Farmbot.
Again we have two basic components - the electrical and the agricultural.
The fundamental measure of the viability of the Farmbot is primarily in the agriculture.
Not really. The farming part of this thing is as simple as it could possibly get and even though it has taken 30.000 years for humans to perfect, it's a remarkably uncomplicated procedure; poke a hole in the ground, insert seed, apply water. That's about it for the farming part and no, I'm not asking Dave to "debunk" that part.
That part of the process wasn't even remotely within my thinking.
The electrical merely plays a part in the efficiency of the agriculture - and all the electrical analysis under the sun cannot give any direct answers about that.
The electrical part is however far from certain in how it functions, how it's put together, how much work is required to actually make it a viable option to store bought veggies. What's the estimated life expectancy from the electronics, the Raspery and the Aurduino. How much electricity is required to power this thing for five years, which is the claimed investment return expectancy. This is a mere drop in the ocean of what can be brought up and discussed about this concept, for example what jonovid mentions; what about snails mucking with the mechanics, and I thought this would be an interesting topic, just like the solar roadways.
The "How it functions", "How it's put together", how much electricity it consumes, how long the electronics will last are some of the key questions - and they just CAN'T be answered in general terms. The variables are just so ..... varied and complex.
With Solar Roadways, it is FAR SIMPLER - just
assume that all the unknown parameters are ideal and work on the
fundamental premise. This is something which you just simply cannot do with Farmbot.
With Solar Roadways, Dave can present a result for a
best case scenario - and if the numbers don't add up for that, then a real world implementation is going to be worse.
Dave is not the person I would ask to debunk this.
Therefore, Dave is precisely the person I would ask to debunk this, albeit based entirely on his take/debunking of solar roadways, which incidently is the reason I asked.
You might want to ask him - but I wouldn't. There are too many NON electronic parameters involved ... and even if he DID grind out some numbers, the value of them in the overall discussion would be just one factor in the viability of such a project - and I would not expect them to hold much power to debunk.