[HN Gopher] Solein - Protein out of thin air
___________________________________________________________________
Solein - Protein out of thin air
Author : Anon84
Score : 108 points
Date : 2022-08-04 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.solein.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.solein.com)
| midnitewarrior wrote:
| Solein is air, people!
| besus wrote:
| Old news... Charlton Heston already figured out the secret years
| ago!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| I understand it's fake (what is the carbon source? it is stated
| to be CO_2 neutral) but I guess I don't understand the point or
| punchline.
|
| edit: as pointed out below and elsewhere, the carbon source is
| CO2, and I misinterpreted the way CO2 neutral is used here, my
| bad. However there are serious questions to ask about how they
| are representing and overselling their process. It is a complete
| misrepresentation to present this as protein synthesis out of air
| (in fact, the nitrogen source is ammonia [0], NOT nitrogen
| fixation).
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA?t=136 timestamped video from
| solar foods
| sacred_numbers wrote:
| The carbon source is CO2 in the air. Digesting the food creates
| CO2, which completes the cycle of carbon neutrality.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| Yes, I read a bit on this (apparently real after all)
| business and I saw CO2 is the carbon source. It just confused
| me the promotional website does not even mention CO2. When
| they called Solein carbon neutral, I assumed they are talking
| about the product and process, not the entire cycle (in the
| same way you might call planting trees CO2-emission
| negative), though this makes sense. In any case, I still find
| it to be a pretty strong misrepresentation to call this
| protein synthesis out of "thin air".
| washbrain wrote:
| Planting a tree is carbon neutral if you do nothing to
| sequester the carbon. It's negative in the short term, but
| neutral over the life of the tree (more or less).
| wizofaus wrote:
| Trees live long enough that that "short term" can still
| be 100s of years, and buying ourselves 100 years is
| probably the best we can hope for anyway at this point.
| And trees are capable of automatically spawning new
| trees, so a self-sustaining growing tree population
| should surely count as carbon negative...
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| ...and then the drought, followed by the fire...
|
| The amount of carbon in the atmosphere, that used to be
| underground in coal, oil, and gas.
|
| More than 170 gigatons. (approximately, this is just the
| 40% higher concentration than historical high point,
| based on 412 ppm co2 in atmosphere vs 300 ppm historical
| high point, back of the envelope).
|
| This seems like a lot of land, a lot of trees, and would
| have to include harvesting and storing the trees after
| 100 years.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Well I wasn't proposing we could solve climate change
| _just_ planting trees (though I 've seen that exact
| proposition made before). Genetically engineered trees
| that have a much faster CO2 processing time perhaps...
| sitkack wrote:
| If something spills, do you soak it up with a sponge?
| washbrain wrote:
| As someone who manages hundreds of acres of forest - most
| trees won't live that long because we'll harvest them or
| they'll die to disease and wildfire.
|
| _Reforesting_ an area would be carbon negative, and
| eventually the first will saturate. It 's much _much_
| more carbon negative to produce biochar, biotar, or mass
| timber buildings.
| latchkey wrote:
| Can someone explain the need for the word 'thin'?
| goda90 wrote:
| "Out of thin air" is a common idiom[0]. Probably not needed,
| but not an unusual thing to say in this context either.
|
| [0]https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air
| otikik wrote:
| On the other hand, "heavy water" is a molecule different than
| "usual" water. One shouldn't drink heavy water.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
| TylerE wrote:
| Actually according to that article it's perfectly safe to
| drink in moderate quantities, as long as it doesn't make up
| a large portion of your Total intake over an extended
| period. It isn't radioactive
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Fucks up your enzyme kinetics and is much more expensive
| than Fiji. Would not recommend.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Thick air would be polluted or misty, I think we use 'thin air'
| to emphasise there was no apparent substance to the air.
| amingilani wrote:
| Found a video explaining the process:
| https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA
| elil17 wrote:
| It's cellular ag without any need for carbohydrate feedstock -
| instead using hydrogen. That would make it much friendlier in
| terms of land use than even traditional plant-based ag. Their
| corporate website is https://solarfoods.com/ and they say they
| will start production in 2023.
|
| They're working on getting approval from EU food safety
| regulators: https://solarfoods.com/solein-submitted-to-the-
| european-comm...
