Cultured meat facility opens in California, ready to sell to public

RobertDyck · 2021-12-16 12:46:22

World’s Most Advanced Lab-Grown Meat Facility Opens In California

On Thursday, November 4, the company opened a vast facility in Emeryville, California – 16,154 square meters (53,000 square feet) of renewably-powered vats and tubes going by the name of the Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center, or “EPIC”. It’s been billed as the first of its kind, and the company says it’s ready to start producing 22,680 kilograms (50,000 pounds) of cultured meat for commercial scale – just as soon as it's legal in the US.
“Our meat production method is inspired by nature’s basic principles: start with one cell and give it the proper nutrients to allow it to grow and multiply,” reads the website of Upside Foods, a so-called “cultured meat” company – the term “lab-grown meat”, as you may know it, is verboten in the industry – headquartered in Berkley, California.

This is connected to another innovation:
YouTube: Artificial starch from CO2. Ground breaking new tech could reduce land and water use by 90%.
The Chinese have developed a method of going from CO2 and water to starch, with all industrial chemical processes. Efficiency of the process, taken from the video @ 8:43...
Hydrogen to Methanol: 85% efficient
Methanol to Starch: 61%
Solar Power: 20%
Hydrogen Electrolysis: 85%
Overall Efficiency: 0.85 x 0.61 x 0.20 x 0.85 = 0.09
That's only 9% efficient, which doesn't sound good. However, it's 3.5 times as efficient as photosynthesis used by plants. If you use gallium-indium-nitride photovoltaic instead of current solar cells, then that increases solar power efficiency from 20% to 70%. With that overall efficiency is 0.85 x 0.61 x 0.70 x 0.85 = 0.3085075 round for significant digits to 0.31 or 31%. But that means using solar power to generate electricity, I'm sure someone will propose alternate means to generate power.

At 0:16 of the video it talks about land use. Earth's surface is 29% land. Of that, 71% is habitable. Of that, 50% is used for agriculture. Of that 77% is used for livestock (meat and dairy). Only 18% of global calorie supply comes from meat and dairy, 82% from plant-based food. Protein supply is 37% from meat and dairy, 63% from plant-based food. Of inhabited land, 85% is agriculture, the rest is mining, infrastructure and urban development. We could reduce land use by producing starch by an industrial chemical process instead of agriculture.

I'm not sure about food safety. This Chinese process may be efficient, but it produces methanol and formaldehyde as intermediates. Can we be sure the starch is food safe? Starch is currently used as animal fodder, cardboard manufacture, textiles, and pharmaceuticals. There are biodegradable disposable flatware (knives/forks, spoons). Plastic flatware has been given away with fast food to go, but disposable flatware has been made from starch. It's compostable. The video cites a paper that claims starch production will reach 160.3 million metric tons (tonnes) by 2026. This is a major market. Even if the Chinese process isn't food safe, or safe for pharmaceuticals, it could still be big business, and could dramatically reduce land use.

So I have to ask if the Chinese process to make starch could be used as feed stock for cultured meat?

Calliban · 2021-12-16 15:26:43

The production of food is the single greatest obstacle to human colonisation of bodies away from Earth. The reason is it is inefficient. Oxygen can be produced with 80% efficiency by electrolysis of water. Water costs around 1MJ/kg if thawed from ice, but can be recycled heavily. Metals and other resources can be produced using nuclear energy with varying efficiency. But food, even the most efficient food crops will only convert around 1% of sunlight energy into useful calories. That means a huge area of greenhouses that must be pressurised and heated. A lot of embodied energy and a lot of energy needed for operation. If we grow food underground using artificial light, the farm can be compact. But huge amounts of electricity are needed. The average adult needs 10MJ of food energy per day. That is about 3kWh. Let's say we use only the most efficiently utilised light wavelengths to illuminate the plant. Then perhaps 5% of light will be fixed as calories. But the LEDs may be only 20% efficient. So the average human needs about 300kWh of electrical energy each day simply to provide himself with food. That is a huge energy cost. It is the single biggest obstacle to deep space colonisation. Anything that reduces that energy cost is surely a good thing.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-12-16 15:35:56)

kbd512 · 2021-12-16 20:54:24

Calliban,

Incandescent bulbs are 10% to 20% efficient, on average. Modern LEDs are anywhere between 30% and 50% efficient, on average.

