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Can someone explain how lab grown meat releases less greenhouse gasses? Seems like much more energy inefficient than the old fashion way. Are there any figures
by ImHereToVote 2y ago
Can someone explain how lab grown meat releases less greenhouse gasses? Seems like much more energy inefficient than the old fashion way. Are there any figures available that go into the thermodynamics of it all?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- londons_explore 2y agoNobody talks about the thermodynamics because right now it's terrible (also why the economics is terrible - nobody can get anywhere the $3/kg of chicken breast). However, theoretically lab grown meat could be a big win on the thermodynamics front, and whoever solves that will have a far easier time getting the economics working too.
- arrobbiato 2y agoThe idea is that cows, and all the infrastructure around raising them, are a huge source of greenhouse gasses, while just cultivating cow meat eliminates everything not directly related to producing a hamburger. More recent studies [1] cast doubt on that and even suggest as you do that cell-cultured meat may be more environmentally damaging, not less. [1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1....
- energy123 2y agoCan you condense the argument for us? Why can't the supply chain be decarbonised?
- arrobbiato 2y agoOne of the main factors: generating the growth media for the cells is by no means carbon-free, and some of the ingredients are very very carbon intensive to produce.
- energy123 2y agoDo you mean energy intensive or carbon intensive?
- arrobbiato 2y agoCarbon intensive. Most of them are agriculturally sourced, and fossil fuels/feedstocks are not likely to be widely replaced in agriculture for several decades, at least.
- kibwen 2y agoWhen talking about beef specifically, the problem is that cows produce a disproportionate amount of methane, which is a disproportionately powerful greenhouse gas. If you don't want to give up meat but do want to make a dent in your emissions, even just eating pork or chicken instead is an improvement. There might be ways to reduce the emissions of cows in the future (different feeds, gut biome interventions, bioengineering), but right now these are science fiction. As for the energy inputs themselves, the notion of grass-fed beef often gets trotted out as a way to make beef more eco-friendly, but in practice this mostly amounts to greenwashing. Most beef is not grass-fed, and most places in the world that raise cows are not suited to pure grass feeding. And then there's the land use aspect. When we're clearcutting the Amazon in order to satisfy the world's demand for beef, we've fucked up.
- klipt 2y ago> There might be ways to reduce the emissions of cows in the future (different feeds, gut biome interventions, bioengineering), but right now these are science fiction. I thought there's already research showing that seaweed in the cow's diet drastically reduces methane emissions.
- coryrc 2y agoYes, just 2% of diet as seaweed essentially eliminates methane emissions. But there's no price on methane emissions for the farmer so no incentive to do so.
- raverbashing 2y agoI wonder if anyone tried to capture methane produced in this way
- ryanjshaw 2y ago> cows produce a disproportionate amount of methane, which is a disproportionately powerful greenhouse gas. Can somebody explain run through these quickly, I'm not sure which parts are wrong and how much they're wrong: 1. the constituents in the methane came from the food the cows eat? 2. the food got it from the atmosphere? 3. cows don't increase methane constantly, rather it's the marginal volume of feed required to sustain every new cow on the planet less the ones slaughtered? I.e. the growth in new supply? 4. Eliminating cows raised for meat would stop the increase in methane due to increase in supply and it would result in a one-off net reduction in atmospheric methane in time proportional to what cows were releasing, assuming the food continues to grow? 5. What happens when the food the cows are no longer eating dies, does anything get released then?
- MattGaiser 2y agoOne of the larger issues is the methane byproduct, i.e. they fart. It isn’t just about energy.
- coryrc 2y agoBurps, actually. Even harder to capture if you were going to try.
- dvh 2y agoI think the end goal is control of food production: 1. Introduce artificial meat that only large corporations can make 2. Ban natural meat as artificial alternative exists 3. Jack up the prices and profit
- llamaimperative 2y agoThat’s actually super hilarious given the conglomeration that has occurred already anyway. Turns out you can just skip both the incredible engineering problem of lab grown meat and the incredible political problem of “banning meat” and even people who are apparently paranoid about corporate/government control will just go right along with it.
- spamizbad 2y agoMost of the meat consumed in the US already comes from a large corporation. 99% of it is factory farmed. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farm...
- energy123 2y agoReality is the opposite with the agriculture and beef lobbies influencing government and cultured meat facing outright bans
- 123yawaworht456 2y agohowever, agriculture and beef lobbies don't demand a ban on small farms and individual cattle raising.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[dead]
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- mytailorisrich 2y agoI think it's more an issue of resources rather than raw energy. If this can be produced using much less space, locally to consumers, and using clean energy then it's a net gain. What I'm interested in is where do the raw materials come from? I suppose this needs a number of "ingredients", including proteins, that must be sourced from somewhere.