<story><title>Vertical farming does not save space</title><url>https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/02/vertical-farming-ecosystem-services.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>airza</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s such an important point that&amp;#x27;s the core value proposition of vertical farming. Arable.land is unlikely to keep up with the combination of population growth and climate change. That&amp;#x27;s the whole point of the exercise! Solving that problem!</text></item><item><author>tux1968</author><text>The other thing to remember is that there is a lot of land that isn&amp;#x27;t suitable for farming for one reason or another that can be used for solar.</text></item><item><author>maxharris</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. The vertical farm is a paradox unless fossil fuels provide the energy. In that case, there’s not much sustainable about it.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This entire piece is based on the assumption that the only sources of energy are solar panels and fossil fuels. This is false. According to the US Department of Energy, 19.6% of the energy produced in 2019 is nuclear. In that same year, 7.1% was from wind, 7.0% was hydroelectric, 1.4% from biomass, 0.4% geothermal. Only 1.7% was photovoltaics! &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eia.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq.php?id=427&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eia.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq.php?id=427&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we look into the relatively near future, fusion energy is going to account for a rapidly increasing share of energy production by the end of this decade. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wongarsu</author><text>World popolation is around 7.8 billion, and is projected to peak around 11 billion. Given that of all agricultural land only 23% is used for non-feed crops (producing 82% of global calorie supply) that doesn&amp;#x27;t sound like an existential problem, even if you assume that climate change makes much more land unarable than it makes arable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Vertical farming does not save space</title><url>https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/02/vertical-farming-ecosystem-services.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>airza</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s such an important point that&amp;#x27;s the core value proposition of vertical farming. Arable.land is unlikely to keep up with the combination of population growth and climate change. That&amp;#x27;s the whole point of the exercise! Solving that problem!</text></item><item><author>tux1968</author><text>The other thing to remember is that there is a lot of land that isn&amp;#x27;t suitable for farming for one reason or another that can be used for solar.</text></item><item><author>maxharris</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Artificial lighting saves land because plants can be grown above each other, but if the electricity for the lighting comes from solar panels, then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels. The vertical farm is a paradox unless fossil fuels provide the energy. In that case, there’s not much sustainable about it.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This entire piece is based on the assumption that the only sources of energy are solar panels and fossil fuels. This is false. According to the US Department of Energy, 19.6% of the energy produced in 2019 is nuclear. In that same year, 7.1% was from wind, 7.0% was hydroelectric, 1.4% from biomass, 0.4% geothermal. Only 1.7% was photovoltaics! &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eia.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq.php?id=427&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.eia.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;faqs&amp;#x2F;faq.php?id=427&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If we look into the relatively near future, fusion energy is going to account for a rapidly increasing share of energy production by the end of this decade. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xchaotic</author><text>Not solving it unless you solve the other problems such as where the energy comes from how do you deal with waste where do you get the water from.</text></comment>