| Kalanos wrote:
| scientific journals or bust
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| >Seriously. Solein(r) is a unique single-cell protein made with a
| fully natural fermentation process. Using just air and
| electricity as its primary raw materials, Solein is the most
| sustainable protein in the world.
|
| so..... instead of "wasting" time in spending water and soil and
| fertilizer into making plants that use solar energy to create
| "food", we skip that step and just use electricity that is
| generated from solar energy and make protein out of it..... law
| of thermodynamics say matter can neither be created nor destroyed
| so unless this is reducing inefficiencies of the existing plant
| model, isnt it 1 unit of electricty=1 unit of protein?
|
| or are they aiming for heatpump style efficiencies? 5:1??
| philipkglass wrote:
| New solar farms use panels that can achieve light-to-
| electricity efficiency over 20% [1]. Electrolytic splitting of
| water to produce hydrogen is about 80% efficient [2] for a
| combined efficiency of ~17%. Growing potatoes -- a calorie
| dense but not particularly protein rich crop -- converts only
| about 1.7% of sunlight to edible calories [3].
|
| The intuition behind cultivating hydrogen oxidizing bacteria
| for single cell protein is that the coupled efficiency of solar
| photovoltaics plus electrolyzers can be an order of magnitude
| more productive per hectare for sunlight-to-protein than
| growing crops in fields. It doesn't require irrigation, weed
| control, pest control, tilling, or harvesters. It can use land
| that is too dry, rocky, hot, cold, or contaminated to grow
| crops. It's still an open question whether the output protein
| can be of a quality and price that it will out-compete e.g.
| conventionally grown soybeans, because despite all these
| advantages it is _also_ much more capital intensive than
| growing beans.
|
| I recently wrote a longer comment about hydrogen oxidizing
| bacteria as protein source that you might find interesting:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32288926
|
| [1] from e.g. Longi
| https://cdn.enfsolar.com/z/pp/t8gzz7lxx769/L-Gi-LE-T-TMD-059...
|
| [2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-kWh-of-electricity-is-
| needed-...
|
| [3] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/fes3.348
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _can be an order of magnitude more productive per hectare
| for sunlight-to-protein than growing crops in fields._
|
| But what's the efficiency of converting Hydrogen (and CO2) to
| carbohydrates? Pulling number out of thin air, I'll be very
| happy if it's 10% or 20% [1]. So from solar to carbohydrates
| they get 20%*80%*?20%?=3% that is the double of potatoes, not
| an order of magnitude better.
|
| And the conversion to proteins is even harder. They need a
| microorganism that can fixate Nitrogen from the air (that is
| very costly for the microorganism) or use a fertilizer like
| ammonia nitrate (that use a lot of energy in an industria
| plant).
|
| [1] For an easy, one step organic reaction in the lab, the
| efficiency is like 60%-70%. It varies a lot, but never expect
| something like 99%. In the lab, most reactions use a brute
| force approach like boiling it in acid, instead of using a
| specialized enzyme. On the other hand, the transformation
| form H2 and CO2 to carbohydrates has like 10 or 20 steps, and
| each step has a small lose. I'd be happy with a global 20%
| efficiency, but perhaps I'm too optimistic.
| sitkack wrote:
| Would Alpha fold help genetically engineer new ways to
| efficiently process CHON into food-stuffs?
|
| https://alphafold.com/search/text/nitrogen
|
| I think the cool part of using solar panels to have an
| electrified process is that you can use non-farmland (Bill
| Gates is buying it all :), could use less water, also
| produces electricity.
|
| In the perfect future, we are all sucking on tubes of
| atmospheric liquid cheese product. From pipe to pipe.
| philipkglass wrote:
| This report finds 10% as a lower bound and 60% as an upper
| bound for the energy efficiency of hydrogen oxidizing
| bacteria:
|
| "The energy efficiency of carbon dioxide fixation by a
| hydrogen-oxidizing bacterium"
|
| https://sci-hub.ru/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2013.04.153
|
| The authors found a tradeoff between efficiency and growth
| rates. The highest efficiency came with the slowest growth
| rate. But they concluded that 50% efficiency was achievable
| at practical growth rates. Keep in mind also that potatoes
| only contain about 10% protein by dry weight while the
| bacteria cultivated to make single cell protein can contain
| 50% protein by dry weight. Soybeans are about 40% protein.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The amino acid and lipid profiles of any single plant species
| are not sufficient to meet the full spectrum of human
| nutritional needs, so if they can do that with a single
| organism, it's a win. Also, most of the dry plant matter
| consists of cellulose that humans can't digest, so eliminating
| that is maybe a win? I don't know, because much of it can still
| be used as dietary fiber to nourish our gut microbiome, even
| though we can't use it for energy. I guess another factor is
| plants may only sprout whatever part of it we can eat
| seasonally, that is, seeds, roots, fruits, whatever it is may
| not be a permanent feature of every lifecycle stage.
