Farmland isn't just a place to put some plants while they grow. A farm is a giant solar power facility, one that converts solar energy, carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrate. Monbiot doesn't stress the point enough - it's all about light.
When we say that we have a shortage of farmland, what we mean in practical terms is that we have a shortage of flat areas with good drainage to function as solar collectors. Going vertical doesn't increase the amount of light you can gather, so it doesn't increase the amount of food you can produce.
Vertical farming is only remotely feasible if we see the cost of energy fall ten-thousand fold. That's only likely if we crack nuclear fusion. Of course, such an abundance of energy would render any worries about food production moot.
Unfortunately, we appear to live in a world where supposedly educated adults are unfamiliar with such advanced scientific concepts as photosynthesis.
When we say that we have a shortage of farmland, what we mean in practical terms is that we have a shortage of flat areas with good drainage to function as solar collectors.
Well, it is a bit more complicated than that. A huge problem in agriculture is the depletion of soil. For example, over time intensively irrigated soil tends to become contaminated with excess salts which destroys its fertility, yet still leaves it as flat, well-drained, and sunny as ever.
I completely agree, however, that the first-order consideration in growing plants is the availability of light.
"Going vertical doesn't increase the amount of light you can gather"
I am not sure that is true everywhere on the planet. If you get closer to the poles, the sun will, on average, stand lower above the horizon. That is why, in winter in Moscow, people sun while standing up.
Also, in summers close to the equator, getting less light per square meter may be a good thing, depending on what you are trying to produce.
I don't buy his argument that the cost of artificial lighting alone would be ~100x the current market value of the produce, especially when you use the solar collector analogy for farmland. Some quick googleing puts wheat in the 1% efficient range or less when converting light into carbohyrates. I have no idea where to find the exact number but it's not efficient at all. In a controlled environment the remaining 99% of the energy could be recycled. On top of that his calculation was based on the average sunlight for a day in England but that's probably more than wheat needs to grow optimally. I would love to see a more realistic calculation of this number.
That said I don't think vertical farms will ever be practical.
As important as the specific theme (Vertical Farms are a crock) was this line, "Magical thinking is a universal affliction. We see what we want to see, deny what we don’t. Confronted by uncomfortable facts, we burrow back into the darkness of our cherished beliefs. We will do almost anything – cheat, lie, stand for high office, go to war – to shut out challenges to the way we see the world."
So many of the inane approaches to solving some of our economic and environmental challenges make absolutely no sense, have almost completely consensus that they violate laws of physics, and quite often result in Net-Negative results. "Local Growing", except as a hobby, is one of those insane ideas that seems to be underlying the silly "Vertical Farms" concept. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html)
Ironically, if there is government funding, the fact that an idea makes no economic sense doesn't mean it won't be pursued. There may be peripheral advantages or developments in technology that take place, while we tilt at these windmills.
So - I say let's build a couple of these vertical farms, see what we discover, do the math and realize it will never make sense, and maybe discover something else that we never even considered!
So - I say let's build a couple of these vertical farms, see what we discover, do the math and realize it will never make sense, and maybe discover something else that we never even considered!
You're suggesting doing something that we already know makes no damn sense in the hopes that we might learn something useful in the process. This argument could be used to justify an awful lot of things which make no sense.
This is, of course, just fine, as long as you're spending your own money on doing nonsensical things, and not mine. Good luck rustling up the hundred million dollars you'll need to build a skyscraper though.
Vertical farms are a crock because transport of crops is easy. Moving people is much harder. This is why economic centers are densely populated, but can still eat food shipped from 1000 miles away. There is no reason to spend millions to build vertically when you can buy cheap land and transport the products to the most profitable markets on demand.
This. People should be dense, farms should be sparse.
Taking city land to grow crops is NOT carbon-efficient. The far more carbon-efficient method would be to use city land for more housing, and use suburbia for farms.
Think of it this way: people commute both ways every day, but food commutes only once.
I'm not even going to get into the idea that it's more carbon-efficient to grow bananas in South America and ship them to New York than it would be to heat and light a greenhouse in New York...
