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World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

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Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#21

Post by me_me_me »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

> sense of ickiness or masculinity

If they can keep the cost lower (2/3 or better 1/2 price) than animal meat, all of the stigma will just poof out of existence.

This is very exiting, but its a not solution to global warming (only small factor).

>> Methane has a large effect but for a relatively brief period, having an estimated mean half-life of 9.1 years in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide is currently given an estimated mean lifetime of over 100 years

Still very exiting to possibly live through end factory farming.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#23

Post by EspadaV9 »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #5

The price seems to be ~$3.90 to produce chicken breast. Given that I regularly find chicken breast in a store for $1.99, I'll assume that's still ~3x as costly as just farm raising chickens. It will be interesting if subsidies can change this though. The negative externalities of raising animals must be huge. The jobs tied up in these industries are enormous as well though.

3x the price isn't too bad. Plant based "meat" is usually a bit more expensive than regular meat, and for some people paying 3x to get "real" meat without the need to kill an animal will be a worthwhile trade. Add in the environmental benefits too and it could give some people some peace of mind.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#24

Post by Retric »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #5

The price seems to be ~$3.90 to produce chicken breast. Given that I regularly find chicken breast in a store for $1.99, I'll assume that's still ~3x as costly as just farm raising chickens. It will be interesting if subsidies can change this though. The negative externalities of raising animals must be huge. The jobs tied up in these industries are enormous as well though.

5k burgers a day is a long way from mass production. It seems completely reasonable to expect a 70-90% price drop from scale. Until then selling at a premium to people who love meat but don’t want animals slaughtered seems like a viable.

Where things get interesting is if it actually becomes cheaper than farm grown meat. Over half of all farm land is devoted to meat production, even a 50% switch to lab meat would have dramatic knock on effects. On possibility is a dramatic increase in bio fuel production.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#25

Post by sva_ »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #5

The price seems to be ~$3.90 to produce chicken breast. Given that I regularly find chicken breast in a store for $1.99, I'll assume that's still ~3x as costly as just farm raising chickens. It will be interesting if subsidies can change this though. The negative externalities of raising animals must be huge. The jobs tied up in these industries are enormous as well though.

I'm pretty sure that the poultry industry is already receiving major agricultural subsidies to get to that price.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#26

Post by everdrive »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

>ickiness or masculinity,

How is this related to lab-grown meat?

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#28

Post by hardwaregeek »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

I agree but also "protein security" reminds me of "mineshaft gap" from Dr. Strangelove

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#29

Post by hcknwscommenter »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

It is of course impossible to verify either way, but I am very sure these statistics of 96% savings in freshwater are total nonsense. Anyone who has ever cultured cells on any scale can attest to the amount of water needed at any scale in terms of washing, rinsing, diluting, sterilizing, feeding, etc. Moreover, we have seen time and time again, the reporting of extremely high numbers for water usage in beef and milk production, but it turns out they are counting the water that falls as rain on the pasture land, or the rain/ground water used to grow the alfalfa. Should that be counted? Rain seems to be fairly renewable, but I admit that (in the extreme) society can harm ecosystems by diverting too much rain water (see Colorado River). Ground water renewability is a bit context dependent.

If the water savings is mostly nonsense, well then I also question the savings in GHG emissions. Land savings? Sure, fine, that makes sense... but farm land is orders of magnitude cheaper than land that has a fully functioning cell culture factory on it.

In the end, we will know if this works by what price it can sell at and make a marginal return. The jury is out on that one.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#30

Post by shafyy »

Note that they are not yet "pumping" out anything. Their plan is to start selling next year, which means that it probably will take another few years.

I think that it makes much more sense to make meat and cheese directly from plant proteins, without going through the trouble of growing meat in bioreactors.

Assuming that both will have a similar endproduct (and Impossible shows that it's possible), making from plant proteins directly will always be cheaper, faster, require less resources and be healthier.

That said, I'm not against companies going in this direction. I think it's worth exploring. It's just a bit sad that this "high tech" gets much more press and hype than the more boring alternative, which is already here and reducing greenhouse gas emissions TODAY (which is the key). This is very similar to direct-air-capture technologies, which some day might be viable, but there are plenty of things that we can today that are just not as sexy and therefore don't get hyped in the media.

To be clear: I see a future where most meats and cheeses will be made directly from plants, and a small minority made using cultured cells.

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