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Vertical farming makes sense when energy is cheaper than what we get from the sun. That will also unlock growing other crops than lettuce, for which energy is t
by madsbuch 4y ago
Vertical farming makes sense when energy is cheaper than what we get from the sun. That will also unlock growing other crops than lettuce, for which energy is the biggest hurdle. The main value propositions are that we don't occupy land as we do with conventional farming and that automation is easier in a controlled setting.
IMHO, vertical farming is a part of the next wave of industrialisation together with real AI, space travel for the masses, etc. But this requires that we fix an energy sourcing problem and does it without externalities.
- legitster 4y ago> Vertical farming makes sense when energy is cheaper than what we get from the sun. Uhhh, is there any energy cheaper than what we get from the sun?
- bell-cot 4y ago6 months every year, at the South Pole Station. Or 12 months per year...until you run out of gullible VC's.
- goda90 4y agoHigh latitudes where there sun might disappear for months. For example, in Iceland, geothermal powered greenhouses are quite successful. Geothermal is plentiful, and it's expensive to ship fresh produce to such a small island nation.
- legitster 4y agoThat's fair. Although I suspect these types of ventures are already profitable without any tech VC money.
- madsbuch 4y agoThe word "when" indicates a future tense. This is limited, as you can hear from the other responses ridiculing this comment. However, it should probably be expected that this will happen in the future more broadly.
- di456 4y ago> Vertical farming makes sense when energy is cheaper than what we get from the sun that's just part of it. Closer to the poles, away from the equator, there isn't enough sun to have a winter growing season. The energy, expense of transporting produce to those areas is another factor. Along with the flavor and quality benefits of harvesting when ripe instead of optimizing for transportation durability and presentation. Historically the solution was canning the in-season produce and consuming that during winter months.
- outworlder 4y agoOne of the advantages is that you can use power sources other than the sun in regions where it's not plentiful. Eg. geothermal in Iceland during winter. Or nuclear (either fission or fusion). But sunlight is so cheap in general that those are really niche situations.
- skywhopper 4y agoIn other words, one of many pipe dreams that will never happen.
- ilyt 4y agoMore like "the dream turned out to not be really all that useful all things considered". Still cool on micro-scale I guess, if you don't have much space in your back yard some kind of vertical farming greenhouse could be cool.
- kristjansson 4y ago> Vertical farming makes sense when energy is cheaper than what we get from the sun. While there are cases where that's the case, they're so marginal it's hard to square the size of the niche with > vertical farming is a part of the next wave of industrialisation. Sure, we can grow better food for Finns and Icelanders, it's hard to see a case for the constraints of those places starting to apply more broadly...
- petsfed 4y agoIf climate change continues at pace, we're going to see larger and larger migrations away from the sunniest parts of the earth, as those sunny spots become too hot for humans to live. That "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but I think its up to it.