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New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2
- hombre_fatal 3y agoScaling up the a new product to suddenly feed everyone on Earth based on its current low-volume tech seems like a pointless analysis. The only interesting thing about the article is going to be how the headline will probably compel HNers to go into the same old hobby horse rant against lab-grown meat.
- falcor84 3y agoWhy pointless? The authors ran a detailed analysis, identified a bottleneck (the endotoxin purification) and made a recommendation that effort be made to tackle that bottleneck by engineering cell lines that can withstand higher amounts of endotoxins. To me this sounds as useful as science can be.
- ausbah 3y agoemphasis on "the headline" as they will literally only "read the headline"
- yannyu 3y agoThe study may be good, but the headline and the obvious slant of the article are as unscientific as you can get. Pop science journalism is abysmal, and this is a good example of it.
- TSiege 3y agoMaybe I don't understand this statment, but wouldn't it be bad to have endotoxins in your food anyways?
- ImHereToVote 3y agoIt might be very good for the environment.
- jofer 3y agoIt is very fair to point out that synthetic processes often have significant side effects. Biodiesel made from corn is a great example of "right intent, wrong overall effect" (though arguably the goal of biodiesel from corn was always more focused on energy independence than on any environment benefits). Back to the topic at hand, though. Purely from a climate perspective, does it actually make sense to target lab grown chicken? Chickens are something that can be raised with a much lower carbon footprint than beef. Are things like an impossible burger simply a better substitute right now? Should we be focused on culturing cells or on "faking" it with plant proteins? I'm not saying I have answers, and I'm not opposed to lab-grown meat in principle (I think it's damned cool), but it's fair to ask whether or not it makes sense to try to scale up a process that may be worse than "business as usual". The article also gives very useful feedback on scaling things up, as well. It's pretty damned interesting.
- Ekaros 3y agoAlso, could we grow feed for cows in more efficient manner maybe in areas where there are plentiful resources and other type of agriculture don't make as much sense? And could we with some process eliminate part of effective emissions like methane? Somehow it feels weird that beef gets attacked in ways let's say vegan food as worst case doesn't. Should we brand all vegan food bad if some of it is grown with desalinated water in article circle with artificial lighting and heating during winter?
- lukas099 3y agoWow, a brand new technology is less efficient than a process that has been refined for thousands of years?! Unbelievable!
- 2-718-281-828 3y ago> for thousands of years rather thousands of thousands of thousands of years ...
- dgfitz 3y agoDefine: pedantic
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoi can't tell if you're joking or serious ;D
- roflyear 3y agoWe haven't been factory farming for even a hundred years (not really). I would also challenge that cows evolved to be efficient at producing CO2? haha.
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- pkphilip 3y agoLivestock is grown in parts of the world on stuff which cannot be sold or which grows on its own - example: grass etc. How in the world is lab grown meat going to compete with that in terms of efficiency, CO2 emissions etc?
- roflyear 3y agoYou have to explain to me what this: > Livestock is grown in parts of the world on stuff which cannot be sold or which grows on its own - example: grass etc. Has to do with CO2 produced from raising livestock? I can't connect the two in my head, there's some missing information here I don't have.
- pkphilip 3y agoHaven't you heard the argument that livestock raising releases methane/CO2 etc?
- roflyear 3y agoThe argument? It's not an argument - livestock does produce CO2. It is a fact. I don't eat meat partially for this reason. I still have no idea what it means with regards to your original statement.
- Detrytus 3y agoHaha, seems like OP randomly chose the wrong argument from the wrong pamphlet. Yes, livestock produces CO2. The part about it feeding on grass is a typical argument against purely plant diet, based on the assumption that if we stop eating meat we'll starve, because we cannot produce enough plant-based food, and meat production helps, because we can turn otherwise useless plants (grass), growing on otherwise useless land, into something we can eat.
- realusername 3y ago> because we cannot produce enough plant-based food, Livestock eat more plant based food that we will ever need though, it's the most inefficient food production for a reason.
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- hospitalJail 3y agoBut how much methane?
- roflyear 3y agoI am against factory farming, but I think the CO2 numbers are usually "Co2 equivalent" (at least if the study is being honest) and sources put cows at 100kg/kg to 300kg/kg for CO2eq - several I found say that 188kg CO2eq is a fair number to use (the U.S. apparently is much lower, even as low as 70kgCO2eq?)
- roflyear 3y agoSeems like the global average for beef is 188 kg of CO2 equivalent per kg - and the article suggests that "each kilogram of ACBM produces 542 pounds (246 kg) to 3,325 pounds (1,508 kg) of carbon dioxide emissions" That's a HUGE range - but let's assume this new tech can get down to 250kg/1kg, that's not much worse than 188kg/1kg, so... what's the headline? That we don't expect the process to be able to scale better?
- myshpa 3y agoOr we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, double forest area and store entire 1.5C carbon budget (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4) in the process, and enable return of wildlife and sealife (also storing a lot of carbon in them https://www.oneearth.org/how-restoring-key-wildlife-species-can-be-a-game-changing-climate-solution/ https://www.oneearth.org/how-restoring-key-wildlife-species-...).
