Wheat yield potential in controlled-environment vertical farms(pnas.org)
pnas.org
Wheat yield potential in controlled-environment vertical farms
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/21/2002655117
192 comments
The light reaching the most centred wheat would barely be reduced in a 1mx1m vertical farm. Scale this to 100mx100m and it would be nearly dark without artificial light in the centre.
Isn't one of the primary benefits of indoor growing the influence you have over all of the growing conditions?
Ostensibly you would be able to do all sorts of shenanigans with light tubes for natural light and LEDs for artificial lighting regardless of the size of the facility.
Ostensibly you would be able to do all sorts of shenanigans with light tubes for natural light and LEDs for artificial lighting regardless of the size of the facility.
> without artificial light in the centre.
The whole point of this paper is about having high intensity artificial lighting on the crop. So-- I'm not sure what your comment means.
The whole point of this paper is about having high intensity artificial lighting on the crop. So-- I'm not sure what your comment means.
I'd like to see the yields in practice. This is necessary information if we look to grow crops in environments like Mars or Luna.
Agronomics baffles me, so I'll admit to not having read the paper. But for those of us just reading the comments, can someone expound on the complaint? If the yields only work in tiny spaces, why can't the hectare scale facility be divided up into tiny spaces? These are indoor farms, can't they just replicate the lab conditions?
I can understand the argument "it isn't economic", but the process to make something economic is do it once -> do it many times -> do it many times cheaply, so the paper could be part of the process that ends with mass vertical farming at absurd yields.
I can understand the argument "it isn't economic", but the process to make something economic is do it once -> do it many times -> do it many times cheaply, so the paper could be part of the process that ends with mass vertical farming at absurd yields.
It takes seven photons of the right energy band to make one photosynthesis reaction. This is a hard constraint that can not be eliminated by upscaling. Yield is hard coupled to light energy input. Agricullture is only feasible because we receive a huge amount of photons from the sun for free.
Vertical farming is a pipe dream.
Vertical farming is a pipe dream.
Yet they apparently achieved this in a lab. You didn’t explain why it can’t be scaled.
GP is just restating the last sentence of the "Significance" section of the paper in harsher words:
"However, given the high energy costs for artificial lighting and capital costs, it is unlikely to be economically competitive with current market prices."
There is a limited amount of sunlight hitting an area. That means to scale crop yields by going vertical, you need artificial light.
At the moment energy is not harvested in a (sustainably) scalable manner, so vertical farming is infeasible except to boost local production in rich countries.
Saying it's a "pipe dream" is a bit too harsh imo, I think as energy demand ramps up, and oil keeps going down eventually we will be forced to produce unlimited amounts of cheap energy through nuclear power plants, but that's just my vision for the future..
"However, given the high energy costs for artificial lighting and capital costs, it is unlikely to be economically competitive with current market prices."
There is a limited amount of sunlight hitting an area. That means to scale crop yields by going vertical, you need artificial light.
At the moment energy is not harvested in a (sustainably) scalable manner, so vertical farming is infeasible except to boost local production in rich countries.
Saying it's a "pipe dream" is a bit too harsh imo, I think as energy demand ramps up, and oil keeps going down eventually we will be forced to produce unlimited amounts of cheap energy through nuclear power plants, but that's just my vision for the future..
1. I’m not convinced this has to be artificial light as fiber optics might be able to pipe in plenty of sunlight.
2. I’ve heard the real efficiency is tailoring light from high efficiency leds per plant.
2. I’ve heard the real efficiency is tailoring light from high efficiency leds per plant.
I think it is a pipe dream until we master nuclear fusion. The issue is energy vs. land area.
Well perhaps with bio engineering we can improve the efficiency of wheat several times over. Optimizing it for an indoor environment free of pests and consistent in nutrients. Ultimately we just want the wheat berries how many protons are spent on the other portions of the plant.
If we do that it would nice to have some experience ready to go on the Industrial farming side.
Also it takes protons to haul the wheat to market, to harvest it, til the soil and plant it. Not to mention all the externalized costs of large scale outdoor agriculture.
Also on mars and the moon beckon, having a closed loop there would likely dwarf anything we can grow on a field here because of the energy costs of moving tons of food into space.
If we do that it would nice to have some experience ready to go on the Industrial farming side.
Also it takes protons to haul the wheat to market, to harvest it, til the soil and plant it. Not to mention all the externalized costs of large scale outdoor agriculture.
Also on mars and the moon beckon, having a closed loop there would likely dwarf anything we can grow on a field here because of the energy costs of moving tons of food into space.
I think what you're asking is, couldn't a Beowulf Cluster of wheat be as efficient as a Mainframe of wheat? And I think that it could be, but there's so many "ifs" involved there it's crazy to speculate at the moment. We might get flying cars before we get massively parallelized vertical underground farms.
No need to speculate, just need to try :) Everyone just needs to share their results and let the risk takers and builders do what they do best. If they fail, in this scenario, the only thing wasted are time and money, and the only thing gained is knowledge.
But this is the other way around; if I wanted to draw a computing analogy it would be arguing that if I wanted to provide massive cloud storage then the physical volume density of information (bytes/m3, a funny but practical measure to talk about) can't approach the density of 1Tb consumer grade hardware.
And that would be true, but it could still be a good target within an order of magnitude, because it could be set up as a very big RAID array. There would losses due to cooling and power and space between the drives and whatnot, but to a first approximation (Facility Volume / 1Tb density * 50% fudge factor) will be pretty reasonable; especially if someone really tried to engineer clever heating solutions.
So the paper gets (checks) ~1,300t/ha lab conditions. Why, in theory, can't they just replicate the lab environment as many times as fits in a big facility? I can see practical impediments like cost, I can't see theoretical ones if it is decided that This Must Be Done. I'd expect reasonable yields of 650 t/ha. That improves on 17 t/ha farming practice [0]. Point is that sort of calculation is totally routine when looking at academic results and I don't see what the problem is using a 3'x3' lab environment then extrapolating with a fudge factor.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat#Yields
And that would be true, but it could still be a good target within an order of magnitude, because it could be set up as a very big RAID array. There would losses due to cooling and power and space between the drives and whatnot, but to a first approximation (Facility Volume / 1Tb density * 50% fudge factor) will be pretty reasonable; especially if someone really tried to engineer clever heating solutions.
So the paper gets (checks) ~1,300t/ha lab conditions. Why, in theory, can't they just replicate the lab environment as many times as fits in a big facility? I can see practical impediments like cost, I can't see theoretical ones if it is decided that This Must Be Done. I'd expect reasonable yields of 650 t/ha. That improves on 17 t/ha farming practice [0]. Point is that sort of calculation is totally routine when looking at academic results and I don't see what the problem is using a 3'x3' lab environment then extrapolating with a fudge factor.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat#Yields
Legit sounds like the person you are replying to is having a personal, visceral reaction to the results of this experiment compared to the results of (themselves or) others.
As a complete outsider, I say scale it out rather than complain! I eat chapati every day, so I am biased towards wanting success to occur.
It is always possible that endeavors will fail.
"Those who say something is impossible should get out of the way of those who are doing it"
As a complete outsider, I say scale it out rather than complain! I eat chapati every day, so I am biased towards wanting success to occur.
It is always possible that endeavors will fail.
"Those who say something is impossible should get out of the way of those who are doing it"
I agree it sounds more like a superficial dismissal. Supposedly the exact thing HN is not about.
HN is a land of contradiction and overreaction :)
When scaling this up, I would be concerned about climate control, disease management, infrastructure limitations and labor / distribution details.
Light, nutrient and water distribution can be replicated, but making sure things scale properly and you don't get cascading failures is key.
Light, nutrient and water distribution can be replicated, but making sure things scale properly and you don't get cascading failures is key.
Is it possible to somehow isolate the growing units in a way that's both economical, compatible with a degree of automation and also limits cascading failures like disease?
It might be. But that's the whole point of the objection - we suspect that naive scaling is unlikely to scale in the expected manner. There might be ways to mitigate that scaling losses, but it's disappointing that there's no investigation (or mention) of scaling losses in the paper.
As someone who works with farmers, I completely and totally agree.
This is like saying that you can grow X goldfishes in your tiny little aquarium and therefore it should be possible to grow X * FACTOR in a lake which is FACTOR size bigger.
This is like saying that you can grow X goldfishes in your tiny little aquarium and therefore it should be possible to grow X * FACTOR in a lake which is FACTOR size bigger.
Naive question from someone not the least involved in fish farming: why would this assumption fail? Sounds reasonable. Works with humans, too, btw. See skyscrapers.
The vast majority of the energy in the food chain of a body of water comes from the sun so the bigger it becomes, the more volume of water there is relative to the surface area exposed to the sun. You can try to multiple the number of fish by the number of aquariums that would fit into a lake but the vast majority of those fish would starve competing for the limited amount of energy coming hitting the surface.
Thanks for pointing that out. Moving away from skyscrapers you could still successfully scale in 2 dimensions? Which I assume is what fish farming is primarily about, right? Depth brings more limitations like pressure, behavior of gases etc.
A open lake is not a controlled environment - unlike a person's house. You cannot change out the water in a lake, it is exposed to all sort of weather and climatic conditions, fauna and flora etc.
The same applies to open farming vs growing something indoors.
Now coming to this example about vertical farming - at much larger scale you will not get the sort of yield/sq.ft you get at a much smaller scale - even in indoor farming.
The same applies to open farming vs growing something indoors.