Anyway, the amount of power is still staggering. Feeding 1,000,000 adults translates to a bare minimum of about 3GWh of electrical power consumption per day. 100X more power is simply unworkable, so we need to figure out how to get that figure down to something manageable.

C3 plants lose 20% to 50% of their energy to photorespiration when they inadvertently absorb O2 instead of CO2. I'm thinking we might be able to "fix that" on Mars.

The numbers are still so crazy that I wonder if nuclear fission is up to the task.

We need to "science the stinky brown stuff out of this" to come up with a feasible solution.

RobertDyck · 2021-12-16 23:07:04

One technique some greenhouses in Alaska use for tomatos is to increase CO2. That reduces photorespiration to the point C3 plants out compete C4 plants. Since most food crops are C3 and most weeds are C4, that practically eliminates weeds. And it greatly increases production.

Unless...
NCBI: Effect of Carbon Dioxide on Photorespiration

Abstract
The isotopic CO2 technique for measuring photorespiration was shown to be a valid technique for measuring the unidirectional inward and outward fluxes of CO2 from a sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) leaf in the light. The rate of photorespiration was decreased little as the CO2 concentration was increased from 20 to 1,150 microliters per liter. This finding contradicts the widely held assumption that photorespiration is suppressed at high CO2 concentrations. Some discussion regarding this apparent conflict is presented.

Note: Concentration in microlitres per litre are ppm. CO2 in Earth's atmosphere today is roughly 407 ppm, so 20 to 1,150 is quite the experimental range.

RobertDyck · 2021-12-17 11:45:24

I will still argue for ambient light greenhouses on Mars. Habitats can be buried for radiation shielding. As I posted several times, we did a simple calculation during the Mars Homestead project. You can reduce radiation exposure to the same level as American nuclear reactor workers by limiting time outside in a spacesuit to 40 hours per week. That's a work week, so that's not a problem. Bury habitats so there's at least 2.4 metres (8 feet) of Mars dirt on the roof of every habitat/house for radiation shielding. And windows can have a reinforced concrete awning parallel to the ground, so more Mars dirt on the awning. This allows a window to look out on the surface of Mars without worrying about radiation. You could enhance that by making habitat windows with 2 panes and filling the gap between panes with mineral oil. That's how windows for radiation "hot cells" were built in the 1950s; it works.

But for greenhouses, just use ambient light. No, I don't want to hear about fancy mirror things. Just a greenhouse with glass windows for the walls and ceiling like any greenhouse on Earth. For an exploration mission we can use PCTFE film, but that won't last. Plastic film will degrade due to sand/dust storms. PCTFE is highly resistant to UV light, but it's just as susceptible to wind blown dust as any other polymer film. For a permanent settlement on Mars, use glass. Tempered glass is just normal glass that's been given a heat treatment to make it harder and stronger. Tempered glass is harder than the minerals in Mars surface sand/dust. We know what those minerals are because Mars landers and rovers have analyzed it. Since tempered glass is harder, it won't scratch. That means it won't craze. And just use argon gas between panes of glass for a greenhouse. Argon transmits heat more slowly than oxygen or nitrogen, so it helps with temperature control. Obviously windows will require a spectrally selective coating to block UV light, but also control IR light for radiant heat loss. Don't use LED lights for a greenhouse, just use ambient light. Plants that grow in shade such as beans or peas or carrots can grow on Mars without anything special. Sunlight on the surface of Mars is 53% that of the surface of Earth on a bright sunny cloudless day. Plants that require direct sun such has wheat or barley or rice or corn can grow in a long-narrow greenhouse with the long end oriented perfectly east-west. And mirrors along the long sides, mirrors that extend from the ground to the same height as the top of the greenhouse. Make the long-narrow greenhouse exactly twice width as height, and this means mirrors will double illumination. And flat mirrors do not need to track the Sun. One reason for long and narrow is sunlight at dawn will reflect westward (from east) into the greenhouse, but still shine into the greenhouse. At dusk the reverse happens. Mirror angle will have to be adjusted for season, but it only requires changing mirror angle 1° every 14 Mars solar days. So once every second Monday (or pick a day of the week) mirror angle can be adjusted. If mirror angle is off by 1° because something jammed and it takes a couple weeks to fix, that will not significantly affect crop growth. Obviously radiation protection inside these greenhouses would be the same as a spacesuit, so any agricultural workers must include that time in their 40 hours per week.

