2020s statistics and 2050 net zero

[trm1958]

As we are over a third through the decade, we should have a handle on if we are on track to cut emissions in half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050 as we are supposed to. Are we making enough progress?

[Sebastian Jones]

Tom, one has to assume you're asking this question rhetorically, to make the point that we are hooped.
If one wants data to confirm that not only are we not bending the curve towards cutting emissions in half by 2030, one needs only check the Scripps CO2 monitoring site, or the analysis page on this site. Both show that rather than declining, the rate of increase is increasing.
Which means we are hooped.

[Sciguy]

Not sure about the 50% reduction by 2030, but the path to net zero by 2050 is achievable.

https://www.iea.org/news/the-path-to-limiting-global-warming-to-1-5-c-has-narrowed-but-clean-energy-growth-is-keeping-it-open

Since 2021, record growth in solar power capacity and electric car sales are in line with a pathway towards net zero emissions globally by mid-century, as are industry plans for the roll-out of new manufacturing capacity for them. This is significant, since those two technologies alone deliver one-third of the emissions reductions between today and 2030 in the pathway. Clean energy innovation has also been delivering more options and lowering technology costs. In the IEA’s original Roadmap in 2021, technologies not yet available on the market delivered nearly half of the emissions reductions needed for net zero in 2050. That number has now fallen to around 35% in this year’s update.

[Bruce Steele]

Sciguy, How is it we decarbonize agriculture? There is a huge problem with globalization of essentials like food dependent on very long distance transport. There is virtually zero effort to even monitor how individual farming practices are preforming let alone improving energy use . There are no zero carbon goals for food production. I am a farmer and can’t find any government agency to audit my farm energy use even if I request it.
 Why are you so convinced net zero is realistic unless you believe we can somehow magically sink carbon even while existing plans never seem to get past planning stages?
 1/3 of our carbon inputs are food based , so what gives?

[kassy]

Too cut the emissions by half by 2030 we need meaningful reductions starting before 2025. Since they have not been achieved this year we are running out of time.

So we are not doing enough but we know that. We can do more later but that still means the end result will be higher temperatures and an increased need for carbon capture.

We tend to go for technical solutions because we lack the will to impose limits on growth.

One big problem is that we never figured out what is actually safe.

Even assuming that we would make the net zero pathway in 2050 this will still mean reaching ice free Arctic summers before that which can kick temperatures up another notch.

It also means decades more of Antarctic ice loss which will accelerate in the mean time.

And there are so many other things: how much of the northern forests will have burned by then? How much of the Amazon is left? How much stratification will we see in the equatorial oceans by then?

We tend to underestimate the damages done to the Earth system but they are very real and most are not reversed or stopped automatically at ´net zero´.

Then we have bonus effects like increased methane emissions from waterbodies under warming temperatures and changes in clouds both of which are good candidates for previously unexplained temperature jumps.

[trm1958]

Sebastian Jones, while I was pessimistic about achieving the goal, I thought I would ask. Also, the question is whether emissions are on track, not CO2 levels. It is possible CO2 levels are being hiked by feedbacks already (which, of course, would be very bad news).

[El Cid]

Despite all the great targets and agreements last time I checked annul global CO2 emissions were still at an ALL TIME HIGH

[NeilT]

Are we making enough progress???

NO.  Remember 360.org?  Failed dreams.

[interstitial]

I think emissions will peak by 2030 but little reduction by then.

[gerontocrat]

Peak oil & gas has not yet happened, though renewable energy and EVs have reduced the rate of growth. Land use change from human activity is also a large source of increasing CO2 emissions.

At the end of next month we can sort through the rubble aftermath of COP28 to see what crumbs of comfort can be gleaned from the fine words we will hear from Al Jaber, the howls of dismay from climate & environmental activists, and with a bit of luck and digging some "off the record" stuff from the Fossil Fuel Barons.

Dr Fatih Birol (@fbirol), Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, has been politicking like crazy this year in an attempt to square the circle between the need to stop oil & gas investments NOW, and firm decisions by the fossil fuel industry (e.g. in the Middle East, US and UK) to invest bigtime in oil and gas production. A brave man and a die-hard optimist. Many will analyse his end of COP28 remarks with a fine toothcomb.

I am not filled with optimism. Yes, peak oil and gas will happen sometime this decade, but the impact on bringing down CO2 emissions will be at a glacial pace.

(Barring world economic recession / depression).

[NeilT]

I've been tracking the NOOA CO2 figures for more than a decade now.  One thing that is clear to me is the growth.

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html

I've spreadsheeted this a few time but should really make a template.  The key message is the decade on decade the "growth" is growing.

In 2010 the decadal average annual growth went over 2ppm and every year since has been over 2ppm decadal average.  In fact the average jumped to 2.4 in 2021 and appears to be continuing to grow.

You can see how it is growing.

1968   0.79
1978   1.22
1988   1.66
1998   1.49
2008   1.88
2018   2.29


2018   2.29
2019   2.38
2020   2.38
2021   2.45
2022   2.43


So I don't know how we can claim we are doing anything, globally, on CO2.

Here it is in bar chart form.  Note the impact of Mt Pinatubo.

[etienne]

NeilT, the trick is to adapt the metrics. You should try CO2 per Capita. It's what is done to calculate the cars' efficiency (CO2 per kg of car).

[NeilT]

How does CO2 per capital help?  These are global figures.  The planet doesn't really care how many people are on it, it cares about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

We keep writing accords saying we're going to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere and we keep expanding the CO2 in the atmosphere.

So net zero, based upon actual performance, is a lie.  At least so far.