Now coming to this example about vertical farming - at much larger scale you will not get the sort of yield/sq.ft you get at a much smaller scale - even in indoor farming.
Yes. Surely a better measure than 'per hectare' is for instance, 'per dollar'. Until we run out of hectares, space isn't not the limit on annual crop. Where space would definitely limit 'indoor' total yields.
I think this sort of work is important because it gives us data to focus on improving. Like solar power efficiencies, I think there is lots of room to improve on vertical farming output which will be vital for a few reasons.
Reason one, is that I think one lesson we've learned and are still learning is that the original model of the internet that senses damage and routes around it is still a strong model, and I think the same applies to food. To reduce the impact of food shortages, we need to get more people farming again essentially, and a small vertical farm can be had for those people regardless of if they have land or suitable land for traditional growing, and the cost are likely to be similar to solar panels and be one that is subsidized at first or at least given tax breaks.
Reason two is that I think the same work will be of vital importance for future space faring missions. If we can get closed loop ecosystem sustainability heavily improved we might be ready for something like a real Mars trip/settlement etc. Personally I advocate for adding other systems to the closed loop to feed off each other, aka auqoponics, etc to add a meat source (fish) into the loop etc.
So we have a decent study on wheat. Now lets get the yield potentials for everything else under the sun so we can start optimizing better. Probably end up with focus on whatever has the highest calorie output to price to produce ratio.
Reason one, is that I think one lesson we've learned and are still learning is that the original model of the internet that senses damage and routes around it is still a strong model, and I think the same applies to food. To reduce the impact of food shortages, we need to get more people farming again essentially, and a small vertical farm can be had for those people regardless of if they have land or suitable land for traditional growing, and the cost are likely to be similar to solar panels and be one that is subsidized at first or at least given tax breaks.
Reason two is that I think the same work will be of vital importance for future space faring missions. If we can get closed loop ecosystem sustainability heavily improved we might be ready for something like a real Mars trip/settlement etc. Personally I advocate for adding other systems to the closed loop to feed off each other, aka auqoponics, etc to add a meat source (fish) into the loop etc.
So we have a decent study on wheat. Now lets get the yield potentials for everything else under the sun so we can start optimizing better. Probably end up with focus on whatever has the highest calorie output to price to produce ratio.
> Now lets get the yield potentials for everything else under the sun so we can start optimizing better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsaufB5F8dk
That presentation is by one of the same scientists referenced in the linked paper, Dr. Bruce Bugbee, the one who grew wheat on the ISS.
He has a whole youtube channel that goes into more detail than you can imagine: https://www.youtube.com/c/Apogeeinstrumentsincorporated/vide...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsaufB5F8dk
That presentation is by one of the same scientists referenced in the linked paper, Dr. Bruce Bugbee, the one who grew wheat on the ISS.
He has a whole youtube channel that goes into more detail than you can imagine: https://www.youtube.com/c/Apogeeinstrumentsincorporated/vide...
> ...the original model of the internet that senses damage and routes around it is still a strong model...
I wonder if "packetizing" food production in a vertical permaculture food forest form factor is feasible? In other words, instead of vast monoculture swaths, use interdependent crops in interlocking planting patterns, predicated upon the assumption that robot-vision-assisted labor is practical.
I wonder if "packetizing" food production in a vertical permaculture food forest form factor is feasible? In other words, instead of vast monoculture swaths, use interdependent crops in interlocking planting patterns, predicated upon the assumption that robot-vision-assisted labor is practical.
Agriculture already has widely deployed vision-based machines with human-level intelligence. They're called farm laborers. The way the market currently exists in much of the world, they're barely paid peanuts, let alone minimum wage.
If it's a practical business model, it should be practical somewhere in the world simply using existing human workers.
If it's a practical business model, it should be practical somewhere in the world simply using existing human workers.
Look up crop rotation. Before we had modern mass produced synthetic fertilizers, crop rotation was essential in restoring nutrients in soil that would be depleted by monocultural farms. I believe the reason it’s not practiced today (at least on industrial farms) is simply because it’s much cheaper simply to use fertilizers and grow more of the same kind of crops.
Co-planting too (just like in Minecraft!) - some crops give mutual 'support' to one-another (sometimes literally).
Food shortages are caused by natural disasters and political problems such as wars, not by lack of places to grow crops. We have plenty of farmland and farmers. If your vertical farm is caught in the middle of a war or flood then it won't be able to operate.
I'd like to see crop prices listed by expenditures. Something like this:
For every $10 of wheat produced it costs -
$X for gas for production $X for transportation and packaging $X for human labor $X for machinery $X to buy the land etc.
I'm guessing that land ownership is a tiny minority of this - and if you are building towers that are 50x more expensive than an empty field it would make the process more expensive and less energy efficient if you factor in upfront costs. Making land more efficient is great but I don't think it is the limiting factor for supplying ample food for everyone in the country or the world.
For every $10 of wheat produced it costs -
$X for gas for production $X for transportation and packaging $X for human labor $X for machinery $X to buy the land etc.
I'm guessing that land ownership is a tiny minority of this - and if you are building towers that are 50x more expensive than an empty field it would make the process more expensive and less energy efficient if you factor in upfront costs. Making land more efficient is great but I don't think it is the limiting factor for supplying ample food for everyone in the country or the world.
It depends on how efficient you can make things in terms of harvesting (with the vertical frames), energy, and lack of pests.
I think you’re missing my favorite point: we can return land to the environment and potentially reduce the entire effects of pesticides.
Even if it were less efficient, that would be worth something.
I think you’re missing my favorite point: we can return land to the environment and potentially reduce the entire effects of pesticides.
Even if it were less efficient, that would be worth something.
How can you return the land to the environment when you still consume the same amount of energy (or more because LEDs arent 100% efficient)? During farming most of the energy comes from the sun. Vertical farms consume more land the denser they are. All that freed up land has to be filled with solar panels or wind turbines. Considering that plants are basically collecting solar energy for free that's a huge step backwards.
I suppose it's like I said: it depends on how you get that energy. Geothermal, nuclear are options, as are coastal wind farms (minimal environmental impact once up). Solar, Yes, I hear you.
You can build vertical farms underground or at high ASL to avoid these issues.
Until your substation gets shelled or bombed.
Underground spaces don't get flooded? Soldiers aren't able to walk up hills?
There are ways to design underground spaces to avoid flooding, yes.
Basically, you put them on a hill :) Now you have an underground farm at high ASL. Problem fixed.
Basically, you put them on a hill :) Now you have an underground farm at high ASL. Problem fixed.
I could think of a few designs that would fight the flooding problem actually
Isn’t the idea here that every city would have a vertical farm close to it, decentralizing the production of food? And if for various economic reasons food does tend to be grown in clustered vertical farms, I imagine the know how to do so would be widely disseminated and cities in particular would keep aside dormant vertical farms as a measure of food security, to quickly scale up in harder times.
I am not able to see how a network of distributed vertical food farms would be less resilient to political disasters than growing everything in the Midwest. Food production has been the foundation of every successful civilization, this technology would potentially allow us to grow food without wrecking Earths environment.
I am not able to see how a network of distributed vertical food farms would be less resilient to political disasters than growing everything in the Midwest. Food production has been the foundation of every successful civilization, this technology would potentially allow us to grow food without wrecking Earths environment.
Have you ever even been to a farms in the Midwest? They are not centralized. They are distributed over a large part of the country.
California and several other states are also net food exporters.
California and several other states are also net food exporters.
Net by value, weight, calories, nutrition ..?
Farming enough grapes (as my late Uncle did in California), say, to balance trade doesn't mean you could farm enough food in general.
Farming enough grapes (as my late Uncle did in California), say, to balance trade doesn't mean you could farm enough food in general.
Pretty much everybody already farms locally. Go outside any city, virtually any city, and it's farmland. Montreal is surrounded by farmland, despite its absurdly short growing season with five months of -20C weather. You have orchards in New York. Food system disruptions are due to the local distribution system, as in war or natural disaster, or due to literally everybody's failing all at the same time, as in a pandemic.
>cities in particular would keep aside dormant vertical farms as a measure of food security, to quickly scale up in harder times. //
Both USA and UK recently stopped funding pandemic preparations.
Keeping spare capacity on hand when the money could go to private profits instead .. not with our current political systems.
If we can forcibly spread the benefits of technological progress, and require long-term planning in the political processes then we (humanity) can probably do this sort of thing.
Both USA and UK recently stopped funding pandemic preparations.
Keeping spare capacity on hand when the money could go to private profits instead .. not with our current political systems.
If we can forcibly spread the benefits of technological progress, and require long-term planning in the political processes then we (humanity) can probably do this sort of thing.
"I am not able to see how a network of distributed vertical food farms would be less resilient to political disasters than growing everything in California."
I fixed it for you. States like Indiana import 90% of their calories. Midwest farming is all about massive row crops, not human food.
https://www.crcworks.org/infood.pdf
Yet Indiana does not even feed itself, let alone feed the world. The state imports an estimated 90% of its food. More than $14.5 billion is spent by Hoosier consumers each year buying food sourced outside of the state.
I fixed it for you. States like Indiana import 90% of their calories. Midwest farming is all about massive row crops, not human food.
https://www.crcworks.org/infood.pdf
Yet Indiana does not even feed itself, let alone feed the world. The state imports an estimated 90% of its food. More than $14.5 billion is spent by Hoosier consumers each year buying food sourced outside of the state.
I think we're currently using more farmland than we should. Giving back land to natural ecosystems is a good thing.
