12 ms·
Solein – Protein out of thin air
- More-nitors 4y agosoylent green is air!!!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deegles 4y agoCouldn't find where to buy it or how much it costs on the site... has anyone tasted it?
- dougmany 4y agoThey say: Solein® is real but not yet for sale. Stay tuned.
- arunbahl 4y agoThis is the first time I’ve encountered the term “single-cell protein”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-cell_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-cell_protein
- abeppu 4y agoOk, 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 4y ago> 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.
- xattt 4y agoThe 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?
- latchkey 4y agoCan someone explain the need for the word 'thin'?
- goda90 4y ago"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 https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/out+of+thin+air
- otikik 4y agoOn 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
- TylerE 4y agoActually 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 4y agoFucks up your enzyme kinetics and is much more expensive than Fiji. Would not recommend.
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoThick air would be polluted or misty, I think we use 'thin air' to emphasise there was no apparent substance to the air.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago>Seriously. Solein® 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??
- clomond 4y ago‘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 4y agoI’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 4y agoPhotosynthesis is very efficient! .....at using carbon. Even plants figured out that solar energy should be too cheap to meter
- nonameiguess 4y agoThe 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.
- MrYellowP 4y agoSounds way too dystopian to be trustworthy, and there's no explanation why I would even WANT to eat this.
- kordlessagain 4y agoIt's made out of air my good person.
- MrYellowP 4y agoHow? :)
- bradleysz 4y agoIf 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 4y agoBy 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 4y agoDoesn’t really matter since it doesn’t involve slaughter at all.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago> 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…
- drjasonharrison 4y ago
- namuol 4y agoFrom 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®, 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.3402_12.x 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 4y agoHmm, 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) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)
- vorpalhex 4y agoAlso Spirulina in large doses is not kind to your stomach or your bathroom...
- blacksmith_tb 4y agoAlso it stains things almost as badly as beet juice (but it is kind of dramatic to have a dark greenish bowl of oatmeal...)
- washbrain 4y agoSpirulina 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?
- tambourine_man 4y agoI need more details than that, but looks very interesting: “HOW SOLEIN IS MADE Solein® 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 4y agosimilarity of the name with soylent green Remember Soylent, the company and product? They're still around, selling on Amazon.
- vorpalhex 4y agoOther 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.
- Animats 4y agoOther than some sanitation woes in their factory, they produce a decent product. You had one job...
- dekhn 4y agoit was not terrible, I used some when I reached my top weight and used it to replace physical food. Tastes vaguely of peas.
- gus_massa 4y ago
- gpcr1949 4y agoI 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 https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA?t=136 timestamped video from solar foods
- sacred_numbers 4y agoThe carbon source is CO2 in the air. Digesting the food creates CO2, which completes the cycle of carbon neutrality.
- gpcr1949 4y agoYes, 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 4y agoPlanting 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 4y agoTrees 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...
- Animats 4y agoMost 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/trees-come-from-out-of-the-air-says-nobel-laureate-richard-feynman-really https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/25/161753383/t... [2] https://solarfoods.com/ https://solarfoods.com/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods
- kseistrup 4y agoDoes anyone here know which single celled organism they're using? Is it as fungus, like the one that is used in making quorn?
- kseistrup 4y agoIt seems to be knallgas bacteria: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria#Knallgas_bacteria https://wikiless.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria#Knallg...
- clomond 4y agoNot 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 4y agoSure 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.
- midnitewarrior 4y agoSolein is air, people!
- elil17 4y agoIt'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/ 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-commission-for-novel-food-approval/ https://solarfoods.com/solein-submitted-to-the-european-comm...
- helpfulmandrill 4y agoI think George Monbiot recently ate a pancake made from this stuff https://twitter.com/Solar_Foods/status/1520023732122750976 https://twitter.com/Solar_Foods/status/1520023732122750976
- seltzered_ 4y agoI'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-grown-food-destroy-farming-save-planet 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 https://bearistotle.substack.com/p/labriculture-now-4f1 Isha Datar: https://mobile.twitter.com/IshaDatar/status/1441070303786913796 https://mobile.twitter.com/IshaDatar/status/1441070303786913...
- dieselgate 4y agoIs this just yeast? The website doesn’t really specify
- kseistrup 4y agoIt's knallgas bacteria: https://wikiless.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria#Knallgas_bacteria https://wikiless.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria#Knallg...
- Kalanos 4y agoscientific journals or bust
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoNewsflash: 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.
- kumarski 4y agoThere'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 4y agoTIL nitrogen contributes to fertilization
- lawrenceyan 4y agoLink to https://solarfoods.fi/foodfarm/ https://solarfoods.fi/foodfarm/ doesn't work by the way.
- knodi123 4y agoI'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/ 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/ https://solarfoods.com/news-and-blog/ ?
- tuukkah 4y agoI asked them about the broken links in June, haven't heard back: https://twitter.com/tuukkah/status/1538427237682364418 https://twitter.com/tuukkah/status/1538427237682364418 Since then, they've posted this upbeat blog update though: https://solarfoods.com/end-of-the-beginning-how-solar-foods-is-moving-towards-its-2030-vision/ https://solarfoods.com/end-of-the-beginning-how-solar-foods-...
