Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is algae the new kale?

nationalgeographic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 320 posts

Re: Is algae the new kale?

#3

Post by oifjsidjf »

While real sea-grown algae might be light what will happen is the same as with modern animal and plant farming: animals are fed corn which makes their meat sub-par nutrientwise and most of the soil for plants is depleted.

So if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts, thus making them no better than any other modern highly processed food, so we might as well stick to rice and potatoes in that case...

Re: Is algae the new kale?

#4

Post by socialismisok »

We already eat various forms of algae. Some are quite nutritious, some give us tummy troubles, some at excellent sinks for CO2.

I'm very curious if we could mass manufacture something like algae and then pyrolize it to get fuel and solid carbon to sequester.

If we find some good ideas for kelp, there's whole coastlines whose kelp forests have been decimated. We could start propagating and sustainably harvesting it and provide an incredibly rich coastal habitat.

Re: Is algae the new kale?

#7

Post by colordrops »

oifjsidjf wrote: post #3

While real sea-grown algae might be light what will happen is the same as with modern animal and plant farming: animals are fed corn which makes their meat sub-par nutrientwise and most of the soil for plants is depleted. So if we now grow algae in "reactors" their nutrient profile will be artificial and out of line of their natural counterparts, thus making them no better than any other modern highly processed food,…

Is that speculation or is there a proven difference with farmed algae?
Post reply on HN