- blitz_skull 3y agoGood luck enforcing a world-wide “plant-only” diet. I know people who would go to war just over that.
- Detrytus 3y agoI wouldn't. Instead I would simply switch to cannibalism, and start eating vegetarians :)
- regisg 3y agoThey are already at war against nature
- chrisbolt 3y agoWhy does everything have to be all-or-nothing? Start by stop subsidizing meat.
- TrispusAttucks 3y agoCorn would like to have a talk with your meat subsidizes.
- VerminOctopus1 3y agoThis is important research that needs to be done. However, this is an expected result at this stage. This technology has not been scaled up and has not been optimized - it would be premature to do so at this point. I’m sure if and when this becomes viable at mass scale, more substantial efforts will be made in reducing CO2 output.
- Eumenes 3y agoBut it'll enable a new class of industry to become uber wealthy, that has to be worth something, right?
- aplummer 3y agoI’m surprised at the skepticism here on HN. Was everyone this skeptical / glib when the (insert technology) was useless when it was invented? Anyone seen the efficiency of a solar panel in 1970? Factory farming is a real problem to solve.
- Tade0 3y agoNever mind efficiency - anyone seen the price of a solar panel as recently as in 2000? Good thing someone took one for the team and invested in scaling this up.
- Lutger 3y agoThat was Germany, they basically financed solar energy with tax money (about 200 billion), then their industry was killed by China.
- prottog 3y agoIt's so strange that a mostly cloudy country at 51ºN spent so much money developing solar energy.
- soared 3y agoSolar works when it’s cloudy.
- the_third_wave 3y agoIt does but at a greatly reduced output (5-20% of rated output depending on the thickness of the cloud cover). Partly cloudy weather leads to a very bumpy output graph.
- prottog 3y agoI mean, of course, but is it really the best use of the limited resources of a nation? Germany isn't playing to its natural competitive advantage by pursuing solar, vs. someplace like Morocco. Nuclear would be a much better option, but we know how that ended up.
- aroberge 3y agoIn my experience (in a different field), it is common for researchers to acknowledge the source of their funding. In particular, researchers are keen to acknowledge funding from government grants, as this is perceived to be helpful in applying for future research grants. I glanced through the paper and I could not find any mention indicating who funded that study. I'm also very sceptical of single studies that support the status quo for very large industries -- even more so when there is no indication of who funded the study.
- was_a_dev 3y agoFrom my experience conflict of interests and funding sources is a disclosure enforced by the journal Being a preprint, this is obviously neither peer reviewed nor vetted by a journal. In this case, I cannot deduce what journal they plan on submitting to (if they plan to at all)
- cogman10 3y agoYeah, I don’t know what the solution is, but I’ve certainly noticed a trend in clickbate websites reporting on preprint studies that often don’t pass peer review after the fact. This is a major issue in scientific reporting and research in general. It’s particularly damaging because of anchoring bias.
- Workaccount2 3y agoAs far as I, a total layman, can tell from the excessively wordy study, they are assuming that the process is powered by fossil fuel energy. They spend an enormous amount of time on calculating energy requirements, and about a sentence on energy sources. So it seems the solution would be easy; don't use fossil fuel energy. Also it looks like the study only looks at CO2 from meat production, and turns a blind eye to methane, which is the real killer from meat production.
- znpy 3y agoI think this is just the tip of the iceberg. As synthetic meat gets more attention, more strict evaluations of its carbon footprint will start to pop up, and me might see what’s actually true —- past the hype, i mean.
- guraf 3y agoYou're probably right, but a closer analysis that includes externalities will likely be dismissed as being too inconvenient to the narrative. Just look at ethanol. Several studies now show that it's actually much worse for the environment than fossil fuel. But very few people care (plants are natural!!!1) or know about it. Even the government ignores its own studies and keep pushing for more subsidies and higher ethanol content.
- josefresco 3y ago"the study in question has not yet been peer-reviewed" So, nothing to see here ... yet.
- plaidfuji 3y agoThis is an expected result if you extrapolate from an early R&D stage process to a global scale, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth pursuing more sustainable routes to the mass production of animal muscle. And that’s really what the underlying goal is here - don’t fall for the false dichotomy of “farmed” vs “lab-grown” - factory farms are essentially process development labs. How efficiently can you convert land and feedstock into salable whole-cut animal muscle? The animals are just bioreactors at this point, with experiments being done on how to optimize feedstock conversion to fatty muscle mass, which antibiotics limit contamination and yield loss the best, etc. The only question is how animal-like will the eventual bioreactors in the cultivated meat process have to look to reproduce the real thing at scale and at lower cost? The lines will only continue to blur.
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- 411111111111111 3y agoWell said. The people advocating against this research have to be completely in denial about what modern meat factories actually are like (can't really call them anything else considering how the animals exist there).
- x86x87 3y agoNot disagreeing with you, but ultimately you have to ask the question: does this make sense? And look at the "why". What are you trying to optimize?
- coryfklein 3y agoOf course it makes sense. People like to eat meat. Meat is expensive to produce, particularly including externalities like CO2, animal suffering, etc. Making meat less expensive to produce across some or all of those dimensions seems like a no brainer.
