9 ms·
Solar Foods closes Series A financing for its first commercial factory
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- macintux 6y agoThe typo in the headline (“it’s”) is apparently due to the HN submission, not the original PR.
- raverbashing 6y agoYes, a Finn usually wouldn't make that kind of typo (or, you know, they would just copy the original headline) But a feature to bring the <title> from the site upon URL submission would be useful.
- htnsao 6y agooops, fixed. Yes I originally copied the title then decided all caps was probably too much for HN.
- nkingsy 6y agoCouldn’t find a breakdown of the science or nutritional profile on their site other than “sorta like yeast”. Is their tech secret?
- htnsao 6y agoThey are using Knallgas bacteria. Here's a study that the CEO was part of: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241830141X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 6y ago> 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.)
- tomp 6y ago> producing a unique single-cell protein out of thin air Who writes these press releases? "single-cell protein" really?!?
- rotexo 6y agoI 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).
- ticmasta 6y agowhat about the "thin air" part? Does this imply they can only grow it at extreme altitude?
- htnsao 6y agoThey 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] [1] https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4344/10/2/152/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4344/10/2/152/htm
- htnsao 6y agoAlso, 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] [1] https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air
- ipsum2 6y agoProtein here is used as in "chicken is a protein". It's confusing though.
- NortySpock 6y agoI'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.
- rsynnott 6y agoThere 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.
- sacred_numbers 6y agoThe 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.
- ipsum2 6y agoYeast (biology in general) require specific temperatures and timings. I doubt you could scale the energy usage up and down like a cloud instance.
- shafyy 6y agoWhile 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.
- rsynnott 6y agoWhile 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.
- shafyy 6y agoMost 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? 0: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food Edit: Added source.
- smaddox 6y agoWhat'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.
- rsynnott 6y agoEven 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).
- sweetheart 6y agoAny 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.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoSignificant: 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. What next? Sugars? Oils? Fats?
- rladd 6y agoDon't fall for the marketing. It's nothing special, just bacteria: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/solein-carbon-dioxide-food https://www.foodandwine.com/news/solein-carbon-dioxide-food 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.
- tomcam 6y agoSure but who doesn’t look forward to a giant bowl of their “novel platform ingredient”, a catchphrase worthy of a Super Bowl commercial?
- eloff 6y agoThis 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.
- dmos62 6y ago> 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.
- OneGuy123 6y agoThis 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..
- sacred_numbers 6y agoThis 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.
- Robotbeat 6y agoWhat’s the conversion efficiency, ie kCal of food per kWh of electricity? (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?
- PretzelPirate 6y agoWill this be useful when we go to Mars?
- cooljacob204 6y agoAnyone else finding the stretched font extremely hard to read?
- throw7 6y agoSounds like Tasty Wheat... "everything the body needs".