| clomond wrote:
| 'Sustainable' in the food context is much more around total
| resource use (land, water, materials), waste products (ghgs and
| waste water) rather than a primary focus of energy efficiency.
|
| Besides - heatpumps are largely the exception in
| thermodynamics, expecting anything more than 100% efficiency
| for most non-heat moving applications should not be expected.
| justlv wrote:
| I'd guess it is because either photosynthesis isn't actually
| that efficient, and/or a lot of the energy goes into growing
| structural elements of the plant.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Photosynthesis is very efficient! .....at using carbon. Even
| plants figured out that solar energy should be too cheap to
| meter
| helpfulmandrill wrote:
| I think George Monbiot recently ate a pancake made from this
| stuff https://twitter.com/Solar_Foods/status/1520023732122750976
| seltzered_ wrote:
| I'm not sure what to make of this yet, but yeah, solein is by
| solar foods which George Monbiot wrote about in 2020
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-gr...
| .
|
| The questions for me are what the input costs really are (from
| energy material sourcing all the way to distribution). I've
| seen a bunch of critiques of cellular ag from the
| 'regenerative' spaces (which make good arguments around
| monocrop farming and impacts on rancher livelihoods
| (particularly those trying to do more indigenous practices)),
| and also provocations of inquiry such as:
|
| Gabriel Rosenberg:
| https://bearistotle.substack.com/p/labriculture-now-4f1
|
| Isha Datar:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/IshaDatar/status/1441070303786913...
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| Link to https://solarfoods.fi/foodfarm/ doesn't work by the way.
| knodi123 wrote:
| I'm curious about the progress of Factory 1. But if you click the
| link to follow that progress, it sends you to
|
| https://solarfoods.com/foodfarm/
|
| which is a 404 page not found. I wonder if maybe it should send
| you to https://solarfoods.com/news-and-blog/ ?
| fabian2k wrote:
| > Solein(r) is made from natural single-cell organisms, which are
| grown in a fermentation process. Water is split from the air with
| renewable electricity into hydrogen and oxygen. The cells are fed
| CO2 from the air, hydrogen and mineral nutrients.
|
| There is no nitrogen mentioned in this explanation. You cannot
| make amino acids or proteins without nitrogen. These organism
| either have to be able to do nitrogen-fixation from the air,
| which is a really difficult and energy-intensive process or the
| nitrogen has to come from some growth medium. It certainly
| doesn't make a good first impression that they "forgot" such an
| important part in this description.
|
| In general the interesting part of such a scheme is how much
| energy it uses. Converting CO2 to organic molecules and nitrogen-
| fixation are very energy-intensive processes, the problem isn't
| that we can't do this but that the amount of energy is incredibly
| expensive compared to using photosynthesis in plants.
| feifan wrote:
| Their other website[0] mentions nitrogen from the air.
|
| [0]: https://solarfoods.com/science/
| justinator wrote:
| That would be... Nobel Prize worthy at scale.
| nixonpjoshua1 wrote:
| it was in 1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
| Karupan wrote:
| Veritasium's recent video [0] on Haber is worth a watch
| in this context
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvknN89JoWo
| k__ wrote:
| _" received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his
| invention of the Haber-Bosch process,"_
|
| So, all good in HN land.
|
| Made my day, thanks.
| juliangamble wrote:
| I think I've heard something similar in a science fiction
| movie...
|
| "It's a single celled protein combined with synthetic aminos,
| vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs."
|
| ...
|
| "If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating
| runny eggs."
|
| "Yeah, or a bowl of snot."