To make life pleasant, an indoor atrium will grow plants. Mars Homestead included a two story atrium with vaulted ceiling. The atrium was buried deep within a hillside, so lots of radiation shielding. Reflectors on the hill top did have to track the Sun, and would reflect light into light pipes. A light pipe for each vault, the apex of the vault would have a light diffuser. So the atrium was illuminated by natural sunlight even though it was deep within a hill.

Greenhouses would not require power, they're powered by sunlight. That means we don't need electrical power to produce food. However, meat production is very energy intensive. I could argue for aquaponics, but that will be limited. I argue for soil agriculture in greenhouses on Mars, because Mars has dirt and weight isn't a consideration on the surface of the planet. If you want a settlement to grow, you will require input of external source of biomass. Any system that simply recycles is one that can't grow. Recycling is nice, and sewage can be treated to produce fertilizer for hydroponics. Plant waste can feed fish in aquaculture tanks. Integration of the two is aquaponics. That's great, but doesn't allow growth, and doesn't replace any recycling losses. Soil agriculture means source of material is Mars dirt. So we'll have both. But in both cases, I argue for ambient light, not LED and no fancy mirror system. Plants are more resistant to radiation than humans or any mammal, they don't need radiation shielding. Sure, an SPE could destroy a crop. When was the last time Earth was hit by an SPE? They don't happen often. We can keep a protected seed bank to re-seed after an SPE.

The problem is livestock on a planet without a breathable atmosphere. That requires pressurized barns to hold livestock, sewage processing, water and oxygen recycling, all for the livestock. And it takes several pounds of fodder (animal feed) to produce one pound of meat. In calories, it takes several units of calories of fodder to produce one unit of calories of meat. It's not efficient. So I believe early Mars settlement will be vegan. Not for any philosophical reason, but just for efficiency. This thread addressed meat tissue culture, and I added the Chinese development of an industrial process for starch. That starch can be used for cardboard and other non-food uses. The starch might be suitable to feed meat tissue cultures. This could be a more efficient way to produce meat on Mars.

SpaceNut · 2021-12-17 20:09:32

The appearance of cultured meat is about the same as the vegetable in that it may well be a fad that will be short lived.

As for getting the levels of feed for large animals its going to be an issue for early starting and less so once we have an excess to make use of.

kbd512 · 2021-12-18 10:02:17

SpaceNut,

If you can guarantee no food-borne illnesses from tainted meat (Salmonella / E. Coli / etc), then it's not a fad to me. If the meat has the same chemical composition as animal muscle tissue, then it's "real meat", since that's what defines "meat". If it ends the vegan environmentalist freak-out over killing "poor defenseless animals", that would never think twice about eating a human if it was hungry, then even better. A vegan eating lab-grown meat is also still a vegan, since the definition of veganism is not eating animal-based products. Something grown in a lab is not animal-based. That's win-win in my book, and if it's truly more energy efficient than raising animals, then it's a "triple win".

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-04-30 05:55:18

Lab-Grown Meat Foods and Bug Meat is coming?

A food tech unicorn CEO bets big on China's appetite for lab-grown meat -he's also hoping to sell lab-grown chicken in the U.S. as soon as regulators allow and says that the lack of industrial tech for growing the meat is the biggest hurdle to global expansion
https://www.businessofbusiness.com/arti … rown-Meat/

Fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be - Mounting evidence shows that many of today’s whole foods aren't as packed with vitamins and nutrients as they were 70 years ago, potentially putting people's health at risk.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maga … used-to-be

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-15 04:11:23

More Hope for Frankenstein's Cloned BugMeat ???
https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/no- … ve-protein
The Coming “Meat Vortex”: Meat Is the Third Rail of Climate Politics; Here’s How to Break the Cycle

'More than changing the politics of land use, the ethics of eating animals, and the technological capacity of alternative meat firms, a reduction in animal meat consumption in favor of alternatives could create the political opportunity for stricter regulation of meat production and agriculture-related climate action, without the risk of consumer pushback.'