The profit margin for a grain farmer in the US is about $100/acre in a good year. There are 43,560 square feet per acre. The ballpark estimate for construction of 10-20 story office space is $125-150 per square foot.
To break even, you'll have to build something that requires zero maintenance that also lasts about 60,000 years and of course you'll need zero point zero interest rates over those sixty millenia just to break even.
If farmland is as scarce as Monbiot proposes then vertical farms could work. Most of the value of a $1000 a month apartment is in consumer surplus. Yes, a vertical farm in manhattan will probably never work, but one on some existing farm land in New Jersey probably will. Vertical farms currently won't work but any real scarcity in farmland will drive up prices until it becomes economical as the price of food is highly elastic.
While George Monbiot is often wrong about a lot of things, it's nice to see him being right in comparison to someone even wronger than he is.
A quick calculation: the total floor area of the Empire State Building is 63 acres. You can do your own calculations for the cost of building the Empire State Building vs the cost of buying 63 acres of land (which, incidentally, gets light) in upstate New York, but I'm pretty sure that one is much, much, much larger than the other.
And with that number in mind, you also see another problem with vertical farms: pure space availability. Modern farms are hundreds and even thousands of acres to grow enough food to feed the masses we have today. You would need > 100 of these buildings (ignoring all the other issues for now) to be able to replace one major farm.
Frankly hydrogen vehicles are more feasible than this, but only barely.
Every time I read of these, my thought was always "how do they get light?". I just assumed that this was somehow solved, otherwise why would everyone be so excited about it? I figured some day I would have some time to properly investigate it and find some cool tech.
It saddens me greatly, and in numerous ways, to find out that "How do they get light?" is a killer question.
I always assumed that the light would be artificial. And that they were relying on hypothetical cheap energy of the kind that reliable fusion would provide. This may be possible a hundred years from now but surely not in today's energy economy.
Production prices for solar energy are now below $0.80 / watt (http://www.123jump.com/market-update/First-Solar,-Inc-Q4-Ear...), although skyrocketing demand has caused wholesale prices to remain much higher. It seems likely that we may in the next 10 years be in a place where we can turn sunlight into electricity, and then electricity into the exact wavelengths of light used in photosynthesis more efficiently than allowing the plants to sit in the sun.
If this is the case, than we may be able to grow crops more efficiently indoors than out. But we will be replacing acres of crops with acres of solar panels. And it's unclear to me why we would want these buildings to be skyscrapers, which are much more expensive per square foot than large warehouses in the middle of nowhere.
Vertical farms are kind of a crock, kind of. The idea of indoor agriculture is not, however (just look at Thanet Earth), and there is an advantage of building up a few floors and using grow lights to supplement the loss of passive lighting.
A series of low-rise warehouses using hydroponics in the outer rings of a city makes a lot of sense.
However, the architectural games people are playing with huge spires in the center of Manhattan, those are ridiculous, and always have been.
I had always thought that the skyscraper version of vertical farming was more of a fantasy technology.
Everything real I've seen is focused on what you mention, low-rise warehouses with racks of hydroponics and skylights - making it essentially a robotic greenhouse. I don't see how this is outlandish
Can you identify a single instance of economic use of grow lights for agricultural (as opposed to pharmaceutical) purposes? Green Houses (Thanet Earth) are designed to trap the Sun's energy.
I've seen this nonsense for a few years now in all kinds Architectural publications. One such example: http://www.mvrdv.nl/#/projects/research/181pigcity.
Unfortunately, many architects and architecture students would buy any green (or otherwise hyped) BS thrown at them without questioning it.
I think the most prohibitive aspect of the "vertical farming" is the enormous cost (in materials, labor and energy) of building highrises or even buildings of more moderate heights, compared to the cost of growing any legal kind of crop on farmland and shipping it. Structure will have to be significantlly more massive to carry the loads of some soil and water. And not a word about competing land uses in Manhattan... But let's assume we can afford to ship the crop 10 or 30 miles into the city from a place with cheaper land, rather than a 1000 from far far away.
