3 ms·
I'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 hop
by NortySpock 6y ago
I'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.