Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw

Re:Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw by squokko on Friday December 30, 2022 @04:39AM (#34183505)

Vertical farms don't make sense, and never will, except as a curiosity/novelty/luxury product. There's only so many calories you can grow with the incident sun on a piece of ground.

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Re:Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw by ls15 on Friday December 30, 2022 @05:19AM (#34183704)

> Vertical farms don't make sense, and never will, except as a curiosity/novelty/luxury product.

If you rely on cheap energy, then yes. If you grow under the sun, vertical systems and hydro-/aeroponics still make a lot of sense, IMO.

Check what these guys are growing under the sun in grow towers:

https://youtu.be/GpKGbXWepAs

I think this would be impossible to reproduce with traditional horizontal farming.

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Re:Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw by PeterisP on Friday December 30, 2022 @06:28AM (#34184082)

They make all sense given cheap energy. For example, Iceland grows most of its tomato consumption locally around the year despite a lack of sun in seasons like this one (currently 4-ish hours of not-that-strong daylight), doing that under artificial light in greenhouses, getting both heat and electricity from cheap geothermal power sources.

So when at some point in future we manage to get cheap renewable replacements to fossil fuels, all of this becomes very relevant.

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