- fabian2k 4y ago> Solein® 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 4y agoTheir other website[0] mentions nitrogen from the air. [0]: https://solarfoods.com/science/ https://solarfoods.com/science/
- justinator 4y agoThat would be... Nobel Prize worthy at scale.
- nixonpjoshua1 4y agoit was in 1918 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
- k__ 4y ago"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.
- 4y ago
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoLike 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_oxidizing_bacteria
- Ope_Welp 4y agoWhile 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.
- besus 4y agoOld news... Charlton Heston already figured out the secret years ago! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UPDUpjkHg0
- amingilani 4y agoFound a video explaining the process: https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA
- stevespang 4y ago
- DoctorOetker 4y agoThis may seem like it is totally unrelated to grid stabilization for intermittent renewables (solar, wind, ...) but this type of technology could radically change the need to store and release energy. microbes, bacteria etc are extremely resilient to temporary adversity, when theres a surplus of intermittent energy you can feed them the energy, when there is insufficient energy you can let the cells wait for their next meal. this also frees up energy otherwise spent on agriculture EDIT: if the claim is true that SCProtein is end-to-end 20x more efficient than vegetable protein and 200x more efficient than meat protein (implying vegetable protein to be ~10x as efficient as meat protein) then this implies feeding these SCProtein to cattle would result in classic meat but still 2x as efficient as vegetable protein today! EDIT2: this would result in the following order of footprints of foodstuffs: * animal meat fed vegetable protein (for the super rich) * vegetable protein (for the rich) * animal meat fed solein(for the middle class) * solein (for the lower class) The bulk of the population will see an inversion where its more responsible to eat solein-fed animal meat than it is to eat vegetable protein!! This results from the inability / impracticality to feed protein to plants Another observation, if its 20 times as efficient as growing vegetable protein, then we could easily afford to slash say half of agricultural land, giving enormous areas for solar panels, with about 1 / 2 + 20 x 1 / 2 = 10.5 x as much protein as today.
- _yoqn 4y agoI'm not eating bugs or bacteria for my main source of protein. I'm eating meat, fish, eggs, cheese, cream, fruits and vegetables. Stop telling me that my future is bugs!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fidgetspinner 4y agoHas anyone been able to locate the actual nutritional information in a serving size of this stuff? Actual carb, protein, and fat calorie counts, sugars, significant vitamins, etc?
- koliber 4y agoTheir other website ( https://solarfoods.com/science/ https://solarfoods.com/science/ ) has some of the info you are looking for: PROTEIN 65-70 % FAT 5-8 % DIETARY FIBRES 10-15 % MINERAL NUTRIENTS 3-5%
- fidgetspinner 4y agoThanks. Would still be curious about .ore specific macronutrients for things not listed
- greggeter 4y ago
- seu 4y ago>Sorry, plants. > Conventional food production wastes resources like water, chemicals, animal feed at unsustainable and unreasonable levels. Animal feed to grow plant-based protein? > Unlike conventional protein production, it takes just a fraction of all these resources if any, to produce the same nutritional amount of Solein. Even photosynthesis, the way plants convert energy into food, is not as efficient as our method. So... they use magical electricity that comes out of nowhere, and operates more efficiently that just letting a plant sit there and use the sun. Amazing how these people blatantly lie and present half-facts so shamelessly.
- zweifuss 4y agoConversion efficiency from solar radiation to dry matter is estimated for soy beans at 2.1%. Solar Foods claims 10 times more energy-efficient per hectare than photosynthesis with soy production. If you assume 22% efficient solar panels and a longer growing season, because solar panels are less temperature and water dependent than plants, this might just work out.
- dsign 4y agoI'm willing to believe it is good nutrition and low footprint for the environment. But the cultural footprint is too high, just look at this forum! Our cultural archetypes are rich, see which you would do for a few days and which you would do daily: * dawn at a mountain cabin overlooking the town below, no running water [vs] dawn at a modern apartment in a block full of buildings. * food grown in plants, in fields tended by people and fertilized with manure [vs] food grown in a vat. * A week hiking [vs] a week going to the gym. * Being socially approved by one day marrying at a church [vs] living with whoever you fancy every day for the rest of your life. * Eating cabbage [vs] eating protein dust made with genetically modified bacteria that tastes like chocolate dough. * Eating genetically modified cabbage that tastes like chocolate dough [vs] eating protein dust made with genetically modified bacteria that tastes like cabbage. I would rather that we have all the choices.
- troutpanda 4y agoI've been following this company for a few years now. It is not fake, just bad advertisement I guess. My biochemistry professor (and as far as my textbook understanding of biochemistry goes), the process which they use to produce the protein makes sense. Wether it's something economically sustainable, or something that might become "socially accepted" or something, I don't know. If I have to be picky, I'd rather eat a synthetic protein made with genetically modified bacteria than genetically modified cockroaches powder. You wouldn't probably notice a big difference anyway.
- hcarvalhoalves 4y ago> Since our bioprocess does not require land, it can create an infinite food supply for our world. That’s not the definition of “infinite”. I know this is BS talk to raise funding, but let’s remind of previous myths of “infinite supply”: land, fresh water, oil.