> Solar Foods is the first company capable of producing food by using air-captured CO2 in a complete and continuous mode
Except for anyone who has ever grown a plant.
(This is potentially quite impressive, of course, but I do think that characterising it as "this is the first time anyone has made food with CO2 and the sun" is quite funny.)
I think that term refers to edible protein sources from unicellular organisms, not a misunderstanding of biology (though I understand that’s how it can seem).
They collect CO2 and water from air. The water is split via electrolysis to get hydrogen for the knallgas bacteria to feed on along with the CO2, minerals and ammonia. [1]
There is a path for the ammonia to be directly source from the air as well via plasma nitrogen fixation. [2]
Also, in case you don't know, "out of thin air" is an English idiom for "From nothing, as of something that has suddenly materialized. out of nowhere; out of nothing. ". [1]
I'm pretty excited about Solar Foods; since it's "just" an industrial-grade biological process, you could set it up in any suitable industrial facility.
My hope is that this would let us disconnect nutrition from crop-failure-due-to-weather (well, normal weather like drought or unseasonal rains) and (maybe) become post-scarcity with respect to nutrition. Just as solar, wind and batteries allow us to create reliable electricity sustainably and reduces energy prices, I hope this technology allows us to reduce the risk of famine and reduce the base cost of a (healthy) calorie.
Plus in theory this could be used to support space colonies, which I think would be a nice addition to humanity's skillset.
Another competitor in this space is the California-based company Air Protein.
There are also huge potential advantages to this sort of approach in terms of food safety and pollution. If it works, of course.
I wonder how tolerant it is of unreliable power; it could be an interesting way to soak up the 'spare' power often produced by large renewable deployments.
The electricity in the process is primarily used to generate hydrogen, which is what actually feeds the yeast cells. Even a fairly small buffer tank would allow for continuous production with unreliable power. My guess is that food production can also be slowed down if hydrogen production slows down.
Storing hydrogen as food is fantastic, since food can be stored much less expensively than gaseous or liquid hydrogen and for much longer periods of time.
While interesting, the only long-term sensible solution to feed a growing population is getting rid of livestock agriculture and create foods from plants directly.
Yes, we could use foods produced using proteins from companies like Solar Foods - but it's not necessary if we don't use 90% of our soybean production to feed animals.
While losing the animals would probably be pretty beneficial, the crops are also not without sin; they use a huge amount of land and are vulnerable to climate change. "Most/all food is produced in, effectively, chemical factories" is an interesting vision of the future; it would potentially do great things for food security and allow the rewilding of much of the planet.
Most of the agriculture land (77%) is used for crops that are fed to livestock [0].
However, I agree that something like you described would also be great. I'm unsure if it's necessary though, because going down that road will require a lot capital and human resources. Could we use that for something more needed?
What's the break down of average human caloric intake from animals vs. plants? Is calories from animals close to the same fraction (77%)? If so, then changing from animal to plant diet wouldn't reduce the land requirements much.
Even if it was, removing animals from the equation should reduce land use a lot, as an animal is, in this context, a machine for turning calories into fewer calories (of course looking at just calories is a bit of a simplification).
Unfortunately a lot of prairie and forest-edge plants (where most of our calories come from) are adapted to herbivores. You can't maintain a healthy ecosystem without them, and we've been resorting to petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides to try to compensate.
If a fruit tree survives browsing by deer, for instance, it is much better protected from some very common diseases that overwinter on the ground under the tree.
Because of this, Mark Shepard and a few other people (especially that guy who wants to use cows in Africa to control erosion) think we should have about a quarter as many animals on our farms, but that every farm should have them. The animals are there to work first, produce calories second.
It's not a yes/no question, it's a matter of degrees. We should be eating less meat, and sourcing it from more places, and less worried about Grade-A cuts (fewer steaks, more stews)
I don't have those answers, but it's been widely reported that the carbon footprint of a calorie of chicken is about one quarter the footprint of a calorie of beef.
Just switching animal proteins is a big change. And chickens are omnivores. Feeding them invertebrates instead of feed corn would be a more natural diet for them, and you can use food no longer fit for humans as the feedstock for those invertebrates without switching humans to cricket flour.
I know of a guy who uses cows, pigs, and chickens to control pathogen load on his farm. The lifecycle of flies on cow manure are very predictable, and with some discipline you can use it as feedstock for the chickens. We know how to do this outside, I doubt they know how to do it in a feed lot (although, making it work in a feedlot would necessarily result in better sanitation for the cows/pigs, since you'd have to isolate their waste chronologically).
Part of pathogen control is sending your inputs through as many diverse digestive tracts as you can. Or using a ton of chemicals. Mammal->insect->chicken->human is pretty good for eliminating parasites, though maybe not salmonella.
