4 ms·

The website is a bit sparse, I wonder where they get elemental hydrogen and nitrogen from. Does anyone know anything more about their technology, e.g. how they

by tomp 8y ago

The website is a bit sparse, I wonder where they get elemental hydrogen and nitrogen from. Does anyone know anything more about their technology, e.g. how they actually construct the proteins (I'm guessing either in cells, or using some enzymes outside of cells - but then what produces the enzymes?). Edit: Ah, an article posted by another comment includes more information: > This sounds like science fiction, but it is already approaching commercialisation. For the past year, a group of Finnish researchers has been producing food without either animals or plants. Their only ingredients are hydrogen-oxidising bacteria, electricity from solar panels, a small amount of water, carbon dioxide drawn from the air, nitrogen and trace quantities of minerals such as calcium, sodium, potassium and zinc. The food they have produced is 50% to 60% protein; the rest is carbohydrate and fat. They have started a company (Solar Foods) that seeks to open its first factory in 2021. This week it was selected as an incubation project by the European Space Agency. > They use electricity from solar panels to electrolyse water, producing hydrogen, which feeds bacteria that turn it back into water. Unlike other forms of microbial protein (such as Quorn), it requires no carbohydrate feedstock – in other words, no plants. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/electric-food-sci-fi-diet-planet-food-animals-environment https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/31/electr... Edit2: I wonder how this (water + CO2 + solar power) compares with just growing algae in water in the sun, in terms of energy efficiency and process stability.

mothsonasloth 8y ago
I think the problem with Algae is that you won't get as high a yield of proteins, because the plant cell is producing other chemicals as well. Compared with animal cells that are producing a protein specifically and can be engineered to produce more.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >I think the problem with Algae is that you won't get as high a yield of proteins, because the plant cell is producing other chemicals as well. And algal-derived protein and fats seem to cause digestive issues with some individuals. Rosa hit some issues with this, apparently, with the soylent food bars (man I miss those things) to the point where they discontinued the bars and have yet to bring them back 2 years later. For those unfamiliar the bars were causing some individuals to vomit and have diarrhea. It was believed, by the community (as far as I know Rosa never made a statement), that the algal flower was the culprit. Rosa also discontinued their use of algal oil from TerraVia in their other lines shortly after, some suggested it was TerraVia actually cutting them off in retaliation for allowing people to suggest the flower was causing people to become ill but I can't imagine TerraVia would choose to 'fire' a rather large (and growing) customer. Rosa switched to a sunflower oil. If I were this company I would immediately start testing their 'food' on a wide variety of people because I have a hunch they will find that a notable percentage of the population is going to have digestive issues.
  - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
    Do you mean flour?
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      Haha, yeah. I didn't get much sleep last night, I have upstairs neighbors that apparently hate their heels and joints, or are Jötunn.
baybal2 8y ago
> This sounds like science fiction, but it is already approaching commercialisation. Soviet union were feeding kindergarten kids with yeast porridge long before Soylent was hip... https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/10/archives/soviet-plant-to-convert-oil-to-protein-for-feed-use-of-yeast.html https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/10/archives/soviet-plant-to-...
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  the link doesn't state the kindergarten claim as far as I can tell. Is this still done in both the West and Russia?
  - baybal2 8y ago
    At least in mine, they did in 1993 or so. That porridge though... was known to give serious flatulence
Geee 8y ago
Here's some information about it: https://www.lut.fi/web/en/news/-/asset_publisher/lGh4SAywhcPu/content/protein-produced-from-electricity-to-alleviate-world-hunger https://www.lut.fi/web/en/news/-/asset_publisher/lGh4SAywhcP... They say that compared to photosynthesis, it's 10x more energy efficient.
- tomp 8y ago
  Interesting, thanks! I wonder if that's algae photosynthesys, or plant photosynthesis - arguable the latter is "less efficient" because we eat only parts of the plant. In any case, I'm surprised that electrolysis is so efficient. I remember reading that it's so inefficient that the primary source of hydrogen is currently actually natural gas! And I wonder how sustainable is the process - doesn't electrolysis deplete the anode and catode, which need to be made of expensive materials for reasonable efficiency?
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > arguable the latter is "less efficient" because we eat only parts of the plant Solar cells are more efficient than photosynthesis. “For...sunlight, where only 45% of the light is in the photosynthetically active wavelength range, the theoretical maximum efficiency of solar energy conversion is approximately 11%. In actuality, however, plants do not absorb all incoming sunlight (due to reflection, respiration requirements of photosynthesis and the need for optimal solar radiation levels) and do not convert all harvested energy into biomass, which results in an overall photosynthetic efficiency of 3 to 6% of total solar radiation“ [1]. Meanwhile, “solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 44.0% with multiple-junction production cells and 44.4% with multiple dies assembled into a hybrid package” [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency
    - tomp 8y ago
      To make the comparision meaningful, you need to compare the efficiency of the whole cycle (sunlight -> solar power -> electricity -> electrolysis -> hydrogen -> bacteria -> biomass) to photosynthesis (sunlight -> plant -> biomass).