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Like other commenters I found this marketing website pretty
| nauseating. The Wikipedia article on "Hydrogen oxidizing
| bacteria" has better info and mentions how Solar Foods is using
| knallgas bacteria at the bottom:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria
| dieselgate wrote:
| Is this just yeast? The website doesn't really specify
| MrYellowP wrote:
| Sounds way too dystopian to be trustworthy,
|
| and there's no explanation why I would even WANT to eat this.
| bradleysz wrote:
| If it's a more sustainable, cruelty-free source of protein than
| is currently available, and if it's safe, why not? There are
| multiple big "if" statements there, but should they all pass,
| I'd be all for it.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| By using the term cruelty-free, are you describing dense,
| commercial feedlot animal production only, or are you
| including all types of animal husbandry and meat acquisition,
| including hunting?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Doesn't really matter since it doesn't involve slaughter at
| all.
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| > all types of animal husbandry and meat acquisition,
| including hunting?
|
| Clearly it's cruel to kill an animal even through hunting.
| The animal doesn't want to be shot/stabbed/etc...
| nradov wrote:
| And yet animals (even herbivores) kill other animals all
| the time. This concern over the cruelty of killing
| livestock for food is such a weird human conceit.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, humans have the choice. Likewise, pointing out that
| rape is common in the animal kingdom isn't very
| convincing license for humans to rape.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Or transported on noisy truck without food, water, or air
| heating/cooling, for many hours or days.
| otikik wrote:
| Try to think how dystopian the meat industry feels to a
| vegetarian or vegan person.
|
| That's the explanation.
| elil17 wrote:
| Reduced land use vs. traditional agriculture. Imagine going to
| space and living off a vat of microbes grown using electrical
| energy!
| kordlessagain wrote:
| It's made out of air my good person.
| washbrain wrote:
| In what way does this sound dystopian? Ideally this is a
| protein source without the nasty externalities of intensive
| agriculture and it can exist in places and spaces that aren't
| typically conducive to food production.
|
| Ideally, yes, plant based diets would dominate, but the idea of
| turning renewable energy into supplemental foodstuff sounds
| like a huge win to me.
| Animats wrote:
| Most vegetation is made out of air and water. Mostly air. C, O,
| and N come from air. H comes from water, and some of that comes
| from water in air. The inputs from dirt are under 5% of plant
| mass. They have to be, or farms would dig holes in the ground.
|
| Feynman talk on this.[1]
|
| So, with that out of the way, what does this company actually
| have?
|
| * They have a cool web site with no useful info.
|
| * They have another web site with useful info.[2]
|
| * You can't even order samples of the product.
|
| * They have a useful Wikipedia article.[3]
|
| * It's a fermentation process, so it takes heat and water, not
| just air.
|
| * They've been around since at least 2019 and have burned through
| about $20 million in funding.
|
| * None of their PR discusses cost of the product.
|
| [1]
| https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/25/161753383/t...
|
| [2] https://solarfoods.com/
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods
| 88913527 wrote:
| The 'holes' created by industrial farming aren't missing dirt,
| it's missing water.
|
| https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/files/2019/03/Subsidence.jpg
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Don't worry, kevin over there in silicon valley is doing his
| part by taking a short shower! /s
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Most vegetation is made out of air and water. Mostly air.
|
| Most vegetation is water. Vegetables, at least, are about 90%
| water. https://www.myfooddata.com/articles/vegetables-high-in-
| water...
|
| So yeah, except for the water content, most of the molecular
| weight is atoms that come from air- but the water content is
| *HUGE*.
| highwaylights wrote:
| > None of their PR discusses cost of the product.
|
| Or a licensing deal with Dolly Parton. It's _right there_. The
| ad makes itself.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > * It's a fermentation process, so it takes heat and water,
| not just air.
|
| To be fair, if the heat is from solar or wind energy, and the
| water is collected from rain (which I guess includes river
| water?) then those are also "out of thin air".
|
| Or I suppose you could say that air containing rain is not as
| thin (i.e. contains more mass) than "normal" air, or that "air"
| only refers to the gases, not the rain falling through it, in
| which case they'd have to rely on moisture vaporators, like in
| Star Wars.
| clomond wrote:
| Not to be incredibly nit-picky, but the costs of the product
| right now don't matter nearly as much as the ability to scale
| production and variable unit costs.
|
| As a 'hard tech', they need to work themselves through the
| technology readiness framework before the cost of a particular
| material even tells you anything of value.
| Animats wrote:
| Sure it does. The competition is growing soybeans, which are
| really cheap. Are they going to beat that?
|
| Most of the high-tech food schemes produce some high-value
| product. This produces a very low value product. It's
| Hamburger Helper. Cost dominates.
