So what is this indoor farming for cities?
I remember those boxes to grow salad in, vertically stacked, interesting concept because no need for toxic stuff and almost no water, and it's right there so no need for shipping.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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Been growing plants for 30-years, using zero sunlight to full sunlight. The difference in energy use, manpower, all that, is stunning.
Food is food because it contains loads of energy. We eat corn not oak leaves. That energy has to be put into the plant, at a loss, to get energy out. TANSTAAFL, literally.
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Everybody in this post is a sustainability specialist.
I read that the production of solar is also counter productive. Don't quote me on that cause I read it when I was like 10 maybe.
The materials needed for solar are very toxic, and hard to remove, we also need a lot of them. We get these from places like China and Russia cheap because they don't mind their citizens dying so much as they make a profit. That cheapness is the cornerstone to every renewable project today. If we found ourselves in a position unable to trade with China/Russia, we would have to mine it in our own borders, poison our own land, water, and citizens. America could just return to it's own petrol fields, but other countries would face serious challenges.
I'm not saying none of this is true, but at the very least most of this is misleading. We're figuring out how to recycle old solar panels on an industrial scale: https://youtu.be/FCtEWveySsA
But progress is a bit slower than expected, mostly also because panels are a lot longer-lived than previously assumed (this is a good thing).
Yes, panels use rare minerals, but so does basically everything we consume and use nowadays. There's two answers to that.
A) does it still make sense climate-wise to use these resources in solar panels? This is what Life Cycle Analyses are for. In general, throughout their life cycle, PV modules help prevent more CO2 emissions than their manufacturing process releases, i.e. they are a net gain (https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/1/252). This is similar to EV vehicles, which break even around 60k km driven depending on your electricity generation (if memory serves https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/733112/IPOL_STU(2023)733112_EN.pdf)
b) is there a way to manufacture PV panels less resource-intensive and maybe even without relying on (Chinese) rare earth minerals as much? Yes there is. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/ISE-Sustainable-PV-Manufacturing-in-Europe.pdf and see also sources above for next-gen differences.
That being said, for now it's still economically more attractive (usually) to implement Chinese panels because they're flooding the market. Still, it's a net gain as outlined.
This seems like a weird argument. One has to come before the other. You won't see a noticable reduction CO2 emissions until renewables are primary sources for probably decades. Sure that's not great but it's where we're at.
Solar is cheaper than ever? I mean sure, but you still have to pay for it upfront, and by the time you got your money back you need some new panels. Also i like solar power and everything, but i'm not at home during the day, so i would produce energy for no one. Or i'd get a big ass battery, which is super expensive and doesn't last as long as the panels. And no, where i live, you don't get any money anymore for the extra power you produce.
It's also cool that the ocean is being cleaned, but we'll just produce more garbage in shorter time. So far we did plastic straws, which was a big thing that a lot of people are still mad about. And it was just basically a marketing campaign because a turtle had a straw in it's nose. The garbage that is being fished out of the ocean doesn't just disappear. It's better than chilling in the ocean i guess, but it's still garbage twice the size of texas that has to be delt with.
For your first point, sure let’s consider that the case, then the old panels can be recycled and you get more efficient ones, not a bad trade.
Also, share with your neighbour the extra energy? Or contact your municipal office to pass a tax cut/payback? There’s so much opportunity there! (Just imagine if your city passes such an initiative and others adopt too! Less reliance on fossil fuels!)
On your second point, yeah, we need more innovation in recycling technology. Hopefully we get there too 😊
It is catching up, but slowly with still quite a ways to go (at least from 2022 data) . . . the probem is population and demand can grow exponentially too - or if not they can have s-curves with short term exponential growth. Especially for, say, a developing economy that is growing car ownership/usage, or is transitioning from high infant mortality to low and fertility hasn't dropped as it seems to after economic growth.
End result - fossil fuel use has also grown, a lot, over the last 30 years. Even despite the ramp up of renewables. Both in total energy source, and as a source of electricity.
What seems to work best from this data is decent sized economic recession like 2008 (a bit) and a pandemic (a bit more) - just need them to last a bit longer. /s /not-s
The other thing that is quite helpful is stuff like clean air regulation (for example LCPD and IED) - here is the UK electricity source graph as an example of coal switch off following that type of regulation.
But even there with direct regulation to shut the large coal plants (over about 30 year period), it has been gas that takes up the slack. But this is 100% politically driven regulation; nothing to do with the price of solar, or even windmills. It took the 70s recessions , smog choked cities, and a callous devil-posessed prime minister who literally set an army of violent thugs (with badges) on the coal miners to set up the conditions for that - otherwise we might still be stuck with coal a bit like Australia seems to struggle with. It helps that we can't do open cast mining here though so coal was economically redundant anyway.