Vertical farms are more vulnerable than regular farms since they are entirely dependent on electricity.
When you consider that many countries import energy through natural gas from Russia vertical farms could be shut down during a war all at once and force the affected country to surrender immediately.
When you consider that many countries import energy through natural gas from Russia vertical farms could be shut down during a war all at once and force the affected country to surrender immediately.
I thought the food issue was global distribution and wastage (by which I mean edible food that is not eaten but instead thrown away) - we have enough but it's in the wing places and lots of it is wasted.
Mind you Western Capitalism loves consumer wastage as it leads to higher sales, wastage is designed in.
Vertical farms and current political systems just means more wastage will be encouraged and more obesity generated with less expense at the front end.
Mind you Western Capitalism loves consumer wastage as it leads to higher sales, wastage is designed in.
Vertical farms and current political systems just means more wastage will be encouraged and more obesity generated with less expense at the front end.
Ultimately this is about removing the limitations of agriculture as it stands (1 acre/acre, 1kw/m2, 330ppm CO2) so that we can convert energy and chemicals into food in a scalable, reliable and repeatable way. This has obvious medium-term applications outside of our atmosphere and gravity well, but if we allow energy costs to come down by orders of magnitude by continuing to make advances in nuclear energy, it will inevitably lead to a system that's preferable in terms of land use, both in terms of former agricultural land that can be returned to forests and relatively small high-density power plants that will replace sprawling renewable infrastructure. I don't understand why people keep bringing up the idea of using high-rise buildings in an urban/near-urban environment; surely you'd want to do it in lights-out factories on the cheapest available land, and if energy is cheap enough to make vertical farming profitable, shipping costs would be negligible. A single 1km X 1km X 1km underground vertical farm could be sufficient to feed millions of people while leaving the land above it available for forests/grassland/tundra, or provide district heating to a sizeable population.
We have plenty of land for growing crops. Land is not an issue.
Crops in fields are subject to pests, infections and flooding; look at East Africa, South Asia and China at the moment for examples. It's a lot easier to achieve food security when your food production is industrialised and hermetically sealed in a relatively small area. Not depending on precipitation and being sheltered from hail/frost is also an advantage once you have sufficiently cheap energy that enables desalination on a mass scale. And while it isn't a pressing issue at the moment, it would certainly be preferable not to have to use half of the world's habitable area for agriculture (that tends to be heterogeneous so that it can be done efficiently at scale) with millions of acres used to grow grain with nitrate fertilisers and pesticides and to use it for stuff that's more biodiverse, sustainable and aesthetically pleasing instead.
> It's a lot easier to achieve food security when your food production is industrialised and hermetically sealed in a relatively small area.
Citation? Sounds good in theory but many problems could arise, such as molds, fungus, or complete wiping out of a monoculture from disease.
Citation? Sounds good in theory but many problems could arise, such as molds, fungus, or complete wiping out of a monoculture from disease.
The environments can be compartmentalised and sterilised between crops; if it's a sealed environment and the only inputs apart from the seeds are sterile (via UV treatment of water, for instance), there's far less risk of disease, and by carefully controlling the handling of the seeds (and ensuring that there's a reasonable degree of genetic diversity amongst them) that also reduces the risk of widespread crop failures. It's also far easier to monitor and continuously test crops in a controlled environment like that, and it wouldn't need to be just a few massive factories; there could be a large number of smaller ones that were geographically distributed.
So, no citation. It appears we are both guessing.
I don't have any peer-reviewed papers to hand on this particular subject (they may not even exist yet), but I welcome your feedback on the reasoning that I gave as to why I think that this is, fundamentally, a solvable problem.
I absolutely believe you could be right. Would love you to be. I literally was looking for citations. I also know these problems are difficult and my own experiments were discouraging--which has absolutely no bearing on what's possible.
Yep. This is the correct answer
We already use half of all habitable land for agriculture.
"The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity: of the 28,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture is listed as a threat for 24,000 of them"
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
Do we really want to keep eating into what wilderness remains?
Just because we "have" it doesn't mean we should convert it.
We already produce enough food to feed the world and likely won't have trouble producing enough food to feed the coming extra billions, but if we can focus on increasing yeilds and moving away from raising animals for consumption we can also reduce our footprint on the world.
"The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity: of the 28,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture is listed as a threat for 24,000 of them"
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
Do we really want to keep eating into what wilderness remains?
Just because we "have" it doesn't mean we should convert it.
We already produce enough food to feed the world and likely won't have trouble producing enough food to feed the coming extra billions, but if we can focus on increasing yeilds and moving away from raising animals for consumption we can also reduce our footprint on the world.
> We already produce enough food to feed the world and likely won't have trouble producing enough food to feed the coming extra billions, but if we can focus on increasing yeilds and moving away from raising animals for consumption we can also reduce our footprint on the world.
If we want to release cropland back to the wild, then by far the cheapest way to do it is improve farming infrastructure and practice in low income countries, which is where yields lag so far behind the state of the art.
Not a technical problem, a social one.
If we want to release cropland back to the wild, then by far the cheapest way to do it is improve farming infrastructure and practice in low income countries, which is where yields lag so far behind the state of the art.
Not a technical problem, a social one.
"cheaper" is to get everyone to stop growing food to feed to animals to eat
Social, or political - giving less technological countries advances shifts power.
And who in those countries gets the advances? A corporation or a community - if a community currently grow the own food inefficiently and you take the growing land, give it to a corporation and produce the same food efficiently then the people lose income, need to buy their food, and all financial benefits of the food sale get privatised. The value produced by that land is moved. We need to be careful not to spread the bad parts of efficient production.
And who in those countries gets the advances? A corporation or a community - if a community currently grow the own food inefficiently and you take the growing land, give it to a corporation and produce the same food efficiently then the people lose income, need to buy their food, and all financial benefits of the food sale get privatised. The value produced by that land is moved. We need to be careful not to spread the bad parts of efficient production.
>We already produce enough food to feed the world and likely won't have trouble producing enough food to feed the coming extra billions, but if we can focus on increasing yields and moving away from raising animals for consumption we can also reduce our footprint on the world.
I saw some mango farming videos in Africa and that's pretty much it. There are lots of inefficient farming practices and agriculture experts are teaching farmers how to improve their yields significantly without any fancy technology.
I saw some mango farming videos in Africa and that's pretty much it. There are lots of inefficient farming practices and agriculture experts are teaching farmers how to improve their yields significantly without any fancy technology.
We have made a lot of dumb political decisions.
Much of US produce comes a few counties in California 100% dependent on the Colorado river — what are the risks with respect to climate change on reduced snowfall, etc in the Sierras? Midwest irrigation depends on aquifers that are being irreparably depleted.
On the east coast, the dominance of California produce and decline of dairy killed many forms of agriculture. The endless suburbia of New Jersey was once prime farmland, gone forever.
Much of US produce comes a few counties in California 100% dependent on the Colorado river — what are the risks with respect to climate change on reduced snowfall, etc in the Sierras? Midwest irrigation depends on aquifers that are being irreparably depleted.
On the east coast, the dominance of California produce and decline of dairy killed many forms of agriculture. The endless suburbia of New Jersey was once prime farmland, gone forever.
The fires raging in pristine rainforest, a lot of them purposefully started to clear the land, speak a different language. In more developed countries this has already happened centuries ago, there is very little old growth forest left. It has all been converted to farm land. This is not good for preserving biodiversity.
> if we allow energy costs to come down by orders of magnitude by continuing to make advances in nuclear energy
I can see perhaps one order of magnitude from scaled-up manufacturing, but where do the others come from?
I can see perhaps one order of magnitude from scaled-up manufacturing, but where do the others come from?
> 1 acre/acre
I’m pretty sure that will always be the ratio, and there’s nothing anyone can do to improve it.
I’m pretty sure that will always be the ratio, and there’s nothing anyone can do to improve it.
Not OP. I assume they meant 1 acre of growing space per 1 acre of surface area. We can increase that with multiple floors.
> 1km X 1km X 1km underground vertical farm
Even if we could only implement vertical farming at a similar level of productivity to traditional agriculture on a horizontal basis (although it seems from the paper that we could do a lot better than this), with a unit height on the order 1 metre/unit, we could still achieve productive densities hundreds if not thousands of times higher, given sufficient power and building technology.
Even if we could only implement vertical farming at a similar level of productivity to traditional agriculture on a horizontal basis (although it seems from the paper that we could do a lot better than this), with a unit height on the order 1 metre/unit, we could still achieve productive densities hundreds if not thousands of times higher, given sufficient power and building technology.
> yields for wheat grown in indoor vertical farms under optimized growing conditions would be several hundred times higher than yields in the field due to higher yields, several harvests per year, and vertically stacked layers. Wheat grown indoors would use less land than field-grown wheat, be independent of climate, reuse most water, exclude pests and diseases, and have no nutrient losses to the environment. However, given the high energy costs for artificial lighting and capital costs, it is unlikely to be economically competitive with current market prices
However, the study doesn’t seem to include the costs of transportation. I wish they had looked at the wheat supply chain holistically rather than only cost per hectare.
Building a close to the city, colocated flour, and/or cereal factory under the wheat farm, allowing gravity to help build automations would reduce holistic costs. I wonder if that makes this farming method profitable?
Building a close to the city, colocated flour, and/or cereal factory under the wheat farm, allowing gravity to help build automations would reduce holistic costs. I wonder if that makes this farming method profitable?
I think you should take this idea into 2nd/3rd order effects of continuous, controlled food growth that isn't hampered by weather or transportation costs.
