Well, not really. Technically, yes—they could do it. But only for a price so stratospheric it would make your average central banker blush, and frankly, I doubt we can foot the bill. Personally, I’m rather bullish on greenhouses. Capturing waste heat from power plants to keep tomatoes cozy through the winter is a far better idea than most of the utopian nonsense floating around. Even better would be piping CO₂ from gas-fired plants straight into those greenhouses—turning emissions into plant food instead of performative guilt.
If you want to see the bleeding edge of this game, look at the Dutch. The Netherlands is basically the world’s most sophisticated greenhouse laboratory—equal parts genius, precision engineering, and Calvinist stubbornness. They already do most of what the bright-eyed visionaries are breathlessly “inventing” elsewhere. And you know what? Even they admit that when it comes to bulk crops, greenhousing simply doesn’t make economic sense. Leafy greens, delicate herbs, or luxury vegetables destined for Michelin-starred temples in inner cities? Yes, absolutely. Wheat, soybeans, or potatoes? Forget it.There’s simply too much cheap, fertile land available around the world, and most traditional farms are still decades behind best practices. It’s not high-tech wizardry that feeds the masses—it’s regular fields, dirt under fingernails, and the stubborn efficiency of open-air agriculture. Dreaming of greenhouse wheat is like imagining Rolls-Royces as public buses: beautiful, possible, and utterly insane.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/08/together-power-plants-and-greenhouses-can-feed-humanity/