I've been doing this for almost a full decade, so can say with quite a lot of certainty that you can safely put your suspicions to rest. We even have tech to grow various crop types to harvest stage without needing light at all.
Sorry, but I'm still quite skeptical; I'm going to need you to make a specific case, not just ask me to trust you because you're in the vertical farming industry.
> so can say with quite a lot of certainty that you can safely put your suspicions to rest
I took a closer look at https://www.infarm.com/vision, and it seems that the way they achieved 25x the yield per acre was by stacking multiple layers. So each layer needs its own set of LEDs. How bright is each layer of LEDs, compared to sunlight? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency, only about 45% of sunlight is in the part of the spectrum that plants can use; so if you grow crops with purple LEDs, you could use only 45% as much energy as sunlight. But if you're getting 25x the yield-per-acre by having 3 layers, then you're using 3*45%=135% as much energy-per-acre as sunlight.
I admit I'm not an expert, and these numbers are very rough estimates. Feel free to point me to a source that gives more specific numbers for yield-per-acre of an energy-intensive crop; number of layers used; and electricity usage per layer per acre.
> We even have tech to grow various crop types to harvest stage without needing light at all.
It's physically impossible to produce food without an energy source. So if you're not using light as the energy source, then what are you using? And if you look further upstream, where is the energy ultimately coming from?
> Energy usage? Think about all that fuel those tractors you no longer need are burning to till soil, harvest crops, and do general field work on top.
According to https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Agricultural_energy_..., the total energy use of the agricultural sector worldwide is roughly 2,000 to 3,000 terawatt-hours per year. That includes fossil fuels too, not just electricity. So the energy used to run a tractor is tiny compared to the amount of sunlight falling on the field.
The picture is me over a decade ago, doing microscopic analysis of live plant tissues growing under targeted-spectrum LED lighting in a vertically-stacked hydroponics building, and proving the viability of the very technology being discussed in the thread article.
This isn't even new tech. We've been using it since the 90s. The LEDs are new, everything else is exactly the same as it was back then. Maybe better nutrient profiles.
On the other side of the picture, behind the camera, was a grass-growing system that didn't require light for the grass to grow at all. We were doing artificial photosynthesis over there.
What's REALLY the big thing here is the NFT hydroponics technique being utilized.
Even several decades ago, you got great yields on regular land using far less water. Not even multiple stacked systems.
Now that we have good LED tech, stacked grow systems indoors makes a lot of sense. 1/8 of an acre to produce what 1 acre does, using much less in the way of resources. Water? Hugely reduced depending on the hydroponics system. Yields? Comparable or greater in a reduced footprint. Energy usage? Think about all that fuel those tractors you no longer need are burning to till soil, harvest crops, and do general field work on top.
Everything slowly combines to become an economically and ecologically-sound system.
Not so fast, you just skated right past capital requirements for build out, maintenance costs, and the sun. There was an article posted in here not two weeks ago detailing how the entire stacked grow startup industry is imploding due to increases in energy costs and I'm quite certain you haven't figured out how to grow tomatoes in pitch blackness.
I don't understand "artificial photosynthesis". Glucose in the water?
Elsewhere you write "electrocatalysis-based artificial photosynthesis". Wires clipped to the roots?
Solar Foods, in Finland, has a strain of Xanthobacter agilis that eats hydrogen, nitrogen, and CO2, and produces tasty protein (70% by dried weight) and carotenes. Their plan is to electrolyse water for the hydrogen, using renewable power.
https://i.imgur.com/FFKWNy8.jpg
I've been doing this for almost a full decade, so can say with quite a lot of certainty that you can safely put your suspicions to rest. We even have tech to grow various crop types to harvest stage without needing light at all.