Immediate second order effect would be the obsolescence of grain futures, you don't need to hedge against a bad harvest. You probably also wouldn't need to go into debt to buy enough seed to plant each season.
Another would be a more elastic supply chain without the need for storage/buffering, which we've seen drastically reduce prices and increase production for all sorts of widgets using just-in-time manufacturing. If you can scale up/down wheat production pretty reliably with only 70-80 days forecasting, you can eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies of the food supply chain.
Sidenote, a literal vertically integrated bakery would be a sight to behold
Immediate second order effect would be the obsolescence of grain futures, you don't need to hedge against a bad harvest. You probably also wouldn't need to go into debt to buy enough seed to plant each season.
Another would be a more elastic supply chain without the need for storage/buffering, which we've seen drastically reduce prices and increase production for all sorts of widgets using just-in-time manufacturing. If you can scale up/down wheat production pretty reliably with only 70-80 days forecasting, you can eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies of the food supply chain.
Sidenote, a literal vertically integrated bakery would be a sight to behold
You’d need to think of them less, but disasters that destroy the building or disrupt operations (fires, earthquakes, floods, etc.) still happen so there’s need to be some redundancy and hedging.
Transportation costs are really not that high. Let's say that the farm is 2000km away from the city. Average freight cost per ton-km via truck is about 12 cents, so an additional $240/ton. Via rail it's about 3 cents, so an additional $60 per ton. CO2 emissions follow a similar ratio, about 97 grams per ton-km for trucks and 22 grams for rail, so between 44 and 194 kg CO2 per ton.
Growing a metric ton of wheat with 100% supplemental light requires 150,000-400,000 kwh. That's $3,000 to $8,000 in electricity costs at 2 cents per kwh (very cheap) and would require electricity to generate about a gram of CO2 per kwh at the most to be better in terms of CO2 emissions.
If you have free, non-polluting electricity it would be better to use it to synthesize fuel for trucks to carry grain from the fields, or to capture CO2 from the air.
Growing a metric ton of wheat with 100% supplemental light requires 150,000-400,000 kwh. That's $3,000 to $8,000 in electricity costs at 2 cents per kwh (very cheap) and would require electricity to generate about a gram of CO2 per kwh at the most to be better in terms of CO2 emissions.
If you have free, non-polluting electricity it would be better to use it to synthesize fuel for trucks to carry grain from the fields, or to capture CO2 from the air.
[deleted]
I wonder how that electricity usage compares to bitcoin mining. And by wonder, I really wonder, as I have no idea.
Mining costs money but returns bitcoin which can be sold for money. Miners can't spend more money than they would get by selling the bitcoin and receiving transaction fees.
In theory the energy intensity of bitcoin should go down over time because the block reward is shrinking. Of course transaction fees could rise but processing transactions is different to wasting energy to mint a currency out of thin air. Paying transaction fees is like paying your taxi driver. It's expensive but it's absolutely necessary to get a ride.
In theory the energy intensity of bitcoin should go down over time because the block reward is shrinking. Of course transaction fees could rise but processing transactions is different to wasting energy to mint a currency out of thin air. Paying transaction fees is like paying your taxi driver. It's expensive but it's absolutely necessary to get a ride.
“would be better”
There are other inputs to growing outdoors: fertilizer usage, water usage, and insecticide/pesticide usage (likely not an exhaustive list). In a controlled environment like an indoor farm the use of each of those is dramatically less than in traditional farming. It would be worthwhile to include all of the inputs of growing food since light and transportation are not the full list.
(disclosure: I work for an indoor, vertical farming company)
There are other inputs to growing outdoors: fertilizer usage, water usage, and insecticide/pesticide usage (likely not an exhaustive list). In a controlled environment like an indoor farm the use of each of those is dramatically less than in traditional farming. It would be worthwhile to include all of the inputs of growing food since light and transportation are not the full list.
(disclosure: I work for an indoor, vertical farming company)
Yes, but does the reduction of the other cost win against the increase of cost of illumination? Do you have a table with an estimation of the cost in each scenario?
Some back of the envelope calculations: From [1] the cost of fertilizer is like $150/acre and from [2] you can get about 7 tons/acre, so it's like $40/ton. The numbers change a lot from source to source, so let's multiply that by 2, and we get $40 of fertilizer per ton.
So in the impossible best scenario where the indoor production saves you the 100% of the fertilizer, you save $40 per ton of fertilizer that is much less that the $3000 per ton of electricity for illumination.
[1] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-i...
[2] https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yi...
Some back of the envelope calculations: From [1] the cost of fertilizer is like $150/acre and from [2] you can get about 7 tons/acre, so it's like $40/ton. The numbers change a lot from source to source, so let's multiply that by 2, and we get $40 of fertilizer per ton.
So in the impossible best scenario where the indoor production saves you the 100% of the fertilizer, you save $40 per ton of fertilizer that is much less that the $3000 per ton of electricity for illumination.
[1] https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2017/07/fertilizer-costs-i...
[2] https://www.seedcorn.com/resources/estimating-corn-silage-yi...
Even if you go full renewable fertilizer, and run Haber-Bosch process with electrolysis-based hydrogen and electricity as energy source (instead of natural gas which is currently used for both), you’d still increase the price of fertilizer by a factor of 5 at most, not getting even close to the cost of artificial illumination.
I get your points but wheat is $200/ ton[0] (US, 2019) so it transportation is potentially a significant part of the total cost.
As you said, simply finding ways to reduce the cost (in $ and CO2) of transporting field grown wheat is probably better than co-locating a vertical farm.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/675822/average-prices-us...
As you said, simply finding ways to reduce the cost (in $ and CO2) of transporting field grown wheat is probably better than co-locating a vertical farm.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/675822/average-prices-us...
It doesn't.
The sun provides about 300W/m^2 on average at temperate climates, that's 7.2kwh per day. Wheat takes about 4 months to grow and nuclear power costs 0.77c/kwh.
That's 665.28$/m^2 at wholesale.
[0] https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Ene....
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comp...
The sun provides about 300W/m^2 on average at temperate climates, that's 7.2kwh per day. Wheat takes about 4 months to grow and nuclear power costs 0.77c/kwh.
That's 665.28$/m^2 at wholesale.
[0] https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Ene....
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing#Price_comp...
In fairness one should point out that using artificial light one could just provide the wavelengths that are optimal for photosynthesis by wheat.
But this would probably only halve theoretical costs, and then there are all the losses in the power production chain...
But this would probably only halve theoretical costs, and then there are all the losses in the power production chain...
You ate a decimal place: 77$/MWH per source is 7.7c/kwh, not 0.77. or 6.6k$/m2.
The cost of transportation is not even worth mentioning as long as we don't try to install some super expensive electricity grid.
They mention 70 tons per hectare. That’s 1.43 pounds per square foot.
To grow 1000 pounds would require an area 26 ft by 26 ft.
For a product worth less than $1000.
Counting space, heat, light, equipment - doesn’t sound like a paying proposition.
To grow 1000 pounds would require an area 26 ft by 26 ft.
For a product worth less than $1000.
Counting space, heat, light, equipment - doesn’t sound like a paying proposition.
Less than $1000 processed. Around here, a 22lb sack of flour costs around $10. Looking at around $500 worth of flour there, assuming 100% of the wheat gets turned into flour (I think there is some waste during processing)
The waste is called bran and it's usually fed to animals or sold as is (supply exceeds demand by a huge margin though).
Of course! Not sure why I had such a brain fart thinking about that. Thanks!
If cost is the only issue we should be subsidising it and turning farmland into succession forest.
In addition, it is more dependant on modern supply chains. Modern farms are already pretty dependant to get their yields.
We should think long and hard if we want a long term power outage to cause food shortages.
We could just use solar panels to power the batteries used to light our plants!!
Wait...
Wait...
It’s actually more efficient to capture all wave lengths of solar store it in a battery and then only produce the wavelengths that the plants can absorb.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-pho...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/plants-versus-pho...
In the same way that it's more efficient for me to drink high octane fuel rather than eat food.
Probably better to think of it as eating mushrooms rather than trying to chew on he bark of a tree.
Chewing on bark will work, if you have enough bark, but it’s significantly more effective to use a fungus as an intermediary.
Chewing on bark will work, if you have enough bark, but it’s significantly more effective to use a fungus as an intermediary.
Here "cost" is a euphemism for stupendous amounts of energy. Producing it would take up a lot of land in PV panels. That'll only give you a little extra forest and entire agricultural states covered in PV and vertical farming towers instead. I could imagine some rich, arid countries trying this but not ones with fertile soil and rain. It's hard to compete with the free fusion reactor floating up there.
From the appendix¹ (assuming I am reading this right):
From the appendix¹ (assuming I am reading this right):
Value of production 405,329$/year
Cost of energy 15,987,286$/year
Area of field for equivalent yield 6,333,272m²
Land Area Required for PV Array 4,157,293m²
Appreciate this info. Thanks.
One thing they overlook is reliability and opportunity cost. Australia is prone to periods of droughts so there are years when entire farms lay fallow. These farms still need to be tended to by a labour force who could be off doing other things.
imagine if we had invested more into nuclear power and 1/10th electricity prices
Magically cheaper nuclear powerplants, presumably built by the Nuclear Fairy.
The cost of steam turbines and generators alone would prevent nuclear plants from producing power at 1/10th the cost of current plants. I don't think you're going to find a nuclear component of the plant that costs negative dollars.