by tomp 8y ago

mothsonasloth 8y ago

I think the problem with Algae is that you won't get as high a yield of proteins, because the plant cell is producing other chemicals as well. Compared with animal cells that are producing a protein specifically and can be engineered to produce more.

ryanmercer 8y ago
>I think the problem with Algae is that you won't get as high a yield of proteins, because the plant cell is producing other chemicals as well. And algal-derived protein and fats seem to cause digestive issues with some individuals. Rosa hit some issues with this, apparently, with the soylent food bars (man I miss those things) to the point where they discontinued the bars and have yet to bring them back 2 years later. For those unfamiliar the bars were causing some individuals to vomit and have diarrhea. It was believed, by the community (as far as I know Rosa never made a statement), that the algal flower was the culprit. Rosa also discontinued their use of algal oil from TerraVia in their other lines shortly after, some suggested it was TerraVia actually cutting them off in retaliation for allowing people to suggest the flower was causing people to become ill but I can't imagine TerraVia would choose to 'fire' a rather large (and growing) customer. Rosa switched to a sunflower oil. If I were this company I would immediately start testing their 'food' on a wide variety of people because I have a hunch they will find that a notable percentage of the population is going to have digestive issues.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  Do you mean flour?
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    Haha, yeah. I didn't get much sleep last night, I have upstairs neighbors that apparently hate their heels and joints, or are Jötunn.

baybal2 8y ago

> This sounds like science fiction, but it is already approaching commercialisation. Soviet union were feeding kindergarten kids with yeast porridge long before Soylent was hip... https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/10/archives/soviet-plant-to-convert-oil-to-protein-for-feed-use-of-yeast.html https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/10/archives/soviet-plant-to-...

DoctorOetker 8y ago
the link doesn't state the kindergarten claim as far as I can tell. Is this still done in both the West and Russia?
- baybal2 8y ago
  At least in mine, they did in 1993 or so. That porridge though... was known to give serious flatulence

Geee 8y ago

Here's some information about it: https://www.lut.fi/web/en/news/-/asset_publisher/lGh4SAywhcPu/content/protein-produced-from-electricity-to-alleviate-world-hunger https://www.lut.fi/web/en/news/-/asset_publisher/lGh4SAywhcP... They say that compared to photosynthesis, it's 10x more energy efficient.

tomp 8y ago
Interesting, thanks! I wonder if that's algae photosynthesys, or plant photosynthesis - arguable the latter is "less efficient" because we eat only parts of the plant. In any case, I'm surprised that electrolysis is so efficient. I remember reading that it's so inefficient that the primary source of hydrogen is currently actually natural gas! And I wonder how sustainable is the process - doesn't electrolysis deplete the anode and catode, which need to be made of expensive materials for reasonable efficiency?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > arguable the latter is "less efficient" because we eat only parts of the plant Solar cells are more efficient than photosynthesis. “For...sunlight, where only 45% of the light is in the photosynthetically active wavelength range, the theoretical maximum efficiency of solar energy conversion is approximately 11%. In actuality, however, plants do not absorb all incoming sunlight (due to reflection, respiration requirements of photosynthesis and the need for optimal solar radiation levels) and do not convert all harvested energy into biomass, which results in an overall photosynthetic efficiency of 3 to 6% of total solar radiation“ [1]. Meanwhile, “solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 44.0% with multiple-junction production cells and 44.4% with multiple dies assembled into a hybrid package” [2]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency
  - tomp 8y ago
    To make the comparision meaningful, you need to compare the efficiency of the whole cycle (sunlight -> solar power -> electricity -> electrolysis -> hydrogen -> bacteria -> biomass) to photosynthesis (sunlight -> plant -> biomass).