Otherwise, I actually believe the problem of lighting is solvable - for crops that require perhaps 3-10 times as little light as available in an open field on a certain location. Light can penetrate from the sides of the building. A structure shallow ebough compared to the floor height might suffice, say 10-15 meters for a floor 3 meters high. Close to the equator sunlight is abundant so even having less light by an order of magnitude is probably enough for some crops. Further away from the equator it's trickier: the sun is much lower in the south and so more direct sunlight is gained so perhaps only two thirds of it are lost compared to an open field. But then, the structure casts very long shadows which may prevent the land "behind" it from being used for farming (vertical or otherwise).
What about using vertical farms just for semi-exotic plants that fetch a higher price? Instead of expecting to feed a city of 15 million on skyscraper farms, just grow things that have to be 100% fresh in order to be tasty, and sell them to upscale restaurants and gourmet markets.
These ideas aren't new. I doubt that they are impossible but we haven't yet solved the technical problems that would make 'vertical farms' cost effective over regular farms. If farmland became expensive enough (really expensive,) I could see them seeming more viable.
If these were to happen, my entirely uneducated guess would be that it would start with rooftop farming, and that extending to storied greenhouses at the tops of skyscrapers. Depending on your crops, these both don't need artificial light and could lead to solutions for other engineering problems such farming would involve.
I assume rooftop gardening is a completely different (and good) idea. There you have the sunlight already, just being reflected or absorbed as waste heat, it's simply a materials (weight) and cost or species issue. (also it's easier to design for one than retro-fit one on).
It seems that many people here are making conjecture based upon little research. Vertical farms are very much possible and actually relatively efficient . The EPA has been funding small scale pilot farms to test the concept. The engineering hurdles which people are describing have mostly been dealt with. Food from these farms may cost more but it is fresh, local and organic instead of ethelyne ripened and full of pesticides. Take a walk to whole foods and you'll see that people are willing to pay for that.
The writer rambles on with setup and indirect arguments for a couple of paragraphs before even mentioning what he's attacking, but he raises some excellent points once he actually gets going.
This bit was witty:
"The only crop which could cover such costs is high-grade cannabis. But a 30-storey hydroponic skunk tower would be quite hard to conceal."
This guy sees your critique on expensive real estate, and uses an abandoned factory. Sees your argument about nutrients not just appearing, and uses aquaponics. Lighting... that I don't know.
Structural issues. Adds weight, in ways buildings aren't designed to take. Requires soil, and water in the soil, which is more weight. Water causes damage to building structure. Some plants will be impractical because they'll want to burrow into the structure. It's dangerous to collect the produce. There are insurance issues around stuff falling off onto people. It becomes difficult to clean or replace windows. Once plants are on it will be difficult to change damaged trellises. Change to fire risk profile of building. Security and insurance considerations from people climbing on the structures. Buildings not designed to supply water to the plants. Freehold issues from one person's plant growing into another's area. Allergies. Bees. Rats. Effect of plants growing into air-conditioning systems. Council complications over the change to the view profile of the building from sleek thing to tentacled thing.
Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 years just so that we can eat strawberries in NYC during winter? It is INSANE. The decision-making process we use is only what will make money in the short term. The issue of cost externalization by companies is well documented by economists. Just because it appears "cheap" to use factory farm methods, N-P-K based fertilizers, etc., doesn't mean the long term effects already showing up are not going to severely impact the food chain inside of our lifetimes.
Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert. We should start creating food forests, this is a very promising sustainable way to feed people and all of the unemployment we experience can be solved by transitioning a larger % of our population to food production as a job, just like our grandparents used to do it.
The desertification caused by agriculture and our increasingly desperate use of technology to cover up the fundamental flaws in how we feed ourselves is increasing rapidly. The water table in many places around the planet is being depleted faster than it can restore itself. These issues are NOT going away and they are far more important than coupons for cupcakes and the like.
"Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert." It was a desert before as well. The Sumerians used irrigation to be able to turn dry but fertile soil into farmland. This requires a lot of hard work, ingenuity, and collaboration, which might be why civilization started there. It's relatively flat, with a hard subsurface, which makes salt buildup a problem, making farming there rather more fragile.
If what you are saying is true, then why is there still farming after thousands of years along the Nile and Indus river valleys?
