I don’t think they’re the answer now, but they might become one among many answers in the future, as they improve.

I feel like a lot of the issues pointed out are a result of inefficiency. You’d need better designed systems, but for example:

• heating - solar panels pretty much waste Sun heating. This should be redirected towards plants.
• cooling - instead of cooling the farm, design it so you can reflect heat in hot days
• lighting - instead of converting blue/red lights into electricity and back into light, couldn’t the light be redirected towards the plants?

And there’s an obvious benefit of vertical farms the text doesn’t mention: you can produce electricity in otherwise wasted land.