The cost of steam turbines and generators alone would prevent nuclear plants from producing power at 1/10th the cost of current plants. I don't think you're going to find a nuclear component of the plant that costs negative dollars.
In 1969 electricity from nuclear plants did cost less than coal one [1], [2] so it is totally possible, no fairies needed.
[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html#early-days
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb7tAwNIvUs&feature=youtu.be
[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html#early-days
[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb7tAwNIvUs&feature=youtu.be
In the US, nuclear plants were being sold at a price competitive with coal plants. But that wasn't because that was what it cost to build the plants, it was because the vendors were setting the price to compete with coal plants, with the hope that costs would come down with experience (which didn't happen).
These turnkey contracts cost the nuclear vendors a lot of money, and they moved away from them for that reason. Only in the last wave did Westinghouse go back to these kinds of contracts, and it drove them to bankruptcy.
These turnkey contracts cost the nuclear vendors a lot of money, and they moved away from them for that reason. Only in the last wave did Westinghouse go back to these kinds of contracts, and it drove them to bankruptcy.
Well, in the link above there is a very clear take as to why that happened; in particular regulations were pushed to be way over stringent than needed by nuclear service companies themselves.
regulations were changed retroactively as well, for already approved projects.
Ill look around for better links to clarify this.
regulations were changed retroactively as well, for already approved projects.
Ill look around for better links to clarify this.
What that first link claimed was "By 1965, large-scale power plants were being sold commercially at costs competitive with fossil fuel plants."
And I explained why that was misleading. They were being sold at a loss. The PRICE was competitive with coal, but the cost was not. This was even before changes in regulations.
And I explained why that was misleading. They were being sold at a loss. The PRICE was competitive with coal, but the cost was not. This was even before changes in regulations.
Thank you for the details!
Can you point me on where to look for the price/cost distinction in early nuclear? I was not able to find definitive info there.
Can you point me on where to look for the price/cost distinction in early nuclear? I was not able to find definitive info there.
This is an article in the popular press about that era.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-n...
See also
The Turnkey Era in Nuclear Power, H. Stuart Burness, W. David Montgomery and James P. Quirk, Land Economics Vol. 56, No. 2 (May, 1980) (available through JSTOR)
The latter is interesting, as it also gives an explanation for why utilities might have liked non-turnkey contracts: any escalation of capital cost can be (and very often was) passed on to ratepayers. In light of this, what really nailed the first US nuclear age was the passage in 1978 of PURPA, particularly the part about non-utility suppliers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Poli...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-n...
See also
The Turnkey Era in Nuclear Power, H. Stuart Burness, W. David Montgomery and James P. Quirk, Land Economics Vol. 56, No. 2 (May, 1980) (available through JSTOR)
The latter is interesting, as it also gives an explanation for why utilities might have liked non-turnkey contracts: any escalation of capital cost can be (and very often was) passed on to ratepayers. In light of this, what really nailed the first US nuclear age was the passage in 1978 of PURPA, particularly the part about non-utility suppliers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Poli...
Thank you.. a lot to digest to be fair.
As for turnkey contract, interestingly, other industries trying to avoid uncertainty and not pass costs to consumers.
AFAIK, Russian nuclear contracts come with warranty of all funding, so if overrun happens, these are Rosatom problem, not customer's
As for turnkey contract, interestingly, other industries trying to avoid uncertainty and not pass costs to consumers.
AFAIK, Russian nuclear contracts come with warranty of all funding, so if overrun happens, these are Rosatom problem, not customer's
The key point here is the perverse incentives of regulated monopolies. If the monopoly can get the regulators to agree, then the more capital intensive something is, the more money the utility makes. They do not have an incentive to keep costs down.
Not an order of magnitude cheaper. Fairies still required for that.
Well, technically you can find now a nuclear plant that with all the overruns ended up being 10 times more expensive.
My point is that with cheaper than coal it becomes viable co2-less source of energy for,among other things, vertical farming.
it will allow growing regardless of the weather and clouds above.
My point is that with cheaper than coal it becomes viable co2-less source of energy for,among other things, vertical farming.
it will allow growing regardless of the weather and clouds above.
I don't know who did the analysis on that, but this is easily fixed: Solar farming on top of the vertical farming. This pays for the electricity needs for the lighting, and any excess power pays off the solar panel prices over about 8 years.
What excess power?
Actually, you're probably right. However, in many markets you actually "make" more money by offsetting the price you would pay the utility. In my calculations, you get paid a fifth of the excess electricity than just using it (instead of paying the utility to use theirs). So when you're a heavy user, and you're in great solar area, every panel you add actually lowers your cost. So if you want, do a 4 acre solar farm for a 1 acre building, and over time this will pay for itself.
Of course, this obviously depends on you making money on the wheat or other crops.
Of course, this obviously depends on you making money on the wheat or other crops.
The amount of energy you get from an acre of solar panels is approximately enough to run grow lamps for 1 acre of wheat. But not for 10 layers times 1 acre of wheat.
Is that what it actually comes out to, accounting for the efficiency of current panels and what plants actually use in photosynthesis?
Two main factors.
First, plants lose about half the energy because of spectrum. There's lots of other losses (e.g. light falling on parts of the plant other than chloroplasts) but they apply to artificial light, too. And then, plants use only about 10% of the mid-day energy after all of these losses, because of saturation effects, but more the rest of the day-- we'll call it like 25% here. So that 50% factor and 25% factors multiplied are what you can try to exceed == 12.5%.
Cheap solar panels are about 15% efficient. So you're not going to beat direct sunlight by much.
First, plants lose about half the energy because of spectrum. There's lots of other losses (e.g. light falling on parts of the plant other than chloroplasts) but they apply to artificial light, too. And then, plants use only about 10% of the mid-day energy after all of these losses, because of saturation effects, but more the rest of the day-- we'll call it like 25% here. So that 50% factor and 25% factors multiplied are what you can try to exceed == 12.5%.
Cheap solar panels are about 15% efficient. So you're not going to beat direct sunlight by much.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24093941
That comment is using numbers that are overly optimistic. Using 22% panels requires you to construct an unaffordable PV facility for $400 million for a single vertical farm. If you go with lower efficiency panels you might be able to make it cost effective but then you are also consuming more land than a conventional farm. There is also a mismatch in energy demand. Solar panels only work while the sun is up but the yield promises of vertical farms entirely depend on 24/7 lighting.
That comment is using numbers that are overly optimistic. Using 22% panels requires you to construct an unaffordable PV facility for $400 million for a single vertical farm. If you go with lower efficiency panels you might be able to make it cost effective but then you are also consuming more land than a conventional farm. There is also a mismatch in energy demand. Solar panels only work while the sun is up but the yield promises of vertical farms entirely depend on 24/7 lighting.
It's not easy at all when you think about the amount of light required vs. the surface area available. In fact, it's not even thermodynamically possible.
Unless you're capturing lots of wavelengths plants can't use (definitely green, maybe IR?), why would you add an extra loss into the system?
Something I have been thinking about for a few years... How far away are we from being able to grow seeds on a substrate directly and skip growing the plant at all? What I envision is a substrate that is able to provide the nutrients needed for embryo growth, maybe with micro channels or pores. You could "seed" the substrate with embryonic plant cells, then when they are done, you just scrape them off. Is that totally crazy?
That could be either algae or genetically modified yeast.
With some more lab automation and approachable exposition we'll be all set.
Not exactly, that's more about propagation of plants, after-which it grows into a normal plant. I am thinking that we could only grow the desirable part of the plant, like the seeds in the case of corn or wheat.
I wonder if growing yeast, algae, or the CO2+H2 eating microbes that Solar Foods is working on will be cheaper to use either as an engineered food product or as feedstock for animals.
It's possible for animals, but for people then you have to eat "engineered food product" instead of wheat bread. So I think people will not like that. At that point we are essentially at soylent green. But I like the idea for animal food for sure.
Isn't bread an engineered food product?
Wheat, grown in dirt fields under sunlight with water, is not.
Wheat has been undergoing genetic engineering for 10000 years.
Is there no conceivably way in which you might see such selection over centuries differing in any regard from lab-grown, factory-synthesized products?
Don't feed the trolls. They understand the difference between baked bread and CRISPR editing. They're just trying to get a rise.
People underestimate the capabilities of farmers, especially those that existed millennia before anyone could write.
But look at a picture of teosinte, and compare it to maize. Maize is emphatically not a natural plant; why should a plant grow appendages it's not strong enough to support? That shift in plant structure occurred over perhaps one or two millennia, and would have required extremely active selective breeding to occur.
Start poking at our plants' genomes, and the evidence for calling it genetic engineering is somewhat clearer. Our cereal crops basically suffer from plant equivalents to genetic conditions such as Down Syndrome. They shouldn't be able to survive, and indeed generally cannot survive without active management by humans. And being unable to survive without human intervention is common enough that we've given it a special name: domestication.
But look at a picture of teosinte, and compare it to maize. Maize is emphatically not a natural plant; why should a plant grow appendages it's not strong enough to support? That shift in plant structure occurred over perhaps one or two millennia, and would have required extremely active selective breeding to occur.
Start poking at our plants' genomes, and the evidence for calling it genetic engineering is somewhat clearer. Our cereal crops basically suffer from plant equivalents to genetic conditions such as Down Syndrome. They shouldn't be able to survive, and indeed generally cannot survive without active management by humans. And being unable to survive without human intervention is common enough that we've given it a special name: domestication.
I'm pretty sure there is no CRISPR modified wheat being sold in the US. The wheat from antiquity does not even remotely resemble wild grasses that it descends from and even less so today.
