News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on 2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 720-Acre Flat Farm. Parent comment

Re:2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 72... by swiftcoder on Monday December 28, 2020 @08:40AM (#25559085)
Why is that, exactly?

Potatoes, Carrots, Corn, Mushrooms... All grow fine in buckets. All grow fine hydroponically.

I'm not sure I see an obviously barrier preventing all of these from being vertically farmed.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:2-Acre Vertical Farm Run by AI and Robots Out-Produces 72... by jonathankoren on Monday December 28, 2020 @12:36PM (#25561136)
Quite simply, the energy and capital costs of growing bushel of wheat are more than the bushel price of wheat. This difference isn’t just a little, but a lot. If I’m reading the table right in page 19 of the appendix linked, it’s as bad as 37x in 2019, and only projected to fall to 4.6x by 2050.

Paper https://www.pnas.org/content/117/32/19131

Appendix https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/07/22/200265511...

[ Parent | on HN ]