- kevincox 3y ago
- boston_clone 3y agoNotably, this study doesn't focus on current plant-based meat substitutes like Impossible, Beyond, or Gardein, which objectively produce less CO2, use less resources, and cause less suffering.
- samtho 3y agoThis is standard-faire, weaponized pedantry. Yes, R&D is inefficient, but all of us know this is not the point (unless of course, the research is focused on improving efficiency). Once a process and result is identified, it’s performance requirements and characteristics can be identified, measured, and standardized. This where industrial engineering comes in. Given that everything mentioned in this report is based upon simple measurements as a result of the R&D and this single identified process, we should file this under “pessimistic sensationalism.”
- user3939382 3y agoI want to eat meat from chickens and cows that had good, happy lives, eating the healthiest most natural form of their diet possible. I don't want lab grown meat, the concept is disgusting. As it is our food is too processed and industrial. Maybe we can focus on mixed farming instead https://www.earth.com/news/mixed-farming-could-increase-food-productivity-and-reduce-emissions/ https://www.earth.com/news/mixed-farming-could-increase-food...
- SapporoChris 3y agohttps://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ameglian_Major_Cow https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ameglian_Major_Cow Be careful what you want, you just might get it.
- x86x87 3y agoThe question to ask is: can everyone eat meat from animals that had good happy, lives? Does that scale to everyone?
- AlexandrB 3y agoYes if they eat a lot less of it. You probably can't raise animals as efficiently (especially in terms of land required) while keeping them happy. The difference will be reflected in the cost to the consumer - ethical meat is more expensive[1]. Whenever these conversations crop up, the idea that we might need to eat less meat to achieve ethical or environmental goals seems to be unthinkable to many commenters. The recent fad diets that focus on consuming tons of animal protein have really muddled the water as well since they seem to imply that you can't eat healthy while eating less meat. I think that's why you see so much enthusiasm for lab-grown meat. [1] https://www.ethicalfarmingfund.org/post/2018/05/30/the-truth-behind-the-price-of-humanely-raised-food https://www.ethicalfarmingfund.org/post/2018/05/30/the-truth...
- x86x87 3y agoIf people are willing to eat less meat would you have the problem to begin with? I feel the solution should me along the lines of pricing the meat accordingly vs inventing this freak alternative that allows you to virtue signal while still causing the same amount of damage. This without going into the question of what effects this synthetic meat could have on the human body - for better or worse people have been eating meat for all of history and AFAIK meat is one of the most nutriet dense foods you can eat.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago“Unoptimized POC of new technology 25x less optimal than 3.77 billion year optimized process” should be heartening to all
- alphanullmeric 3y agoConsidering how processed vegan food is im not surprised.
- barbariangrunge 3y agoForget about lab grown meat: give me a bean that doesn't cause gas or other stomach irritation. We could eat beans 3 times a day and save the world while we're at it, all while saving money.
- mrguyorama 3y agoIsn't this the entire sales pitch of Beano?
- dmbche 3y agoYou just need to eat beans for two weeks - then your flora is used to it and you don't fart (in my experience). Will go away if you stop eating beans though.
- Xyloform 3y agoFrom my experience, soaking beans overnight helps prevent gas and farting. Also makes it easier to cook using less energy.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoWho funded the study?
- luxuryballs 3y agoThe older I get the more I believe a law of equivalent exchange (like in Fullmetal Alchemist) actually does apply to everything in existence, it blurs the line between thermodynamics and karma, but only the physical side of it is convincingly measurable.
- dennis_jeeves1 3y agoJust going by the headline, (I don't have time to read another click bait) if it is indeed true, this is to be expected. The one thing that nature is good at is extraordinary degree of efficiency when using energy fine tuned by evolution. No 'artificial' processes will beat that efficiency. Unless you're looking for a significantly worse quality of meat, lab grown meat is never going to be equivalent to real meat, both in terms of quality, and in terms of energy utilization.
- erickf1 3y agoI would never eat processed manufactured meat. This is just another food category being converted to processed foods. Processed foods make you sick, weak and takes your life. Want a short unhealthy life? Eat processed foods. Pharma will be there for you to speed up your own efforts.
- sneedbro14 3y ago[dead]
- vegetablepotpie 3y agoI’m trying to unpack the energy use of lab grown meat, it seems that it comes from the following sources 1. filtering the growth medium for toxins (subject of this paper) 2. Powering the bio reactors (heating them and stirring) 3. Transportation of the materials #3 Is going to be present regardless of whether you’re doing lab growth or traditional animal ag. From what I can tell, #1 will produce 25 times the emissions of traditional animal ag. What I don’t know is does #1 strictly require hydrocarbons as a material input, or does it require energy that could be provided by renewables. In the later case, you might be able to make lab grown meat more sustainable than traditional animal ag, but to make it economically viable vs traditional animal ag, you would need a sufficiently high price on carbon/methane.
- freediverx 3y agoWas the study funded by the meat industry?
- aerio 3y agoWhy blow up this headline if the study hasn't been peer reviewed?