Maize has even been intentionally hyrbidized for almost a century; I'm less familiar with wheat from that sense.
Yes, tools like CRISPR are game changers and should be approached with caution (and we almost certainly aren't going to do so, at least for animal feed-stock crops), but GMO labeled food is very broad brush with often arbitrary distinctions (much like the "artificial" vs "natural" labeling rules)
Maize has even been intentionally hyrbidized for almost a century; I'm less familiar with wheat from that sense.
Yes, tools like CRISPR are game changers and should be approached with caution (and we almost certainly aren't going to do so, at least for animal feed-stock crops), but GMO labeled food is very broad brush with often arbitrary distinctions (much like the "artificial" vs "natural" labeling rules)
I would say that up until 1990 or so, anything GMO from the lab was more similar to modern wheat than modern wheat is to ancient wild wheat. Since then we have gotten better at genetic editing, and we probably will see things in the field shortly that actually deserve the name "frankenfood" but it bothers me that people have used such a broad brush for GMOs while simultaneously ignoring the fact that humans have been modifying our crops for as long as we've been growing them.
I'm a wheat farmer in 6000 BC. I pay no attention to which seeds I use.
Scenario 1):
A random mutation decreases my yields. My community of 30 people can barely get by on the food we grow. Some of our children died from starvation and we are down to 28.
Scenario 2):
A random mutation increases my yields. My community of 30 people can easily get by on the food we grow. None of our children are dying and we expect 5 children to be born this year. I can sell the extra seeds at the farmer's market and make an additional profit.
Absolutely zero genetic engineering is needed to improve yields. This is just natural selection. Nobody has to be aware of the process for improvements to happen.
The next step would be to just buy the best seeds available at the farmers market. It would significantly more effective than natural selection but all you're doing is buying seeds from the farmer who is selling more food than everyone else.
Calling this engineering would be insulting to every other branch of engineering. Anyone buying food would be genetically engineering their food by this definition. Seriously, what other branch of engineering requires no knowledge of it happening?
By that same logic everyone is an economist. The laws of supply and demand happen even if you are not aware of them.
I'm tired of people diluting "professional" words into meaninglessness. It's not a colloquial term and it certainly shouldn't become one.
Scenario 1):
A random mutation decreases my yields. My community of 30 people can barely get by on the food we grow. Some of our children died from starvation and we are down to 28.
Scenario 2):
A random mutation increases my yields. My community of 30 people can easily get by on the food we grow. None of our children are dying and we expect 5 children to be born this year. I can sell the extra seeds at the farmer's market and make an additional profit.
Absolutely zero genetic engineering is needed to improve yields. This is just natural selection. Nobody has to be aware of the process for improvements to happen.
The next step would be to just buy the best seeds available at the farmers market. It would significantly more effective than natural selection but all you're doing is buying seeds from the farmer who is selling more food than everyone else.
Calling this engineering would be insulting to every other branch of engineering. Anyone buying food would be genetically engineering their food by this definition. Seriously, what other branch of engineering requires no knowledge of it happening?
By that same logic everyone is an economist. The laws of supply and demand happen even if you are not aware of them.
I'm tired of people diluting "professional" words into meaninglessness. It's not a colloquial term and it certainly shouldn't become one.
There are records of farmers intentionally selecting for larger seeds; this was easily done by selecting the seeds on the bottom after winnowing.
People would barter and buy seeds from farmers with higher yields with the intent of getting those larger yields themselves in future years. This is not natural selection.
I'm equally sick of people implying that ancient people were stupid and incapable of engineering.
People would barter and buy seeds from farmers with higher yields with the intent of getting those larger yields themselves in future years. This is not natural selection.
I'm equally sick of people implying that ancient people were stupid and incapable of engineering.
First, nobody eats wheat just raw. Usually it's prepared in some fashion so that it can be eaten, and cooking, like baking bread, is a form of engineering.
As you mention fields, they are in fact an ancient invention to allow farming, and most importantly, an artificial invention. Nobody gets a full belly from the 3 plants in a window pot. One has to do large scale agriculture to feed large numbers of people, and this has been conducted for millenia. A field is at the very basis of agriculture. In order to make land arable, we've cut down forests, moved stones, drained swamps, leveled terrain, built irrigation systems, etc. Basically engineering work.
Fields do look like nature, but they don't represent nature. Wild type nature looks different.
TLDR: Humans are engineers. Always have been.
As you mention fields, they are in fact an ancient invention to allow farming, and most importantly, an artificial invention. Nobody gets a full belly from the 3 plants in a window pot. One has to do large scale agriculture to feed large numbers of people, and this has been conducted for millenia. A field is at the very basis of agriculture. In order to make land arable, we've cut down forests, moved stones, drained swamps, leveled terrain, built irrigation systems, etc. Basically engineering work.
Fields do look like nature, but they don't represent nature. Wild type nature looks different.
TLDR: Humans are engineers. Always have been.
Said preparation involves little more than grinding stones and a brick oven, to which I can attest following several dozen quarantine loves.
Not continent-spanning grow-labs, which is the proposition being forwarded.
Not continent-spanning grow-labs, which is the proposition being forwarded.
The engineered food products were Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow. Soylent Green, as we all know, is made of people.
yes good point
1) It may take years, because surface area of seed is so small.
2) Seed will be contaminated. It will taste as leaf or straw.
2) Seed will be contaminated. It will taste as leaf or straw.
I am sorry, I don't understand this comment, can you explain? My idea is to replace the host plant with an artificial medium that will serve the same purpose. As far as development time, should it not be that same as the real thing? Or perhaps faster since you can ensure optimal delivery of nutrients?
If you already have nutrients, then just consume them. :-/
Mmmm, nutrients. Makes my mouth water.
Your mouth will water when you’re hungry enough.
Some comments have already touched on this, but it is important to realize just how much electricity we are talking about. The tl;dr is that replacing US wheat production alone would use five times the current total US electricity consumption. And that's for wheat, occupying about 10% of US cropland.
See p. 12 of the Supporting Information and you'll find the following: 2026647 kg wheat grown using 798417 MWh electricity means an electricity consumption of 0.4 MWh/kg wheat. In the US, the annual wheat harvest is 150-200 kg/capita/yr, which in this hypothetical system would use more than 60 MWh electricity/capita/yr.
For comparison, the US annually uses around 13 MWh electricity/capita.
That is, this hypothetical wheat production in the US would use about five times the _total_ present day electricity use.
Soybeans and maize together occupy more than three times the wheat area in the US, so that (very roughly speaking) adds another annual electricity consumption of ~200 MWh/capita. With just these three major crops, the US would have to increase its total electricity consumption about 20-fold.
See p. 12 of the Supporting Information and you'll find the following: 2026647 kg wheat grown using 798417 MWh electricity means an electricity consumption of 0.4 MWh/kg wheat. In the US, the annual wheat harvest is 150-200 kg/capita/yr, which in this hypothetical system would use more than 60 MWh electricity/capita/yr.
For comparison, the US annually uses around 13 MWh electricity/capita.
That is, this hypothetical wheat production in the US would use about five times the _total_ present day electricity use.
Soybeans and maize together occupy more than three times the wheat area in the US, so that (very roughly speaking) adds another annual electricity consumption of ~200 MWh/capita. With just these three major crops, the US would have to increase its total electricity consumption about 20-fold.
So, as usual with all material problems, if we had unlimited free energy we could solve them.
https://xkcd.com/1123/
https://xkcd.com/1123/
https://thinkingagriculture.io/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-un...
Just say no to vertical farming for row crops. Can’t beat the sun (and scale)!
Just say no to vertical farming for row crops. Can’t beat the sun (and scale)!
naive question: would it help w/ energy costs to have the vertical farms under ground and to use mirrors to redirect sunlight (I guess it will still not be enough and require additional artificial lighting?)
one argument against vertical farming seems to be the high occupancy costs in larger cities. Why not build them outside of cities and connect them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#Problems
one argument against vertical farming seems to be the high occupancy costs in larger cities. Why not build them outside of cities and connect them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#Problems
Your larger cities are already shaded to hell, and the skyscrapers are fighting each other for the remaining scraps that are left.
Your system of mirrors will occupy the same amount of space (or close to) as your farm would need. But it will be expensive to build and expensive to maintain and to protect against the elements.
Your system of mirrors will occupy the same amount of space (or close to) as your farm would need. But it will be expensive to build and expensive to maintain and to protect against the elements.
Because occupancy cost is very low outside the cities.
Either I missed something, or your answer doesn't actually address the question.
Could you explain what you mean a bit further?
Could you explain what you mean a bit further?
It's about why don't they move the vertical farms outside the city. Farming on lands outside population center is cheaper than on vertical farms at the same locations. This is due to low cost of land and benefits of mechanisation.
Right now we have excess food production.
Right now we have excess food production.
I see your point. But if they get the claimed several hundred times the productivity, then they need several hundred times less land. That land is still several thousand dollars an acre, even out in the sticks. That's a lot of money that can be saved on the land.
> Right now we have excess food production.
True. If this vertical approach produces wheat for less money, then it will take over. If not, then it won't... today. There's this whole climate change thing. People suspect that it's going to harm food production. Can we control this smaller environment well enough for it to still be productive? Better than we can control outdoor farms.
> Right now we have excess food production.
True. If this vertical approach produces wheat for less money, then it will take over. If not, then it won't... today. There's this whole climate change thing. People suspect that it's going to harm food production. Can we control this smaller environment well enough for it to still be productive? Better than we can control outdoor farms.