[ETA]
Most of what I said about chicken feed is also true of pigs, although their footprint is somewhere between the two extremes.
But where do the invertibrates get THEIR food from? Feed corn is super cheap per calorie (people sometimes burn feedcorn in stoves for heat), so it’s probably what you’d feed the invertebrates.
I can't deny that feed corn has good shelf life (they store it outside under a tarp when the silos are full). But there are other food streams that don't necessarily pass inspection, especially for perishable foods.
I know from a couple days at a food bank that cows can eat pretty bad apples, but there are badness levels that would be much safer for grubs or larvae to eat.
Feed corn takes a lot of water though, and I don't know how much longer we'll have that.
Typically insects used for human consumption are fed grains (such as feed corn), but with a conversion efficiency making the problem worse. True that smaller operations, family farms, and homesteads could take advantage of waste streams like that, but that is kind of a logistical nightmare for feeding of large urban/suburban populations.
We need to stop thinking we are going to fix our many many problems that we have created through a multitude of individual decisions by finding One Weird Trick.
It's magic thinking, and we're supposed to be grown-ups. Whatever that means.
Solutions don't have to scale infinitely. They just have to scale.
> Yup, insect farms typically use grains as the feed. Grains which you could eat directly (after baking or cooking, of course) which would be more calorically efficient.
Black soldier fly larvae can be fed almost any organic matter, including waste. The use of grain as feed for insect farms (which can largely be attributed to grain subsidies) doesn't imply it's the end-all energy input.
Plants (except for the Haber Process) tend to use single celled bacteria to fix the nitrogen from which protein is made, so this is actually LOWER on the protein food chain than even plants.
Any company that is aiming to help folks rely less on animals for proteins excites me. Love to see stuff like this continue to normalize proteins that don't involve the mass torture and slaughter of animals.
Significant: protein created at the point of use. Circumvents the entire agriculture infrastructure, plus shipping, refrigeration and storage. Just make protein as your process requires it! Worthwhile for some products. Even if it is expensive, those cost savings are in its favor.
This seems like potentially the beginning of the biggest change to human food production since agriculture.
It's early days, but being able to produce food via industrial process is far more amenable to scaling and more predictable than agriculture under the open sky. I imagine it would also be possible to shorten supply chains buy producing the basic feedstock closer to where you produce the consumer food product. That's good for the environment and for food security.
One could picture a future earth where most of the open space is preserved for the wild, and us humans live in and around our cities. Wouldn't that be a nice change from the way we're currently destroying our only home.
> One could picture a future earth where most of the open space is preserved for the wild, and us humans live in and around our cities. Wouldn't that be a nice change from the way we're currently destroying our only home.
It would be nice. Will depend on whether the new industrial process is cheaper than spreading out into the wild. Also these economics are a function of how long-term our thinking is. E.g. fossil fuels are cheap in the short term, but expensive in the long term.
This will be garbage food, it's arrogant to believe you can add "some of this and some of that" and that it will be a good food source for humans.
If you just a bit of too much or too little of something you will create a nutritionally deficient human.
All of these "artifical foods" are garbage, these "scientists" don't understand that real food is such a complicated blend of so many different things that you cannot just recreate it from some base building blocks like proteins, vitamins etc..
This is not artificial food any more than bread or cheese are artificial. Also, the scientists developing this technology are not advocating that people only eat Solein; in fact it seems like they're marketing it more as an extra ingredient that can be added to other foods that will increase the protein levels.
It also seems like you're confusing this company with companies like Soylent that are trying to create a nutritionally complete smoothie. You're correct that we probably don't understand nutrition well enough yet to make a single food that would lead to optimum nutrient levels, but in my opinion it doesn't really matter. Almost all humans are somewhat nutritionally deficient; eating a food designed to have optimum nutrient levels will probably make you less deficient than average and you can always supplement a Soylent diet with other foods.
And they are very much not nutritionally complete. Try living on bread and cheese for a few months and see what exciting deficiency diseases you develop!
Yeah, it’s bemusing to see people calling a single protein “food” instead of the glorified protein supplement it is.
At best, it would become an alternative to existing protein powders made from milk or plant crops, assuming the amino acid profile is good and it doesn’t cause allergies/reactions in some people.
I agree. This is just an alternative to isolating proteins. Maybe its better. Maybe its worse. For me it doesnt matter because eating two small rolls of Harzer Käse already gives me 30g of proteins. No need to supplement anything if you eat the right food.
Now, you can tell me it's "not real food". It's a No True Scotsman fallacy, but if anything, sure. I agree. It's not a burger. But it is edible and it will sustain you for possibly weeks to months. A few people on the internet said they've done it.
