3 ms·

Wrong. There are distance and repetition factors you are failing to consider. With a single trip 100m trip, the LEDs lose. With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win.

by fineman 11y ago

Wrong. There are distance and repetition factors you are failing to consider. With a single trip 100m trip, the LEDs lose. With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. The question is where the line is, and the answer is that it's going down all the time.

ars 11y ago
> With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. Hu? You are planning on shipping a single tomato 621 million miles? That's enough to ship it to Mars and then back. Why in the world would you do that? Wouldn't it spoil? You know you have to pay to power the LED, right? It's not just equipment cost? It takes less energy to grow a tomato in the sun, then fly it somewhere then it does it grow it indoors with artificial light. And no, LED efficiency is not going up all that much anymore - there are physical limits to that.
- fineman 11y ago
  Yes, I'd still grow just one single tomato and send it on many millions of trips. I'll call it "travel-with-my-tomato.com" (Overnight charges may apply for trips to mars.) /s
  - ars 11y ago
    So if your whole post about 10^7 100km trips was a joke, why did you post it?
    - fineman 11y ago
      Your point was that LEDs don't break even. My point is that there's a threshold at which they would. If you only ever grew one tomato then you probably could buy a cheap plane ticket to deliver it, for less than the lights. So you'd be right, the LEDs would use more energy (cost to make, ship, and use) vs the delivery charges for the sun-grown (free energy) tomato from farther away - even if shipped expensively. But if you grew millions of tomatoes from the same LEDs then you'd be wrong - now buying the grow lights is much more efficient than shipping in sun-grown tomatoes from even a few kilometers away. How many tomatoes are you going to grow?
      - ars 11y ago
        Is there some reason you keep ignoring the power it takes to run the lights? It take FAR more power for the lights than it does for the airplane. You keep focusing on buying the lights, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about running the lights.

by fineman 11y ago

ars 11y ago

> With 10^7 100km trips, the LEDs win. Hu? You are planning on shipping a single tomato 621 million miles? That's enough to ship it to Mars and then back. Why in the world would you do that? Wouldn't it spoil? You know you have to pay to power the LED, right? It's not just equipment cost? It takes less energy to grow a tomato in the sun, then fly it somewhere then it does it grow it indoors with artificial light. And no, LED efficiency is not going up all that much anymore - there are physical limits to that.

fineman 11y ago
Yes, I'd still grow just one single tomato and send it on many millions of trips. I'll call it "travel-with-my-tomato.com" (Overnight charges may apply for trips to mars.) /s
- ars 11y ago
  So if your whole post about 10^7 100km trips was a joke, why did you post it?
  - fineman 11y ago
    Your point was that LEDs don't break even. My point is that there's a threshold at which they would. If you only ever grew one tomato then you probably could buy a cheap plane ticket to deliver it, for less than the lights. So you'd be right, the LEDs would use more energy (cost to make, ship, and use) vs the delivery charges for the sun-grown (free energy) tomato from farther away - even if shipped expensively. But if you grew millions of tomatoes from the same LEDs then you'd be wrong - now buying the grow lights is much more efficient than shipping in sun-grown tomatoes from even a few kilometers away. How many tomatoes are you going to grow?
    - ars 11y ago
      Is there some reason you keep ignoring the power it takes to run the lights? It take FAR more power for the lights than it does for the airplane. You keep focusing on buying the lights, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about running the lights.