alt Hacker NewsI agree. Potatoes transform light into starch. With traditional farming you get a huge "free" solar collector. In vertical farming you have to pay for the light.
So the alternative is to grow lettuce that has a greater price to energy ratio.
I agree. Potatoes transform light into starch. With traditional farming you get a huge "free" solar collector. In vertical farming you have to pay for the light.
So the alternative is to grow lettuce that has a greater price to energy ratio.
More than just light - the chemical profile of the soil is the feedstock for all of the interesting chemistry the plant does. The air can provide oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon, which are the backbone of a lot of the chemistry, but anything more exotic than that is coming from the soil. They're factories, not alchemists.