I've eaten Soylent. It's ok. Can't say I'd want to eat it every day of my life but I have had moments where I was busy or not interested in cooking -- and then, for those cases, I imagine a carefully engineered Soylent will give you a more balanced diet than the Taco Bell I got in a hurry because I was hungry and didn't have time / want to cook.
Now if you think scientists who spent a decade or more of their life studying nutrition either for a civilian or military purpose are morons, then fine, have that opinion.
But I think processed food is a nicer option to have than no food, if I needed to feed my family and had very little money. Soylent clocks in at $1.82/meal. Now I won't deny you might be able to make beans and rice for cheaper than that, but Soylent looks like a nice, balanced, cost-effective option compared to spending $20 at a restaurant.
The fact that you belive you can "sum up the ingredients to make a well rounded meal from a bunch of separte foods" shows that you don't get it:
You cannot do that because you incorrectly think that there is all there is to food: there are many things that we eat all the time which we are not aware of that end up being important to our diet.
It's arrogant to think you can "sum" ingredients and actually get all the nutrients that you need.
No it cannot BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT EXACTLY YOU NEED.
This is what you people fail to understand: the belief that you can look in a textbook on nutrition and then sum up all the "requirements" is totaly wrong because the body is a complex system and to believe you can artificaly sum up parts and replace what nature has fine-tuned in a package for millions of year is stupid.
Do you argue that we cannot do this in principle, or that we cannot do it yet? The second can be true but considering that people have lived on all kinds of different diets, there should not be too many unique components vital to survival/health, so we'll figure them all out eventually.
Yeah, this is the kind of future I want. Humans taking root among the stars, and the Earth primarily either dense, glittering cities or vast national parks where nature thrives. It's perfect.
Yes. With peace on earth and no nuclear weapons while we're at it. I hope we can overcome our limitations to achieve that kind of future before something terrible happens because of our lack of foresight.
Basically every plant is making "protein out of thin air". Most of the carbon in plants is from atmospheric CO2. And if you use electric lighting, it's "CO2 and electricity".
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadBut a feature to bring the <title> from the site upon URL submission would be useful.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241...
Except for anyone who has ever grown a plant.
(This is potentially quite impressive, of course, but I do think that characterising it as "this is the first time anyone has made food with CO2 and the sun" is quite funny.)
Who writes these press releases? "single-cell protein" really?!?
There is a path for the ammonia to be directly source from the air as well via plasma nitrogen fixation. [2]
[1] https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA
[2] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4344/10/2/152/htm
[1] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air
My hope is that this would let us disconnect nutrition from crop-failure-due-to-weather (well, normal weather like drought or unseasonal rains) and (maybe) become post-scarcity with respect to nutrition. Just as solar, wind and batteries allow us to create reliable electricity sustainably and reduces energy prices, I hope this technology allows us to reduce the risk of famine and reduce the base cost of a (healthy) calorie.
Plus in theory this could be used to support space colonies, which I think would be a nice addition to humanity's skillset.
Another competitor in this space is the California-based company Air Protein.
I wonder how tolerant it is of unreliable power; it could be an interesting way to soak up the 'spare' power often produced by large renewable deployments.
Storing hydrogen as food is fantastic, since food can be stored much less expensively than gaseous or liquid hydrogen and for much longer periods of time.
Yes, we could use foods produced using proteins from companies like Solar Foods - but it's not necessary if we don't use 90% of our soybean production to feed animals.
However, I agree that something like you described would also be great. I'm unsure if it's necessary though, because going down that road will require a lot capital and human resources. Could we use that for something more needed?
0: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
Edit: Added source.
If a fruit tree survives browsing by deer, for instance, it is much better protected from some very common diseases that overwinter on the ground under the tree.
Because of this, Mark Shepard and a few other people (especially that guy who wants to use cows in Africa to control erosion) think we should have about a quarter as many animals on our farms, but that every farm should have them. The animals are there to work first, produce calories second.
It's not a yes/no question, it's a matter of degrees. We should be eating less meat, and sourcing it from more places, and less worried about Grade-A cuts (fewer steaks, more stews)
Just switching animal proteins is a big change. And chickens are omnivores. Feeding them invertebrates instead of feed corn would be a more natural diet for them, and you can use food no longer fit for humans as the feedstock for those invertebrates without switching humans to cricket flour.
I know of a guy who uses cows, pigs, and chickens to control pathogen load on his farm. The lifecycle of flies on cow manure are very predictable, and with some discipline you can use it as feedstock for the chickens. We know how to do this outside, I doubt they know how to do it in a feed lot (although, making it work in a feedlot would necessarily result in better sanitation for the cows/pigs, since you'd have to isolate their waste chronologically).
Part of pathogen control is sending your inputs through as many diverse digestive tracts as you can. Or using a ton of chemicals. Mammal->insect->chicken->human is pretty good for eliminating parasites, though maybe not salmonella.