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-20 13:37:46

Lab-grown meat firms say post-Brexit UK could be at forefront
https://theguardian.com/environment/202 … regulation

Agronomics Invests a Further $2M in Chinese Cultivated Meat Producer CellX
https://vegconomist.com/cultivated-cell … cellx/amp/

Could eating bug powder and fungus meat help fight climate change? Yes, but there are easier ways
https://phys.org/news/2022-04-bug-powde … imate.html

Scientists Use Gene Editing to Create Mutant Cockroaches in Breakthrough
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn9m3/ … eakthrough

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-23 13:16:59

Future foods: What we could be eating by 2050.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61505548

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-26 04:09:09

World’s largest vats for growing ‘no-kill’ meat to be built in US
https://www.theguardian.com/environment … uilt-in-us

The building of the world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a “gamechanger” for the nascent industry.
The US company Good Meat said the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tonnes of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-06-05 12:05:52

ESA investigates cultured meat as novel space food

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Pr … space_food

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-06-07 05:14:37

The World’s Biggest Cultured Meat Factory Will Soon Be Built in the US

https://singularityhub.com/2022/06/01/t … in-the-us/

Democratising cultured meat: Japan’s Integriculture pushes co-culture tech to reduce costs

https://www.foodnavigator-asia.com/Arti … meat-costs

What food tech innovations do incubators expect to see 10 years from now?

https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2 … s-from-now

Vending machine selling fried insect snacks debuts in central Japan's Gifu Pref.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 … li/018000c

In Japan's landlocked prefectures, including Gifu, people have traditionally eaten insects as a source of protein. Nohira aspires to share this regional culture with children through bug food.

British schools to feed youngsters insects

(article seems alarmist they will probably grind it into some paste)

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/06/01/fo … s-insects/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-02 16:15:23

South African Company First in Africa to Produce Meat in Lab

https://www.voanews.com/a/south-african … 18870.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-14 06:45:16

Massive cricket-processing facility comes online in London, Ont.

Company hopes to produce 13 million kg of cricket protein annually, selling mostly to pet-food market
In the next few days, the first farmed insects will arrive at a new massive cricket-processing facility in London, Ont.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/c … -1.6506606
The plant comes with lofty goals. The chief executive officer hopes it will help tackle the planet's food insecurity problems.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-02 04:04:20

Lab-grown meat: what the future could look like

https://www.theverge.com/23274784/lab-g … ig-science

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-02 15:52:12

Global insect protein market spreads its wings by 2027

https://inhabitat.com/global-insect-pro … s-by-2027/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-10 04:36:25

Micro Meat and Orbital Assembly team up on space-based food production venture

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Micr … e_999.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-11 08:35:07

Will lab-grown meat be an animal friendly and sustainable future food?

https://farsight.cifs.dk/lab-grown-meat … inability/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-10-26 05:16:55

Beyond Meat is rolling out its steak substitute in grocery stores

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/24/beyond- … tores.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-03-30 07:12:52

‘Meat’ the end: synthetic food faces ban in Italy to protect culinary heritage

https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/03/30/m … -heritage/

Fake meat? No, grazie! Italian government to ban lab-made foods

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fake … -5zj3qjp3c

Italy to ban lab-grown meat

https://en.protothema.gr/italy-to-ban-lab-grown-meat/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-06-11 02:47:44

World's Largest Meat Processor JBS starts building lab-grown beef factory in Spain

https://www.reuters.com/article/jbs-lab … reddit.com

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-06-22 03:32:04

'No kill' meat, grown from animal cells, is now approved for sale in the U.S.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho … in-the-u-s

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-10-20 12:50:09

Lab-grown meat prices expected to drop dramatically

https://www.newsweek.com/lab-grown-meat … et-1835432

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#1 2021-12-16 12:46:22

Cultured meat facility opens in California, ready to sell to public

#2 2021-12-16 15:26:43

Re: Cultured meat facility opens in California, ready to sell to public

#3 2021-12-16 20:54:24

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#4 2021-12-16 23:07:04

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