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Comment by Radim | Hacker News Reader

> Outside of light, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), or NPK for short

Ehm. Check out this Nature article on the importance of Carbon:

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of...

Very readable and worth reading in full. Especially the effects of elevated CO₂ on the C₃/C₄ photosynthetic pathway and crop yields.

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Hydroponic growers are intimately aware of the need and benefits accruing from elevated CO2. You'd be hard pressed to find a greenhouse vegetable farm without a huge CO2 tank outside, as well as the technology used inside the scrub carbon dioxide from natural gas exhaust and reroute it into the plants. They tend to burn the natural gas during the day to feed the plants while storing the heat in huge water tanks to warm facilities at night.

The primary constraint is maintaining low enough CO2 levels to remain healthy for the humans that work inside the greenhouse. Plants themselves can handle very high levels of carbon dioxide.

What about global warming from this greenhouse gas?

They were going to burn it for heat anyway. This produces less CO2 than getting it from a tank.

If you are concerned about CO2 emissions from hydroponics, I have bad news for you regarding every other activity in an industrial society that consumes electrical power or requires heat. They all produce enormous amounts of CO2. That is why global warming is happening.

If you would like that to stop happening, I would suggest working on a ban on petroleum drilling, or a carbon tax.

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