Sorry, but growing grains in vertical farms absolutely does not make sense. unless you'd have a very very cheap zero emission energy source. which would have a plethora of other sensible applications.
The single most sane way to change agriculture for the better is to eat much less beef. hands down. simple as that.
The single most sane way to change agriculture for the better is to eat much less beef. hands down. simple as that.
I think history have shown us that if you want people to change their behavior you have to come up with something better not just something that you or I or someone else think is easier or more rational. The world doesn't work like that.
> The single most sane way to change agriculture for the better is to eat much less beef. hands down. simple as that.
I think addressing the issue of not having to succumb to the model that ensures 1/3 of all food produced is lost would do FAR more than that, recapturing the losses and creating alternative processes to create more efficient supply chains would ensure we could curtail so many more problems.
I say this as a person who has actually farmed, worked professionally in culinary (including vegetarian and vegan cuisine) and has a background in Logistics/Supply Chain for Auto-Multinational Corps.
So, if you think Conventional (chemical) Ag Grain/Vegetable monocrops (which is what most people eat) are really that much better for the Environment/Humans than a sustainable (ideally Biodynamic) Livestock raising model is better, you really have no idea what you're talking about--I've worked on both, too. Although I agree the US' consumes way too much meat in general, but there are much bigger problems to solve and changing a culture's palette is typically generational barring a massive catastrophe (think: War). I think many Millennial and Gen Z diets are moving toward plant-based more than their Boomer counter-parts, which I have some reservations about: the image of a 'vegan' toddler at the Farmer's Market I worked at during my apprenticeship comes to mind and I thought he was undergoing chemo-therapy he looked so unhealthy.
Also, I like the fact that these things are being explored, obviously for terrestrial applications the use-cases are limited, but experimentation for long-term Mars colonization will require in-situ crop cultivation if it is to be sustainable, and what applies to Vertical farming could help design the new container garden model. Vertical farms are essentially playthings for hobbyists on Earth, even a Community garden with a moderate size greenhouse for off-season grows will yield (in every sense of the word) way more per/sqft with the exception of perhaps the now defunct business models: selling micro-greens to fine-dining restaurants in a post COVID World.
Detroit showed how the solution to Food deserts isn't Container Gardens/Vertical farming, though its not entirely against it either, but its a reversion to Agrarian practices which include re-purposing large plots of land to Urban Farming, which created a Renaissance of sorts in the last decade. I guerilla gardened as an activist before farming, and while vertical farming should be encouraged; if nothing else as a form of Community building and as small step in CO2 sequestration as well as an improvement aesthetically speaking.
Personally speaking: As a person who grew up in CA the Valley has to be the ugliest part of CA to me because of how modular and cookie-cutter everything looks, it looks like an 'Industrial Model' to Civilization.
A few creeping grape/pea vines and spontaneous gardens won't solve the massive Homeless issue that ones associates with the vista of the Valley but it could really help improve the overall feeling of the place: I seriously had to flee to Sonoma every chance I got to keep from going crazy when I was there as it looked and felt so alien to me.
I think addressing the issue of not having to succumb to the model that ensures 1/3 of all food produced is lost would do FAR more than that, recapturing the losses and creating alternative processes to create more efficient supply chains would ensure we could curtail so many more problems.
I say this as a person who has actually farmed, worked professionally in culinary (including vegetarian and vegan cuisine) and has a background in Logistics/Supply Chain for Auto-Multinational Corps.
So, if you think Conventional (chemical) Ag Grain/Vegetable monocrops (which is what most people eat) are really that much better for the Environment/Humans than a sustainable (ideally Biodynamic) Livestock raising model is better, you really have no idea what you're talking about--I've worked on both, too. Although I agree the US' consumes way too much meat in general, but there are much bigger problems to solve and changing a culture's palette is typically generational barring a massive catastrophe (think: War). I think many Millennial and Gen Z diets are moving toward plant-based more than their Boomer counter-parts, which I have some reservations about: the image of a 'vegan' toddler at the Farmer's Market I worked at during my apprenticeship comes to mind and I thought he was undergoing chemo-therapy he looked so unhealthy.
Also, I like the fact that these things are being explored, obviously for terrestrial applications the use-cases are limited, but experimentation for long-term Mars colonization will require in-situ crop cultivation if it is to be sustainable, and what applies to Vertical farming could help design the new container garden model. Vertical farms are essentially playthings for hobbyists on Earth, even a Community garden with a moderate size greenhouse for off-season grows will yield (in every sense of the word) way more per/sqft with the exception of perhaps the now defunct business models: selling micro-greens to fine-dining restaurants in a post COVID World.
Detroit showed how the solution to Food deserts isn't Container Gardens/Vertical farming, though its not entirely against it either, but its a reversion to Agrarian practices which include re-purposing large plots of land to Urban Farming, which created a Renaissance of sorts in the last decade. I guerilla gardened as an activist before farming, and while vertical farming should be encouraged; if nothing else as a form of Community building and as small step in CO2 sequestration as well as an improvement aesthetically speaking.
Personally speaking: As a person who grew up in CA the Valley has to be the ugliest part of CA to me because of how modular and cookie-cutter everything looks, it looks like an 'Industrial Model' to Civilization.
A few creeping grape/pea vines and spontaneous gardens won't solve the massive Homeless issue that ones associates with the vista of the Valley but it could really help improve the overall feeling of the place: I seriously had to flee to Sonoma every chance I got to keep from going crazy when I was there as it looked and felt so alien to me.
it would literally be genocide to go biodynamic for billions of people. Outcompete conventional processes and prices then it will solve itself. Until then conventional production has provided us food enough to feed the entire worl (but not logistically yet)
> it would literally be genocide to go biodynamic for billions of people. Outcompete conventional processes and prices then it will solve itself. Until then conventional production has provided us food enough to feed the entire worl (but not logistically yet)
Honestly, Labour and long-term Capital is the only thing stopping it in my opinion, everything is pretty much there to make the transition. The former being the biggest thing to be solved can now be an opportunity for all the Extinction Rebellion kids and Greta Thunberg followers who have opted out of Schooling to 'put up, or shut up' if they're serious about this movement, and the latter can easily be done by removing all the Ag subsidies overnight.
Its entirely do-able, I did it when it was far less viable after my apprenticeship and came back to the US and converted a few organic farms after having managed an existing Biodynamic one for a year.
I really hope most coders/tech people switch over to Ag Tech after this pandemic is over and they reflecyed on what exactly they're applying their labour toward as there is so much needed disruption and opportunity in what is the biggest Industry in the World (Food) because we just got a real wake up call about how precarious our living situation is on Earth when we saw all those shortages during COVID.
And the only 'genocide' to occur will be from continual reliance and outsourcing to the CCP as we've done for everything else, and extinction if we don't modernize our Ag, Food Supply and Supply Chains to something actually sustainable instead of using current practices that deplete our soil, water sources and arable farm land with the seriously reckless practices you're advocating for.
Prices are not sustainable with Conventional Ag, and they were never meant to be nor have they been truly adjusted for the Environmental damage they the incur as a result of State intervention, and are instead masked by a multitude of subsidies (which keep farmers into a near debt-slave based servitude situation) and why the consolidation of Ag occurred by Chemical/Pharma corps (where I come from as a Biologist) in the first place, and subsequently why things like diabetes, heart disease and obesity kill more people in wealthy developed nations than anything else--which you can probably argue is a form of genocide, as in these Industries are targeting the above poverty class of the World into using becoming clients of either of its branches and wreaking havoc regardless.
To be fair, I'm not for phasing out conventional or even GMO practices over-night as some regions would simply not be able to grow anything because of the damage to the soil/environment, but instead we should stop incentivizing it and remove its subsides and allow it to compete on its own merits after having shifted those subsidies (perhaps even a significant reduction) for the next 20-30 years in the form of long-term, low interest loans to small, organic/sustainable independent farmers, Community Gardens and seed money/Angel Investment to startups in Ag.
Just the budget of the Department of Ag for 2019 alone is staggering [1] just the $23 Billion in discretionary funds of the total $140 Billion could revolutionize how food is sourced, produced, and delivered into a near post-scarcity level (which on a caloric basis we are already at) in our Lifetimes! We could put a real dent in Carbon capture, reclamation and soil re-vitalization, which could in turn be another way to capture Green house gasses, and help the environment further.
I really think most people take for granted how broken and needlessly, complex, wasteful and ultimately poor for all involved our Modern Food Supply system is and how dire it is to have to repair it.
1: https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-fy19...
Honestly, Labour and long-term Capital is the only thing stopping it in my opinion, everything is pretty much there to make the transition. The former being the biggest thing to be solved can now be an opportunity for all the Extinction Rebellion kids and Greta Thunberg followers who have opted out of Schooling to 'put up, or shut up' if they're serious about this movement, and the latter can easily be done by removing all the Ag subsidies overnight.
Its entirely do-able, I did it when it was far less viable after my apprenticeship and came back to the US and converted a few organic farms after having managed an existing Biodynamic one for a year.
I really hope most coders/tech people switch over to Ag Tech after this pandemic is over and they reflecyed on what exactly they're applying their labour toward as there is so much needed disruption and opportunity in what is the biggest Industry in the World (Food) because we just got a real wake up call about how precarious our living situation is on Earth when we saw all those shortages during COVID.
