This must be a mistake, I’ve been told the Chinese only steal and never invent
this is just proof that the west will invent a time machine eventually. china will then steal it, and use it to steal the coal->protein tech from the west (of course the west will invent that too), and because they’re cheaters, they’ll then use the time machine to pass the tech back to the present day.
liberal vegans about to support the fossil fuel capitalists to own the meat industry capitalists
Probably tastes better than half the protein shakes I tried
Isn’t this just as bad for the environment as burning the coal? Just with a slightly longer delay on release?
Animal excrement almost universally ends up in the ground again.
But at what cos- actually that’s really cool I want to look more into this.
“The researchers achieved a dry cell weight and crude protein content of 120g/litre and 67.2 per cent with their modified P. pastoris. And the methanol-to-protein conversion efficiency reached 92 per cent of the theoretical value,” a report on the CAS website said. The high conversion rate makes this protein production method very attractive economically. “It doesn’t require arable land, is unaffected by seasons and climate, and is a thousand times more efficient than traditional agricultural practices,” Wu said in the paper. “Moreover, the protein content in the micro-organisms ranges from 40 to 85 per cent, significantly higher than in natural plants,” he added. These organisms also contain a complete amino acid profile, vitamins, inorganic salts, fats and carbohydrates, allowing them to partially replace fishmeal, soybeans, meat and skimmed milk powder in various applications.
What’s the catch? Is it cancerous??? Where are they getting all these nutrients?
The ethanol production line also sounds like it improves emissions from coal if I’m reading correctly.
The catch is that you’re eating coal yoghurt.
The coal is used as feed to grow the culture, similar to how milk is used to grow bacteria in normal yoghurt.
Edit: methanol derived from coal or any other source would be used to feed the culture
The catch is that you’re eating coal yoghurt.
ok but what is the catch
you will eat the coal you will live in the pod
Oh yeah, this is great, just eat coal instead of meat problem solved
It looks like it’s time for another exciting episode of
It’s animal feed, it’s not for humans
Corn was used as animal feed and considered “not for humans” for centuries (in Europe at least)
So what I’m saying is coal is probably delicious with butter.
but its coalyou gotta try coal on the cob
Roll Coal (in butter)
don’t miss out on some nice buttery popcoal
just another, more convoluted way to turn coal into CO2. wake me up when they can turn CO2 into protein
Humans produce CO2.
The difference is whether you produce CO2 flying private jets or relieving famine.
Also, you would have to spend energy to go the other way, as CO2 has lower energy than protein.
Fossil powered meat production is not the best way to relieve a famine.
EDIT: I see you have redacted this take. That being said,
This is being produced from fossil fuel & steel production waste gases, so it’s a way to eliminate emissions by trapping them with specially engineered microbes. Reading about the pathways they’re using is actually really cool.
We’re not getting rid of steel production any time soon, so turning emissions into ethanol (rather than using agricultural products) seems great.
In general I am skeptical of “greening” fossil fuels but the opportunities to make them less harmful present themselves immediately when you look at all the redundant burning and shit involved.
Substituting green sources for the energy intensive fractional distillation process & the hydrogen feedstock in making gasoline could be easier if the overall production of fuels were much lower. (Renewables + continuously chugging fractional distillation seems like a bad mix but batteries are getting way better all the time.)
I read about some of this stuff & how oil refineries work first when I was arguing with “genes aren’t real” and “oil is renewable” patsoc people actually. Lol
Interesting. It would be liberalism to think that innovations like this could fix our environmental crises without a revolutionary transformation of the relationship of humans and non-human nature, but considering this is largely an accomplishment of socialism, and China has greater plans than small changes, this is good. Patsocs always have weird anti-science takes, but those are new to me.
I can give you a long list of battery tech & hydrogen stuff & renewables especially coming out of China that makes me hopeful, as well as ecological civilization shit that doubles as climate resistance like sponge cities that Malaysia’s getting into. and also some example of stuff i’m not big on we’re doing like the 70s era carbon sequestrarion US/EU keep pushing and the like coal to hydrogen lmao
I did a whole project on this last year, but I’m sure there’s more new stuff that you’re more up to date on than me.
Maybe. Idk if I mentioned the new desalination stuff that looks promising. Other random stuff
cold plasma pyrolysis of trash -> syngas (i’ve read this can be quite efficient correct me if i’m wrong)
sodium ion batteries (appliances and other applications where density is less important, there are already power drills)
redox flow batteries (very long term storage with many cycles perfect for renewable power stations & datacenters, made from cheap shit, can completely replace large lithium bricks)
zinc solution hydrogen batteries (80% efficiency vs 50% of compressed hydrogen gas, zero fire hazard)
floating wave generators for supplying outlying islands nations throughout the pacific
On top of the other points I mentioned (such as sourcing this from emissions which are hard to avoid creating) + raised by Yogthos and other people, I’ll add that coal can be stored pretty much indefinitely, and using coal for methanol/ethanol/protein (whatever the applications are) like this instead of boosting agricultural production saves energy in its own right, even it ultimately releases more carbon.
I don’t think anyone is actually saying get in the pod and eat the coal. As funny as it sounds
the problem i have w that is the methanol synthesized can be used in further synthesis, rather than as feedstock. we have enough agriculture to feed the world, there’s just a distribution problem. this coal to methanol to protein process will just go to feeding livestock, sustaining industrial torture/murder and increasing pollution. methanol could be used in other processes (as solvent or reagent) that have better value. plants make protein from solar energy, we don’t need to waste carbon that’s already been fixed to make more protein just to create more cattle to torture and eat
Oh come on don’t do the vegan nihilism thing, you could even say increased grain production is used to fuel animal farming. That doesn’t mean agricultural technology isn’t exciting.
Methanol is used for lots of stuff I think it eventually goes into plastic yeah it’s exciting.
Do you mean chemical feedstock or animal feed?
This could also be a source of protein for mushrooms or insects (yum), or maybe they can find a way to process this into stuff for agriculture. Finding this pathway is just part of engineering more crazy Yellowstone/Mariana Trench microbes.
I’m sure I’m ignorant of potential industrial grade protein applications
I hope there isn’t some kind of forthcoming possible scenario where humanity has to survive in a pinch with less arable farmland, in that event we’d surely be able to rely on the nations of the world to share protein in a crisis?
😶
we don’t have infinite coal tho
Sorry was the comment about producing smoke and syngas and stuff too incoherent? Because you can harvest biomass without logging & it’s much more carbon neutral.
Directly trapping unavoidable emissions like coke for steel & turning them into methanol then increasing the applications of that with fermentation or substituting other methanol sources (which can be carbon intensive afaik) just seems like a net good.
STRATEGIC EDIBLE COAL RESERVES
I’m just saying it has a famine relief purpose so you don’t have to let livestock just die if there’s like a brief but manageable nuclear winter? I realize these are insane burger fantasies
Also far more likely than nuclear winter is food sanctions + climate change
turn CO2 into protein
Plants can do that. They’re wicked smart.
how about synthesizing starch from CO2 http://www.news.cn/english/2021-09/24/c_1310206762.htm
that’s dope, but proteins are crazy complicated compared to carbohydrates
For sure, but starch could be fed to bacteria or something to do the biosynthesis, definitely opens up a lot of potential. Ideally, CO2 could be captured at the source instead of just being emitted into the atmosphere, then converted to starch, and passed on to other uses from there.
good points, thanks for the interesting articles and insight!
Well, if we use CO2 to make organic matter then burry it in the ground and wait long enough we could get more fossil fuels to then make protein out of.
EU: classifies coal as renewable