| washbrain wrote:
| The competition would be carbon neutral pesticide free
| soybeans, which I'm not sure are readily available?
| Soybeans also typically use energy intensive nitrogen
| fertilizers, which I'm not sure this process requires. (It
| might, not sure.)
|
| Also, soybeans need to be shipped from fertile areas. This
| could be produced in situ in infertile areas.
|
| I'm not saying it's a panacea, but it has some benefits
| over traditional intensive agriculture.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| > The competition would be carbon neutral pesticide free
| soybeans, which I'm not sure are readily available?
| Soybeans also typically use energy intensive nitrogen
| fertilizers, which I'm not sure this process requires.
| (It might, not sure.)
|
| No it's not. This is the kind of thinking that so many
| new founders screw up with.
|
| The competition is what users are willing to buy instead
| of you. That's regular soy beans, not whatever market you
| decide it should be. Don't think this way.
| DesertVarnish wrote:
| Is it actually standard practice to use nitrogen
| fertilizers with soybeans? Soy is a nitrogen fixer and
| I've read that nitrogen fertilizers often reduce yields
| for soybeans because it interferes with nodulation and
| undermines that plant's nitrogen fixing capacities.
| washbrain wrote:
| Oh, great question actually. I mostly know wheat farmers,
| so that's the model that I have in my head, but yeah it
| would make sense they fix nitrogen.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Apparently soybeans are often grown in a double-cropping
| rotation, in which maize is planted first (along with N
| and P fertilization), and then no additional fertilizer
| is applied to the following soybean crop.
|
| This seems to be a comprehensive discussion (for South
| Dakota farmers anyway, pdf):
|
| https://extension.sdstate.edu/sites/default/files/2020-03
| /S-...
| cmroanirgo wrote:
| Making use of nitrogen fixing plants alleviates the need
| of fertilization. An easy one: clover. Bees also love
| clover. However you can explore other systems of cover
| cropping (I recall Diakon radishes draw up nitrogen from
| down low, up to the surface) which you terminate before
| seeding your main crop.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| They didn't say the costs don't matter. They said the costs
| don't matter _right now_. Those are two very different
| things.
| More-nitors wrote:
| soylent green is air!!!
| [deleted]
| Ope_Welp wrote:
| While most vegetation is air and water, the ability to manipulate
| this into a wide variety of products is pretty incredible.
|
| Leave it to one of humanity's oldest food prep techniques:
| fermentation. Also, not all fermentation requires heat. It
| certainly will generate heat as it ferments. Perhaps it can be
| captured and redistributed into its manufacturing.
| deegles wrote:
| Couldn't find where to buy it or how much it costs on the site...
| has anyone tasted it?
| dougmany wrote:
| They say: Solein(r) is real but not yet for sale. Stay tuned.
| namuol wrote:
| From 2020, so not sure how up to date this is:
|
| "Solar Foods is a Finland-based start-up company that utilises
| CO2 captured from air, water and some minerals as sole raw
| materials to produce a protein powder using renewable
| electricity.
|
| Branded as Solein(r), the product is a microbial protein (also
| referred to as single cell protein, SCP) obtained by growing
| proprietary bacteria harvested from nature, in specially designed
| bioreactors using gas fermentation."
|
| https://ifst.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fsat.3...
|
| Not that surprising that you won't find the word "bacteria"
| anywhere on a marketing site, but wish they were at least more up
| front with exactly how their process is "more efficient than
| plants".
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Hmm, obviously cyanobacteria like Spirulina[1] "utilize CO2
| captured from air" along with "water and some minerals" and
| sunlight to make sugars and proteins which people can eat. Not
| sure I'd describe that as 'fermentation' though if you do
| anything in a big vat it's a bioreactor and not just... a big
| vat, apparently.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)
| elil17 wrote:
| This doesn't use sunlight. It uses hydrogen gas as the energy
| carrier.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Also Spirulina in large doses is not kind to your stomach or
| your bathroom...
| washbrain wrote:
| Spirulina is a staple foodstuff in some places, is it
| plausible that the side effects you are suggesting are from
| someone not adjusted to eating it or contaminations from
| other cyanobacteria that are known to cause digestion
| issues?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Also it stains things almost as badly as beet juice (but it
| is kind of dramatic to have a dark greenish bowl of
| oatmeal...)
