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

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

#71

Post by EForEndeavour » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

justinmchase wrote: post #47

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

I would expect to see pockets of domesticated animals survive in captivity across the world for various non-meat purposes. Even if all captive breeding is banned, I would still expect allowances for governments or organizations to maintain breeding populations as a living reminder of where our civilization came from.

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

#72

Post by hirundo » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

justinmchase wrote: post #47

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

If humans only existed as mindless stock animals, bred for food, I'd prefer extinction. But I wouldn't care to make that choice on behalf of Bovideae Bovinae Bos taurus.

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

#73

Post by trainsplanes » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

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 see free range chicken breasts for way more than that. If they’re targeting the consumers who buy based on ethics, they’ve already reached a not-unreasonable price.

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

#74

Post by f38zf5vdt » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #33

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Given that this is all happening in a lab, is collecting and filtering for reuse an option?

An autoclave requires distilled water and an enormous amount of energy to operate. You could save the water but you'd potentially need to distill it again after. They use an enormous amount of energy and water overall.

The feed for the cells still has to come from somewhere too, and the growth of the cells is aerobic and generates CO2. That said, artificial meat is supposed to hit market parity price by 2026 and probably below parity after. [1] We will probably see a rapid transition to cultured meat within a decade. There are a very large number of these companies competing right now. [2]

[1] https://www.mitsui.com/mgssi/en/report/detail/__icsFiles/afi... [2] https://cellbasedtech.com/lab-grown-meat-companies

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

#75

Post by wcoenen » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

I suspect reality will be a lot more boring.

Animals are a low efficiency method of converting plant material into meat, both in terms of calories and protein mass input/output. So with scale, eventually lab-grown meat should become much cheaper than traditional meat. At the same time, it will be higher quality. Sterile production will eliminate E. Coli, salmonella, antibiotics... Input nutrients will be tightly controlled. Environmental pollutants and parasites will be kept out.

Traditional meat will still be available, but it will be an expensive and morally questionable luxury product, like "foie gras" today.

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

#76

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

I love this project for the simple reason that it makes me think of the possibility for large crewed long distance space flights with onboard protein producing capabilities. Would also go a long way towards making life on mars more realistic.

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

#77

Post by WJW » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #59

justinmchase wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

Good question. Another: How will the ranchland dedicated to their raising be used? In Montana, where the cows outnumber the people, the land they occupy is considered unfit for farming, largely because it’s not friendly for combines. There’s also the whole infrastructure and supply chain dedicated to the breeding and raising of various meat sources. What will happen to them?

Seems fairly straightforward to predict, since this has happened dozens of times before as technology marched on: with no more business for them, they'll go bankrupt and the workers will eventually be assimilated into other professions. Maybe there will be a small remaining industry tending to hobbyists, similar to how horse shoeing and buggy whip manufacturing are very much a niche professions these days.

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

#78

Post by shafyy » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #51

shafyy wrote: post #30

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…

> making from plant proteins directly will always be cheaper, faster, require less resources and be healthier This is not clear at all. If you look into what goes into making something like an Impossible Burger, it is basically none of those things.

Which part is not clear?

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

#79

Post by smogcutter » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:54 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

> Will we get to the point where statues of now-famous people are pulled down because they ate animals? Assuming some variant of "cancel culture" exists then, will that act retroactively and currently-lionised people get cancelled because they are carnivores, even though the current culture that they exist in considers it acceptable?

Perhaps, if those statues were originally erected in honor of their diet, and to remind the vegetarians of the time who was in charge.

I know the false equivalency isn’t really your point, but come on.

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

#80

Post by cout » Mon, Jun 28, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

The article touches on water and emissions; I wonder how these products compare on electricity usage (and whether that's counted in the emissions estimate).