And the only 'genocide' to occur will be from continual reliance and outsourcing to the CCP as we've done for everything else, and extinction if we don't modernize our Ag, Food Supply and Supply Chains to something actually sustainable instead of using current practices that deplete our soil, water sources and arable farm land with the seriously reckless practices you're advocating for.
Prices are not sustainable with Conventional Ag, and they were never meant to be nor have they been truly adjusted for the Environmental damage they the incur as a result of State intervention, and are instead masked by a multitude of subsidies (which keep farmers into a near debt-slave based servitude situation) and why the consolidation of Ag occurred by Chemical/Pharma corps (where I come from as a Biologist) in the first place, and subsequently why things like diabetes, heart disease and obesity kill more people in wealthy developed nations than anything else--which you can probably argue is a form of genocide, as in these Industries are targeting the above poverty class of the World into using becoming clients of either of its branches and wreaking havoc regardless.
To be fair, I'm not for phasing out conventional or even GMO practices over-night as some regions would simply not be able to grow anything because of the damage to the soil/environment, but instead we should stop incentivizing it and remove its subsides and allow it to compete on its own merits after having shifted those subsidies (perhaps even a significant reduction) for the next 20-30 years in the form of long-term, low interest loans to small, organic/sustainable independent farmers, Community Gardens and seed money/Angel Investment to startups in Ag.
Just the budget of the Department of Ag for 2019 alone is staggering [1] just the $23 Billion in discretionary funds of the total $140 Billion could revolutionize how food is sourced, produced, and delivered into a near post-scarcity level (which on a caloric basis we are already at) in our Lifetimes! We could put a real dent in Carbon capture, reclamation and soil re-vitalization, which could in turn be another way to capture Green house gasses, and help the environment further.
I really think most people take for granted how broken and needlessly, complex, wasteful and ultimately poor for all involved our Modern Food Supply system is and how dire it is to have to repair it.
1: https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-fy19...
It makes perfect sense exactly if you start thinking about energy as something that will eventually become dirt cheap and plentiful. Current market prices for electricity are have been coming down steadily for some time now. Mostly consumer prices are lagging this because we're still paying off obsolete energy infrastructure put in place decades ago. But basically, there hardly is any variable cost with wind or solar (+battery); just fixed cost for putting the infrastructure in place. Economies of scale, improved production processes, innovations in using cheaper materials, improvements in efficiency, etc. are driving prices per kwh down.
So when it comes to vertical farming crops like wheat, it's worth looking at when that price drops to "low enough". Really what we are talking about is the cost of the infrastructure needed to perpetually produce enough energy for the life time of the indoor farm.
And you are right that cheap, plentiful, clean energy will have lots of other interesting applications. IMHO, that's going to be the story of this century. Solving this will produce a new economic boom very much like oil/coal caused last century. We can solve a lot of issues with cheap energy. There are a lot of things bottle-necked on energy cost. Improvements on that front unlock new applications.
So when it comes to vertical farming crops like wheat, it's worth looking at when that price drops to "low enough". Really what we are talking about is the cost of the infrastructure needed to perpetually produce enough energy for the life time of the indoor farm.
And you are right that cheap, plentiful, clean energy will have lots of other interesting applications. IMHO, that's going to be the story of this century. Solving this will produce a new economic boom very much like oil/coal caused last century. We can solve a lot of issues with cheap energy. There are a lot of things bottle-necked on energy cost. Improvements on that front unlock new applications.
A picture of these vertical farms would have gone a long way towards helping me understand what all would be required to deploy these things. Yet they decide to use white-space to tell me what the population of the world is and estimates of it in the future and why farming is important.
These studies are really interesting to think about for space settlements.
Terrestrially, you're never going to get more efficient use of an acre of sunlight (~4 MW at noon) than you will with photovoltaics (~75% loss ~= 1 MW at noon) and conversion to artificial light.
But it could totally work on some future Trantor with flying cars and fusion engines.
* edit: another poster has dug into the appendix and concluded that you might be able to do about as good w/r/t land use with photovoltaics, presumably due to other factors affecting plant growth.
Terrestrially, you're never going to get more efficient use of an acre of sunlight (~4 MW at noon) than you will with photovoltaics (~75% loss ~= 1 MW at noon) and conversion to artificial light.
But it could totally work on some future Trantor with flying cars and fusion engines.
* edit: another poster has dug into the appendix and concluded that you might be able to do about as good w/r/t land use with photovoltaics, presumably due to other factors affecting plant growth.
> you're never going to get more efficient use of an acre of sunlight (~4 MW at noon) than you will with photovoltaics (~75% loss ~= 1 MW at noon)
green plants don't use the middle, thus they are green, of the spectrum - i.e. they use only 10-20% of the sunlight. So, very efficient photovoltaics (or other type of solar powerplant) -> electricity -> only red and violet LEDs may even beat the Mother Nature in efficiency a bit. Add to that various optimizations - for example with the LEDs you aren't limited by the Sun singular position in the sky and can shine light from all the needed angles, like no more leaves being in the shadow of other leaves, thus increasing the photosynthesis throughput of a given plant.
green plants don't use the middle, thus they are green, of the spectrum - i.e. they use only 10-20% of the sunlight. So, very efficient photovoltaics (or other type of solar powerplant) -> electricity -> only red and violet LEDs may even beat the Mother Nature in efficiency a bit. Add to that various optimizations - for example with the LEDs you aren't limited by the Sun singular position in the sky and can shine light from all the needed angles, like no more leaves being in the shadow of other leaves, thus increasing the photosynthesis throughput of a given plant.
Some plants (like tomatoes IIRC) even have a better photosynthesis efficiency when the light comes from below.
The problem with vertical farming is where does the energy come from? An acre of solar panels is not capable of supplying enough energy to grow an acre of crops, even with the efficiency gains we've had in photovoltaics and lighting with wavelengths tuned to crop growth. What's the point in having fields of solar panels when we could have smaller greenhouses filled with crops?
If only nuclear energy was politically viable in the west we could have vertical farming and so much more.
Well, can't easily grow crops on untreated desert ground, but easy to put solar panels there to power your enclosed vertical farm.
Yes, soil, temperature, and weather control are huge, as is the lack of need for pesticides. Hard to over-state how much controlled environments can improve yields and crop quality and reduce costs of maintenance (in return for large initial capital investment).
My understanding is that this is how the Netherlands became one of the biggest food exporters of the EU
We're closer than you'd think. Chlorophyll is only something like 28% efficient at absorbing sunlight, we have experimental solar panels pushing 45%. Collecting wavelengths the plants don't use and then lighting them only in wavelengths they do use has a significant potential for efficiency gains, though we're not quite there yet...
"have no nutrient losses to the environment." Not Possible, unless you leave the plant in place. All nutrients come from our environment.
I'm curious if this would be a good use of land in places like the Saharan desert, semi vertical greenhouses would optimize for water loss and light usage, and there is plenty of sand for production of the glass walls and growing medium.
Someone needs to invent the elevator combine -- existing combines are super efficient. Not sure how you harvest wheat in a vertical frame efficiently though. Maybe the frame rotates and you guillotine it all off?
Would love to peak forward 100 years and see the amazing amount of vertical farms near city centers and all the converted agricultural land in the U.S. given back to nature reserves.
At present I think it makes more sense to focus on high value crops.
Eg I’ll pay a premium for pesticide free, fresh salad from a Urban vertical farm. Wheat less so
Eg I’ll pay a premium for pesticide free, fresh salad from a Urban vertical farm. Wheat less so
High value and highly perishable. Wheat can be stored for years, but the shelf life of your kale/arugula/romaine salad is a matter of days.
What about growing genetically-engineered 'nutrient algae' in giant pools, and processing the resultant biomatter into bars for consumption? A layer of glass could even be put over the pool to control conditions.
If we're pursuing maximum nutrient and calorie output for minimum fertilizer and energy input, why look at traditional plants at all?
If we're pursuing maximum nutrient and calorie output for minimum fertilizer and energy input, why look at traditional plants at all?
What are the costs of this fantasy? How much more expensive per tonne, 10 fold?
I see corona-disused office blocks in city centres wrapped in mirroring systems that reflect sunlight throughout each floor to become farmscrapers.
It’s fascinating how new and cheaper forms of power (Fusion or Molten salt nuclear reactors looking at you) we unlock another plane of abundance.
[deleted]
Has everyone gone insane?
The only thing worth growing in vertical farms is branded "Vertically Farmed" artisanal products for the rich.
Surely you can see wheat is not great for this.
You still then have to put the world's most expensive wheat through the artisanal bread making process. How will this be profitable?
The only thing worth growing in vertical farms is branded "Vertically Farmed" artisanal products for the rich.
Surely you can see wheat is not great for this.
You still then have to put the world's most expensive wheat through the artisanal bread making process. How will this be profitable?
Volume.
I'm honestly curious though how volume would make this work. What is the square footage of the largest vertical tower you think could be built for under $1B? And how much would that same land cost you in Nebraska?
"With artificial lighting increasing the intensity and duration of light beyond what can be captured from the sun in a field, the short indoor growth cycle produced mean grain yields of 14 ± 0.8 t/ha per harvest at 11% grain moisture based on a 1-m2 edge-protected experimental area"
How tf can you say your yields are going to extrapolate from that tiny space to a hectare scale facility? It's ridiculous. We have a huge problem achieving lab-theoretical yields on working farms, outside of the super optimized and most destructive conventional agriculture methods. They didn't even do a full greenhouse trial. Come on guys, you can say it's promising but to say you can get 1000+t/ha out of a vertical farm because of this is fantasy.