[ETA] Most of what I said about chicken feed is also true of pigs, although their footprint is somewhere between the two extremes.
Edit: Yup, insect farms typically use grains as the feed. Grains which you could eat directly (after baking or cooking, of course) which would be more calorically efficient. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/americas-...
I know from a couple days at a food bank that cows can eat pretty bad apples, but there are badness levels that would be much safer for grubs or larvae to eat.
Feed corn takes a lot of water though, and I don't know how much longer we'll have that.
It's magic thinking, and we're supposed to be grown-ups. Whatever that means.
Solutions don't have to scale infinitely. They just have to scale.
Black soldier fly larvae can be fed almost any organic matter, including waste. The use of grain as feed for insect farms (which can largely be attributed to grain subsidies) doesn't imply it's the end-all energy input.
What next? Sugars? Oils? Fats?
It's early days, but being able to produce food via industrial process is far more amenable to scaling and more predictable than agriculture under the open sky. I imagine it would also be possible to shorten supply chains buy producing the basic feedstock closer to where you produce the consumer food product. That's good for the environment and for food security.
One could picture a future earth where most of the open space is preserved for the wild, and us humans live in and around our cities. Wouldn't that be a nice change from the way we're currently destroying our only home.
It would be nice. Will depend on whether the new industrial process is cheaper than spreading out into the wild. Also these economics are a function of how long-term our thinking is. E.g. fossil fuels are cheap in the short term, but expensive in the long term.
If you just a bit of too much or too little of something you will create a nutritionally deficient human.
All of these "artifical foods" are garbage, these "scientists" don't understand that real food is such a complicated blend of so many different things that you cannot just recreate it from some base building blocks like proteins, vitamins etc..
It also seems like you're confusing this company with companies like Soylent that are trying to create a nutritionally complete smoothie. You're correct that we probably don't understand nutrition well enough yet to make a single food that would lead to optimum nutrient levels, but in my opinion it doesn't really matter. Almost all humans are somewhat nutritionally deficient; eating a food designed to have optimum nutrient levels will probably make you less deficient than average and you can always supplement a Soylent diet with other foods.
At best, it would become an alternative to existing protein powders made from milk or plant crops, assuming the amino acid profile is good and it doesn’t cause allergies/reactions in some people.
Hence why we can estimate Daily Recommended Intake; for example this nutritional profile https://www.completefoods.co/diy/nutrient-profiles/51e4e6ca7... which would give you the mix of vitamins and minerals and carbs and fats you need.
From there, you can mix up your ingredients sourced from https://www.completefoods.co/diy/ingredients or buy it from a company https://soylent.com/products/powder-original (not affiliated but I have bought some at one point.)
Now, you can tell me it's "not real food". It's a No True Scotsman fallacy, but if anything, sure. I agree. It's not a burger. But it is edible and it will sustain you for possibly weeks to months. A few people on the internet said they've done it.
I've eaten Soylent. It's ok. Can't say I'd want to eat it every day of my life but I have had moments where I was busy or not interested in cooking -- and then, for those cases, I imagine a carefully engineered Soylent will give you a more balanced diet than the Taco Bell I got in a hurry because I was hungry and didn't have time / want to cook.
Now if you think scientists who spent a decade or more of their life studying nutrition either for a civilian or military purpose are morons, then fine, have that opinion.
But I think processed food is a nicer option to have than no food, if I needed to feed my family and had very little money. Soylent clocks in at $1.82/meal. Now I won't deny you might be able to make beans and rice for cheaper than that, but Soylent looks like a nice, balanced, cost-effective option compared to spending $20 at a restaurant.
You cannot do that because you incorrectly think that there is all there is to food: there are many things that we eat all the time which we are not aware of that end up being important to our diet.
It's arrogant to think you can "sum" ingredients and actually get all the nutrients that you need.
There's no magic here that could in theory prevent replacing part or all of a diet with differently derived foods.
This protein by itself would potentially just be a small part of a healthy diet, but it's the start of something bigger.
This is what you people fail to understand: the belief that you can look in a textbook on nutrition and then sum up all the "requirements" is totaly wrong because the body is a complex system and to believe you can artificaly sum up parts and replace what nature has fine-tuned in a package for millions of year is stupid.
I'm curious what your vision of "the wild" is and why humans are excluded from it?
Not to say you can't have some humans living there, but most of the space could be returned to nature, sans human civilization.
(This can, of course, be expressed as a dimensionless number since both numerator and denominator are in units of energy.)
Also, how does this efficiency compare in absolute, quantitative terms to competing solutions like Calysta FeedKind?
Basically every plant is making "protein out of thin air". Most of the carbon in plants is from atmospheric CO2. And if you use electric lighting, it's "CO2 and electricity".
This is just marketing, plain and simple.