Pretty novel use of biomass and byproducts of Ag, that may allow for a significant step in creating a closed loop in livestock raising.
If successful it should also be noted that this a far more efficient,practical and feasible way of lowering the carbon foot print of meat than any lab grown meat could ever achieve, and it's only raised 3 million GBP by contrast to Eat Just who is valued at 1.2 billion and raised 300 million.
> ... by which microbes are fed carbon dioxide, along with hydrogen - produced using an electrolyser - and water.
So as always they are hiding in the title that the process requires energy, a lot of energy for the electrolysis.
Water is free in many places or at least cheap, CO2 is free but the concentration in air is low, energy is never free.
If you grow soy in Argentina or Brazil, you can choose a nice place were water is abundant and sunlight is abundant and the CO2 comes from the air. Soy can fixate nitrogen, so even a big part of the fertilizers is not necessary. Anyway, growing plats at scale is not so easy.
In their setup, they must pay for the electricity to produce the hydrogen. They must pay for the water. I'm not sure if they choose a yeast that can fixate nitrogen, but they will need the other fertilizers too anyway. They try to use a concentrated source of CO2, but I'm not sure if that can offset the other costs.
(And about agrochemicals to kill weeds, they probably need some antibiotics to kill the bacteria that will be happy to grow in the mix they use to grow the yeast.)
2 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 16.1 ms ] threadIf successful it should also be noted that this a far more efficient,practical and feasible way of lowering the carbon foot print of meat than any lab grown meat could ever achieve, and it's only raised 3 million GBP by contrast to Eat Just who is valued at 1.2 billion and raised 300 million.
So as always they are hiding in the title that the process requires energy, a lot of energy for the electrolysis.
Water is free in many places or at least cheap, CO2 is free but the concentration in air is low, energy is never free.
If you grow soy in Argentina or Brazil, you can choose a nice place were water is abundant and sunlight is abundant and the CO2 comes from the air. Soy can fixate nitrogen, so even a big part of the fertilizers is not necessary. Anyway, growing plats at scale is not so easy.
In their setup, they must pay for the electricity to produce the hydrogen. They must pay for the water. I'm not sure if they choose a yeast that can fixate nitrogen, but they will need the other fertilizers too anyway. They try to use a concentrated source of CO2, but I'm not sure if that can offset the other costs.
(And about agrochemicals to kill weeds, they probably need some antibiotics to kill the bacteria that will be happy to grow in the mix they use to grow the yeast.)