypocritelefty 4y ago
[dead]
ilyt 4y ago
That's suggesting vertical farming is desirable outcome where it really isn't under most constraints. "Just" moving to hydroponics gives you most of the benefits (less pesticide/water usage, higher yield per area) and with birth rates stagnating "just" converting some of current fields would free up the area for mode wild nature.

seizethecheese 4y ago

Reminds me of East of Eden.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
For some reason that part of the story crosses my mind every now and then. The factor of ingenuity requiring appropriate timing, how misfortunate can make otherwise good ideas seem terrible, how things which once seemed bizarre are commonplace today, etc. I really enjoyed that book.

FlyingSnake 4y ago

Just like how they thought they could find returns in Juicero.