In any case, what do you suggest the people of L.A. do? They grow a lot of their food locally, in the Central Valley, but that water is pumped from across the state and the Valley has the same problems as the Fertile Crescent.
Should they grow the food in their backyards (more locally), and if so, will there be separate water systems for crops, because it needs less water treatment than humans need?
Or should some large fraction of the population move, and if so, where? Since food forests aren't going to grow well enough in LA to feed its own population, at least, not without non-local water.
Personally, I would rather pay people to grow my food for me while I get to sit on my porch and enjoy reading and commenting on HN.
This is what I hate about the times we live in. When someone comes up with an idea of how to solve a problem, all we do is discuss. We discuss and we discuss. We argue about the plausibility, we may even do some calculations to see how plausible the solution is. But we never actually try it.
In other words, if some guy thinks a vertical farm would be a good idea and a possible solution to a problem, then why the hell doesn't he just, you know, make a vertical farm and see what happens? If it works, then that's fuckin' awesome, we've got vertical farms! If it doesn't work, well then hey, no biggie. Let's try something else.
Of course some problems have very expensive solutions that are not feasible to just "try out", but I don't think it would cost a ton to make a small scale version of a vertical farm. Even if it was only like 10ft by 10ft and as tall as a two story house, you have to start somewhere.
But I guess we'd rather just talk about the possibility, and never take it any farther than that.
When someone comes up with an idea of how to solve a problem, all we do is discuss. We discuss and we discuss. We argue about the plausibility, we may even do some calculations to see how plausible the solution is. But we never actually try it.
That's not really true. An awful lot of the time, someone comes up with a solution to a problem, tries it, and it works.
In cases like this, though, it never gets beyond the discussion stage because the idea is a complete useless crock of shit and the major flaws in it are so obvious that a nine-year-old (or even George Monbiot) can see right through it.
And yet the discussion goes on, because the guy who has the idea (and a number of hangers on) is religiously wedded to it refuses to acknowledge that "wait, actually, yes, this makes no sense on the grounds of physics or economics", so I suspect we'll continue to see this idea pop up from time to time.
In conclusion, sane and workable ideas get implemented. Stupid unworkable ideas with horrendous flaws get endlessly discussed.
well, if the guy wants to put up his own money to build a vertical farm, I don't think anyone is going to stop him.
The problem is that the guy is asking other people to fund his idea, so it makes sense for other people, who know more about the subject, to weigh in and point out ways in which it is a good or bad idea.
[+] [-] jdietrich|15 years ago|reply
When we say that we have a shortage of farmland, what we mean in practical terms is that we have a shortage of flat areas with good drainage to function as solar collectors. Going vertical doesn't increase the amount of light you can gather, so it doesn't increase the amount of food you can produce.
Vertical farming is only remotely feasible if we see the cost of energy fall ten-thousand fold. That's only likely if we crack nuclear fusion. Of course, such an abundance of energy would render any worries about food production moot.
Unfortunately, we appear to live in a world where supposedly educated adults are unfamiliar with such advanced scientific concepts as photosynthesis.
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|15 years ago|reply
Well, it is a bit more complicated than that. A huge problem in agriculture is the depletion of soil. For example, over time intensively irrigated soil tends to become contaminated with excess salts which destroys its fertility, yet still leaves it as flat, well-drained, and sunny as ever.
I completely agree, however, that the first-order consideration in growing plants is the availability of light.
[+] [-] Someone|15 years ago|reply
I am not sure that is true everywhere on the planet. If you get closer to the poles, the sun will, on average, stand lower above the horizon. That is why, in winter in Moscow, people sun while standing up.
Also, in summers close to the equator, getting less light per square meter may be a good thing, depending on what you are trying to produce.
[+] [-] kyteland|15 years ago|reply
That said I don't think vertical farms will ever be practical.
[+] [-] brudgers|15 years ago|reply
They stack pretty well.
And in urban areas the pipes are already in place.
Agriculture is messier than we all like to pretend.
