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"Grown in sterile conditions" and "cheaper" are two completely contradictory features. Most agriculture is still done in the field, not indoors, because that's

"Grown in sterile conditions" and "cheaper" are two completely contradictory features. Most agriculture is still done in the field, not indoors, because that's the most efficient way to do it. A large part of the inputs is "just there". Waste doesn't really happen in production, almost everything is put to some use. Real waste happens on the store shelves. You really have to ask yourself, what are the inputs to the "lab grown" process and what are the requirements towards purity etc. It's an open question.

markstos 8y ago
> Waste doesn't really happen in production Except for the poop lagoon crisis https://newrepublic.com/article/151242/behind-hurricane-florences-poop-lagoon-crisis-nation-pork-lovers https://newrepublic.com/article/151242/behind-hurricane-flor... the dangers of cow farts https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-cow-farts-climate-change-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-cow-farts-c... Or the "waste" baby male chicks who are ground alive when they are a day old (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5qAfyUuWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5qAfyUuWE Or the rain forests wasted to make room for more cows https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/beef-production-is-killing-the-amazon-rainforest/ https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/beef-product... Or that it takes 100 calories inputs to beef production to get 3 calories out. (Beef is 3% efficient). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1...
- pixelpush 8y ago
  You are mixing up "waste material" with "material waste". The parent was making a point about cost. It's cheaper not to feed male baby chicks. It's cheaper to raze the forest. It's cheaper to let cows fart. There are externalized costs to these things, but they don't really affect the prices that people are going to pay for the produce, at least not directly. I guess you can charge a small markup for being "green" (or pretending to be). Now maybe a cow is only "3% efficient" in terms of calories, but the calories it takes in are really cheap and the calories it puts out are prized. It's a profit deal! In engineering, higher efficiency generally is more expensive and the economic optimum is never the efficiency optimum.
nine_k 8y ago
Most large-scale food processing, like baking, or sausage / bacon / ham production, or dairy production, is happily indoors. When you don't need to work with entire large organisms, like a cow or a corn plant, things become easier to turn into a factory environment.

markstos 8y ago

> Waste doesn't really happen in production Except for the poop lagoon crisis https://newrepublic.com/article/151242/behind-hurricane-florences-poop-lagoon-crisis-nation-pork-lovers https://newrepublic.com/article/151242/behind-hurricane-flor... the dangers of cow farts https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-cow-farts-climate-change-2019-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-warns-cow-farts-c... Or the "waste" baby male chicks who are ground alive when they are a day old (graphic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5qAfyUuWE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5qAfyUuWE Or the rain forests wasted to make room for more cows https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/beef-production-is-killing-the-amazon-rainforest/ https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/beef-product... Or that it takes 100 calories inputs to beef production to get 3 calories out. (Beef is 3% efficient). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1...

pixelpush 8y ago
You are mixing up "waste material" with "material waste". The parent was making a point about cost. It's cheaper not to feed male baby chicks. It's cheaper to raze the forest. It's cheaper to let cows fart. There are externalized costs to these things, but they don't really affect the prices that people are going to pay for the produce, at least not directly. I guess you can charge a small markup for being "green" (or pretending to be). Now maybe a cow is only "3% efficient" in terms of calories, but the calories it takes in are really cheap and the calories it puts out are prized. It's a profit deal! In engineering, higher efficiency generally is more expensive and the economic optimum is never the efficiency optimum.

nine_k 8y ago

Most large-scale food processing, like baking, or sausage / bacon / ham production, or dairy production, is happily indoors. When you don't need to work with entire large organisms, like a cow or a corn plant, things become easier to turn into a factory environment.