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Solein – Protein out of thin air

solein.com

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Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#141

Post by tuukkah »

knodi123 wrote: post #73

I'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/ which is a 404 page not found. I wonder if maybe it should send you to https://solarfoods.com/news-and-blog/ ?

I asked them about the broken links in June, haven't heard back: 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-...

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#142

Post by tuukkah »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #100
namuol wrote: post #12

From 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 desig…

> proprietary bacteria harvested from nature So which is it, proprietary or natural? You can't own something you didn't create.

"previously unknown bacteria". Proprietary does not imply copyright, because they may have other property such as patents and trade secrets instead.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#143

Post by tuukkah »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #105

This 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 ne…

Insightful thoughts! Although is the meat production efficiency really dominated by feed production efficiency - otherwise this deduction doesn't hold?

> feeding these SCProtein to cattle would result in classic meat but still 2x as efficient as vegetable protein today!

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#144

Post by southerntofu »

88913527 wrote: post #46
Animats wrote: post #24

Most 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 s…

The 'holes' created by industrial farming aren't missing dirt, it's missing water. https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/files/2019/03/Subsidence.jpg https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...

To add to this, it appears many scientists/ecologists around Europe are very worried about practical desertification due to monoculture (industrial/chemical growing of one crop across vast areas).

This is so much of a problem that even skeptical industrial farmers are starting to use organic farming techniques (such as compost or nettle manure) to replenish their soils for monoculture. Which is of course not as good as smart permaculture setups, but well.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#145

Post by troutpanda »

I'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.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#146

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

> 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.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#147

Post by ClumsyPilot »

tuukkah wrote: post #142
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proprietary bacteria harvested from nature So which is it, proprietary or natural? You can't own something you didn't create.

"previously unknown bacteria". Proprietary does not imply copyright, because they may have other property such as patents and trade secrets instead.

whichever - how can you have any form of ownership over a natural bacteria?

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#148

Post by astrange »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #100
namuol wrote: post #12

From 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 desig…

> proprietary bacteria harvested from nature So which is it, proprietary or natural? You can't own something you didn't create.

Meat animals were originally from nature too, but you still have to raise them and breed them properly. They're just bacteria ranchers.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#149

Post by tuukkah »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #147
tuukkah wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"previously unknown bacteria". Proprietary does not imply copyright, because they may have other property such as patents and trade secrets instead.

whichever - how can you have any form of ownership over a natural bacteria?

1) By keeping the bacteria a secret: not telling which bacteria can be used like this, not telling where you can find it in the nature, not giving anyone a piece of the bacteria culture to use.

2) By patenting the industrial process that makes use of the bacteria, thus gaining an exclusive commercial right to it.

Re: Solein – Protein out of thin air

#150

Post by arthur2e5 »

elil17 wrote: post #69
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, 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)

This doesn’t use sunlight. It uses hydrogen gas as the energy carrier.

… Which makes knowing what microbe it’s using even more interesting. I mean, H2-eating microbes are quite common (and are likely how life started around seabed thermal vents), but making these things edible?

(Patent says it’s a strain of Xanthobacter.)

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