[+] [-] abefortas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghshephard|15 years ago|reply
So many of the inane approaches to solving some of our economic and environmental challenges make absolutely no sense, have almost completely consensus that they violate laws of physics, and quite often result in Net-Negative results. "Local Growing", except as a hobby, is one of those insane ideas that seems to be underlying the silly "Vertical Farms" concept. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html)
Ironically, if there is government funding, the fact that an idea makes no economic sense doesn't mean it won't be pursued. There may be peripheral advantages or developments in technology that take place, while we tilt at these windmills.
So - I say let's build a couple of these vertical farms, see what we discover, do the math and realize it will never make sense, and maybe discover something else that we never even considered!
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
You're suggesting doing something that we already know makes no damn sense in the hopes that we might learn something useful in the process. This argument could be used to justify an awful lot of things which make no sense.
This is, of course, just fine, as long as you're spending your own money on doing nonsensical things, and not mine. Good luck rustling up the hundred million dollars you'll need to build a skyscraper though.
[+] [-] parfe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slapshot|15 years ago|reply
Taking city land to grow crops is NOT carbon-efficient. The far more carbon-efficient method would be to use city land for more housing, and use suburbia for farms.
Think of it this way: people commute both ways every day, but food commutes only once.
I'm not even going to get into the idea that it's more carbon-efficient to grow bananas in South America and ship them to New York than it would be to heat and light a greenhouse in New York...
[+] [-] philk|15 years ago|reply
The long list of articles from prominent news sources was actually rather sad.
[1] The question how do you propose to grow over a thousand bucks worth of wheat each month in your tiny apartment? comes to mind.
[+] [-] Tangurena|15 years ago|reply
To break even, you'll have to build something that requires zero maintenance that also lasts about 60,000 years and of course you'll need zero point zero interest rates over those sixty millenia just to break even.
[+] [-] fleitz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
A quick calculation: the total floor area of the Empire State Building is 63 acres. You can do your own calculations for the cost of building the Empire State Building vs the cost of buying 63 acres of land (which, incidentally, gets light) in upstate New York, but I'm pretty sure that one is much, much, much larger than the other.
[+] [-] jameskilton|15 years ago|reply
Frankly hydrogen vehicles are more feasible than this, but only barely.
[+] [-] sophacles|15 years ago|reply
It saddens me greatly, and in numerous ways, to find out that "How do they get light?" is a killer question.
[+] [-] quantumhobbit|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1053r|15 years ago|reply
If this is the case, than we may be able to grow crops more efficiently indoors than out. But we will be replacing acres of crops with acres of solar panels. And it's unclear to me why we would want these buildings to be skyscrapers, which are much more expensive per square foot than large warehouses in the middle of nowhere.
[+] [-] jlgbecom|15 years ago|reply
A series of low-rise warehouses using hydroponics in the outer rings of a city makes a lot of sense.
However, the architectural games people are playing with huge spires in the center of Manhattan, those are ridiculous, and always have been.
[+] [-] rwhitman|15 years ago|reply
Everything real I've seen is focused on what you mention, low-rise warehouses with racks of hydroponics and skylights - making it essentially a robotic greenhouse. I don't see how this is outlandish
[+] [-] ghshephard|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Misha_B|15 years ago|reply
I think the most prohibitive aspect of the "vertical farming" is the enormous cost (in materials, labor and energy) of building highrises or even buildings of more moderate heights, compared to the cost of growing any legal kind of crop on farmland and shipping it. Structure will have to be significantlly more massive to carry the loads of some soil and water. And not a word about competing land uses in Manhattan... But let's assume we can afford to ship the crop 10 or 30 miles into the city from a place with cheaper land, rather than a 1000 from far far away.
Otherwise, I actually believe the problem of lighting is solvable - for crops that require perhaps 3-10 times as little light as available in an open field on a certain location. Light can penetrate from the sides of the building. A structure shallow ebough compared to the floor height might suffice, say 10-15 meters for a floor 3 meters high. Close to the equator sunlight is abundant so even having less light by an order of magnitude is probably enough for some crops. Further away from the equator it's trickier: the sun is much lower in the south and so more direct sunlight is gained so perhaps only two thirds of it are lost compared to an open field. But then, the structure casts very long shadows which may prevent the land "behind" it from being used for farming (vertical or otherwise).
