Unsurprising. I'm not sure much has changed since this recording of Bruce Bugbee's talk "Why Vertical Farming Won't Save the Planet". There's nothing surprising there but he does give hard numbers to do the math that shows that vertical farming is not as good as its proponents have made it out to be. Solar energy input dwarfs all other energy inputs to agriculture, and the cost to replace one acre of solar energy with electricity comes out to $400,000 per acre (per some unit of days per a growing season). I don't think the economics have tended favorably since. The space needs for solar panels doesn't favor vertical farming either. He also shows the efficiency of modern agriculture, and why vertical farming has a pretty tall order ahead of it to beat the economics of outdoor farming. It's quite unlikely factors have changed enough since to alter his conclusion: only high-value, high-water-content specialty crops might be economically viable.<p>[0] = <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISAKc9gpGjw</a>
Wow, how are all these vertical farms raising so much money? Isn't vertical farming one of those back-of-the-envelope dumb ideas, like solar roadways and space-based solar.