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Comment by vilhelm_s | Hacker News Reader

According to [1], lettuce grown by California farmers cost 993,567,000/84,000 = $11,900 per acre.

According to this article, electricity and power costs $216,000 for a 30,000-square-foot vertical farm, or $313,000/acre.

It seems hard to make that competitive.

[1] https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverv...

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$993,567,000 is the total value of lettuce production for the year, not the cost.

I guess it's about the same? I imagine the profit margins are not very high.

Would the yield per acre be higher because of no need for pesticides, and less loss of bad quality yields? Cos we know organic is more expensive as it yields far less than gm crops.

And would crops grow faster with 24/7 sunlight vs 12 hours?!?

I mean, the reason all of these vegetables are grown in California is basically because it is already a controlled environment. It's sunny all the time, and it doesn't get much rain, so you are just irrigating at the optimal time for the crop in question.

Yeah, but that's at a profit, so the costs are less, which makes vertical agriculture even less competitive.

Electricity will essentially be free within 30 years

Based on what?... I have always thought that nuclear fusion would make electricity almost completely free though

Based on the cost trend for renewables. You know the way you can buy computer chips for 1¢ or even less now? The same is happening with solar. https://www.resilience.org/wp-content/uploads/articles/Gener...

Electricity energy may be, but you'd still need to pay for the network, ancillary services, etc...

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