[+] [-] nitrogen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astine|15 years ago|reply
If these were to happen, my entirely uneducated guess would be that it would start with rooftop farming, and that extending to storied greenhouses at the tops of skyscrapers. Depending on your crops, these both don't need artificial light and could lead to solutions for other engineering problems such farming would involve.
[+] [-] ars|15 years ago|reply
The amount of usable farm space at the top of a skyscraper is so small it's a joke. You could feed 1 person for each skyscraper.
And if farmland got expensive, exactly where would you get your energy to make light?
[+] [-] ultrasaurus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dflock|15 years ago|reply
http://www.plantchicago.com/?page_id=2
Be interesting to see how that works out.
[+] [-] Jsw32|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alabut|15 years ago|reply
This bit was witty:
"The only crop which could cover such costs is high-grade cannabis. But a 30-storey hydroponic skunk tower would be quite hard to conceal."
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
Maybe roses or saffron?
[+] [-] orblivion|15 years ago|reply
This guy sees your critique on expensive real estate, and uses an abandoned factory. Sees your argument about nutrients not just appearing, and uses aquaponics. Lighting... that I don't know.
I'm curious to see how it goes.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davars|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cturner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadmalik|15 years ago|reply
Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert. We should start creating food forests, this is a very promising sustainable way to feed people and all of the unemployment we experience can be solved by transitioning a larger % of our population to food production as a job, just like our grandparents used to do it.
The desertification caused by agriculture and our increasingly desperate use of technology to cover up the fundamental flaws in how we feed ourselves is increasing rapidly. The water table in many places around the planet is being depleted faster than it can restore itself. These issues are NOT going away and they are far more important than coupons for cupcakes and the like.
[+] [-] mattmcknight|15 years ago|reply
99% of human history pretty much sucked. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.h...
[+] [-] dalke|15 years ago|reply
If what you are saying is true, then why is there still farming after thousands of years along the Nile and Indus river valleys?
In any case, what do you suggest the people of L.A. do? They grow a lot of their food locally, in the Central Valley, but that water is pumped from across the state and the Valley has the same problems as the Fertile Crescent.
Should they grow the food in their backyards (more locally), and if so, will there be separate water systems for crops, because it needs less water treatment than humans need?
Or should some large fraction of the population move, and if so, where? Since food forests aren't going to grow well enough in LA to feed its own population, at least, not without non-local water.
Personally, I would rather pay people to grow my food for me while I get to sit on my porch and enjoy reading and commenting on HN.
[+] [-] VladRussian|15 years ago|reply
And while chewing nobody has been peering into computer screen reading nonsense comments on HN.
[+] [-] chadmalik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eogas|15 years ago|reply
In other words, if some guy thinks a vertical farm would be a good idea and a possible solution to a problem, then why the hell doesn't he just, you know, make a vertical farm and see what happens? If it works, then that's fuckin' awesome, we've got vertical farms! If it doesn't work, well then hey, no biggie. Let's try something else.
Of course some problems have very expensive solutions that are not feasible to just "try out", but I don't think it would cost a ton to make a small scale version of a vertical farm. Even if it was only like 10ft by 10ft and as tall as a two story house, you have to start somewhere.
But I guess we'd rather just talk about the possibility, and never take it any farther than that.
[+] [-] hugh3|15 years ago|reply
That's not really true. An awful lot of the time, someone comes up with a solution to a problem, tries it, and it works.
In cases like this, though, it never gets beyond the discussion stage because the idea is a complete useless crock of shit and the major flaws in it are so obvious that a nine-year-old (or even George Monbiot) can see right through it.
And yet the discussion goes on, because the guy who has the idea (and a number of hangers on) is religiously wedded to it refuses to acknowledge that "wait, actually, yes, this makes no sense on the grounds of physics or economics", so I suspect we'll continue to see this idea pop up from time to time.
In conclusion, sane and workable ideas get implemented. Stupid unworkable ideas with horrendous flaws get endlessly discussed.
[+] [-] lsc|15 years ago|reply
The problem is that the guy is asking other people to fund his idea, so it makes sense for other people, who know more about the subject, to weigh in and point out ways in which it is a good or bad idea.