| mrguyorama wrote:
| IME this company is just https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn
| with way more money spent on PR
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I need more details than that, but looks very interesting:
|
| "HOW SOLEIN IS MADE Solein(r) is made from natural single-cell
| organisms, which are grown in a fermentation process. Water is
| split from the air with renewable electricity into hydrogen and
| oxygen. The cells are fed CO2 from the air, hydrogen and mineral
| nutrients.
|
| These microorganisms are then able to make amino acids,
| carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and vitamins. They do the heavy
| lifting in this process. We are only letting their microscopic
| lives fulfil their purpose: procreation and diversification.
|
| When it's time to harvest the Solein, the excess water is
| removed, and then it is finally dried into a fine protein powder,
| with no plants or animals harmed in the process."
|
| PS: fulfill (sic)
|
| PS2: I'm sure the similarity of the name with soylent green is
| not lost on the marketing team, I'm just surprised they found it
| beneficial.
| Animats wrote:
| _similarity of the name with soylent green_
|
| Remember Soylent, the company and product? They're still
| around, selling on Amazon.
| dekhn wrote:
| it was not terrible, I used some when I reached my top weight
| and used it to replace physical food. Tastes vaguely of peas.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Other than some sanitation woes in their factory, they
| produce a decent product. I use it heavily when traveling
| since it's easy to get some soylent at my destination. No
| need to prep food or have a kitchen, reasonably balanced,
| tasty enough.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _These microorganisms are then able to make amino acids,
| carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and vitamins._
|
| * Carbohydrates are easy. (It's actually very difficult to
| "transform" light into sugar, but there are plenty of plants
| and bacteria that can do that. They are using Hydrogen instead
| of light, but so let's say it's "easy".)
|
| * Lipids are even easier. (I can't remember any technical
| problem here.)
|
| * Amino acids are difficult to create out of thin air. You need
| energy and also a source of Nitrogen. Transforming the Nitrogen
| of the atmosphere into amino acids is very difficult and only a
| few specialized microorganism can do that, so color me
| skeptical. Another possibility is to give feed them with
| nitrates, that is a very common and important fertilizer for
| plants. It's necessary a lot of energy to produce nitrates, so
| it's not an easy step. Perhaps they can hide the nitrates
| inside the "mineral nutrients" that is technically true, but
| it's almost cheating.
|
| * Vitamins are probably also difficult. Each vitamin is very
| different. I doubt they selected one microorganism that can
| produce all of them, if that really exists. Also you need a lot
| of some vitamins and very few of other, the amount is also
| important. So I guess to use this it's necessary to complement
| it with vitamins from other sources.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| > They are using Hydrogen instead of light
|
| Yes, why? That's the first question.
| gpcr1949 wrote:
| The nitrogen source is effectively in the nutrients (so not
| air/nitrogen fixation by their organism), and is provided as
| ammonia, according to this video by Solar Foods[0]. I agree
| this is cheating considering what is needed to produce
| ammonia from N2.
|
| https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA?t=136
| efa wrote:
| It's is 2022! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green#Plot
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Newsflash: all plant-based proteins are made out of thin air. In
| fact, all proteins are made out of thin air, since animal
| proteins are made from plants, which are made from air.
| arunbahl wrote:
| This is the first time I've encountered the term "single-cell
| protein": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-cell_protein
| xattt wrote:
| The linked pages read as psuedo-science.
|
| We've had recombinant stuff since the late-70s and 80s. For
| example, yeast are used for the production of human insulin
| among many other compounds.
|
| Is the scale of production any different?
| abeppu wrote:
| Ok, so they're growing some kind of microorganism. But I feel
| like for years I heard that spirulina would become an important
| tool for feeding the planet ... but mostly the people that
| consume it do so in pretty small amounts, and it doesn't seem
| to be taking over the world.
|
| From a skim, the site doesn't actually say what organism
| they're growing. Why is it more likely to be impactful than
| others?
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| > SCP represents options of fail-safe mass food-production
| which can produce food reliably even under harsh climate
| conditions.
|
| Let's hope we can beat some sense into ourselves before we get
| there.
| kumarski wrote:
| There's really only 3 sources that serve as a backstop for
| protein - nitrogen production.
|
| 1. Lightning strikes ~5% of world supply of nitrogen fertilizer
|
| 2 & 3. Synbiotic bacteria + Haber Bosch - the 95%.
| feifan wrote:
| TIL nitrogen contributes to fertilization
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