this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Solarpunk Farming
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Farm all the things!
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I think you're right to be skeptical, but I don't think the entire concept is a hoax. Just its implementation under capitalism.
Solar isn't the only source of power; wind is also a valuable source of energy that could be significantly scaled up. One of the drawbacks of these sources is their intermittency - in order to maintain grid load, they usually need some form of energy storage. Any time the energy is stored and released, there are losses, which increase the cost of the energy.
But vertical farming is a perfect application for intermittent power sources. Plants don't need 100% sunlight all the time, they're used to the sun being interrupted by cloud cover and night-time. Probably half of vertical farm energy usage is for keeping the lights on. A digital system that ensured that plants were getting enough light could coordinate with the management of the power grid so that when energy production was at its peak, it would add more load to the grid, and when it dipped, the lights would dim or go dark. With enough vertical farming infrastructure, you could stabilize an intermittent energy grid and reduce the need for expensive energy storage solutions.
Wind in particular can produce a lot of power, even at night. Plants could use this cheap energy to grow outside of the normal hours of the diurnal cycle and be able to thrive even if the lights go dim for a couple of days.
vertical farming is cool when electricity is very cheap, and only 'government' kind of money would allow such venture. as the article stated, it would be cool to implement in hot and arid countries like middle eastern ones: instead of importing perishables, they would grow their own crops and cut on fuel costs related to transport (although they dont lack any of the latter, but it would be cool for the climate i guess..) solar costs about 40€ (50$?) per Mwh (120$ for the stored Mwh) i would wager that vertical farming would require a 4€ per Mwh (fictious number. Edit: in fact, say you want to provide lighting for 1 stack, electricity should cost enough to break even with farming under regular sunlight, but when trying to provide light for 20 stack of plants, electricity needs to cost 1/20th as much, so about 2€ per Mwh lol; 60 stacks ? 0.6€ per Mwh..(stored solar energy would cost again 3x as much). again for-profit agriculture shouldn't exist, and if it did, it shouldn't be at the expense of the climate, and governments should provide the necessary economics for the thing to be profitable for business owners, to justify their effort. Also VC money is stupid and is never enough, especially with the ridiculous ROI expectations they require. personnally i wouldnt rely on VC filth to fund my project, and as proven above, such people are ignorant and aren't worthy of owning money. Nonetheless, interesting take you have: if vertical farming would spare the grid the cost of batteries and help stabilize it, that would be very cool.
In addition to the obvious energy savings of growing food closer to its point of consumption (electricity is cheap to transport, potatoes are heavy) there are several other benefits that are non-intuitive and difficult to quantify.
By growing food in an artificial environment, you can exclude pests and thus save on toxic chemicals traditionally used to control their population. In addition to saving pesticide costs, this prevents poisons from entering the food chain.
In addition to saving on water, the closed irrigation cycle prevents field runoff. Fertilizer buildup in the lakes and rivers creates algae blooms which create anoxic dead zones that destroy aquatic ecosystems. In vertical farms, there is no need for overfertilization because all of it is delivered directly to the plants with no run-off, saving fertilizer and the local environment.
Assuming the technological kinks are worked out, vertical farming can have much more predictable yields than traditional farming. We overproduce food in the global north and though some of the surplus is sold overseas, much of it is wasted. Since food independence is a security issue, overproduction and maintaining latent agricultural potential makes pragmatic sense. But less ambiguity in the amount of crops lost to cold snaps, storms, locust outbreaks, and drought means less overproduction to account for those ambiguities. Less energy is used and less food goes to waste.
I don't expect any of these benefits would be realized under capitalism, but I don't want to burn a good idea because some grifters used it as the front of one of their schemes.
if i didn't argue this you wouldn't bother pointing any of this, but at least you did and i got to learn something in the process and it did change my mind about VF. i appreciate it.
Thanks. Experiencing conflicting perspectives is helpful in critically examining our own beliefs, even if we don't ultimately change them. I appreciate you sharing your ideas, it did pull some good arguments out of me.