[kiwichick16]

this update from carbon brief shows that currently we are 1.75 degrees above pre industrial temps

https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-global-temperatures-throughout-mid-2023-shatter-records/

[Sebastian Jones]

I've been tracking the NOOA CO2 figures for more than a decade now.  One thing that is clear to me is the growth.

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html

I've spreadsheeted this a few time but should really make a template.  The key message is the decade on decade the "growth" is growing.

In 2010 the decadal average annual growth went over 2ppm and every year since has been over 2ppm decadal average.  In fact the average jumped to 2.4 in 2021 and appears to be continuing to grow.

You can see how it is growing.

1968   0.79
1978   1.22
1988   1.66
1998   1.49
2008   1.88
2018   2.29


2018   2.29
2019   2.38
2020   2.38
2021   2.45
2022   2.43


So I don't know how we can claim we are doing anything, globally, on CO2.

Here it is in bar chart form.  Note the impact of Mt Pinatubo.

Thanks for posting these numbers Neil.
They clearly demonstrate that far from reducing emissions, we are increasing them, and at an ever faster rate.
And yet we see lots of climate policies that feature exactly the sort of things that lead to this exponential rise in CO2.
 Things like emissions intensity targets and net zero are simply pretend climate policies, pretending we can have our cake and eat it too.
Well, we can't.
So, Tom, far from making progress, we are still retreating, there is no prospect we shall achieve our current goal, any more than we met any of the earlier ones.
But there is a glimmer of hope: What cannot go on for ever will not go on forever.
Things are going to get really ugly before we reach that point.

[kassy]

Over 1.5 degrees above pre industrial temps for 4 months now so we need 14 years more years and another 8 months to officially hit the criterium that proves we actually broke the 1,5C barrier. And that is if you use 15 years as the climatological baseline. Some studies use up to 25 which seems a bit much, at least for informing policy in the current conditions.

The temps will go up a bit more and then they will come down a bit but to a higher level. No idea where we will end up but if the lower level is 1,5C it´s not that hard to predict what is going to happen next temp wise. If it is 1,3 that would take one more EN.

So even if we hit the 2050 net zero target that would still mean dealing with 1,5C for a long time. I wonder how bad that will get in a couple of years since the last few years were bad enough.

[kassy]

This seems pertinent:

Current fossil fuel use makes UN climate targets 'very difficult' to achieve, says IEA

The International Energy Agency warned Tuesday that energy policies must evolve if global warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, saying fossil fuel use is still "far too high".

...

"As things stand, demand for fossil fuels is set to remain far too high to keep within reach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C," the agency said.

"This risks not only worsening climate impacts after a year of record-breaking heat, but also undermining the security of the energy system, which was built for a cooler world with less extreme weather events," the IEA added. (Yeah that´s our problem  ).

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/current-fossil-fuel-makes-un-134245754.html

[etienne]

How does CO2 per capital help?  These are global figures.  The planet doesn't really care how many people are on it, it cares about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

We keep writing accords saying we're going to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere and we keep expanding the CO2 in the atmosphere.

So net zero, based upon actual performance, is a lie.  At least so far.

I didn't want to be an idiot, but I find that it is really difficult to talk about any kind of consumption limitation. With my Invisible Protest (https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,4036.0.html), I didn't got any positive feedback outside of this forum. Everybody seems to make efforts, but with a growing population and Jevon's Paradox, it just isn't enough.

World petrol consumption per capita has peaked around 1979, since, it is rather flat.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-consumption-per-capita?country=~OWID_WRL

I'm not sure that so many people in the rich world already heard about buy nothing day.

[NeilT]

How does CO2 per capital help?  These are global figures.  The planet doesn't really care how many people are on it, it cares about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

We keep writing accords saying we're going to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere and we keep expanding the CO2 in the atmosphere.

So net zero, based upon actual performance, is a lie.  At least so far.

I didn't want to be an idiot, but I find that it is really difficult to talk about any kind of consumption limitation. With my Invisible Protest (https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,4036.0.html), I didn't got any positive feedback outside of this forum. Everybody seems to make efforts, but with a growing population and Jevon's Paradox, it just isn't enough.

World petrol consumption per capita has peaked around 1979, since, it is rather flat.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-consumption-per-capita?country=~OWID_WRL

I'm not sure that so many people in the rich world already heard about buy nothing day.

I understand the concept of messaging and trying to find figures which mean something to people especially  high emitters.

But the situation we are in today needs to encompass everyone and everyone, high emitter or not, needs to look at ways not to emit at all.

We can only do this showing that everyone is in this problem, not just the high emitters and that the only way out of this problem is for everyone to reduce emissions with the  higher emitters taking the biggest hit.

Sorry for the hard line but it really is make or break time.

Otherwise we'll leave half the population of the world thinking they can just come up to the level of everyone else in emissions before it is a problem.

Which will just kill the half trying to grow their emissions all the faster.

[gerontocrat]

I've posted a lot of stuff about where the IEA say we are going on the COP28 thread as they are aiming their stuff at the COP28 meeting.

Some images as well. here are 2 sobering reality checks

[wdmn]

Adding to the sober reality check is that there is no international governance structure capable of enforcing rules on countries.

Thus under the current "rules of the game," we come up against the prisoner's dilemma. We don't actually know that other countries will follow through on their promises. Those who begin to dismantle infrastructure, lose institutional capacity/knowhow (for example, around nuclear power), and impose restrictions on their own industries are at risk of being the biggest losers. Not only will these actions fail to protect them against the worst of climate change, other actors very well could take advantage of these preemptory good faith moves, benefiting in various sectors of the global market, as well as in asserting military might.

Governments are first and foremost responsible to their own people. That means ensuring a safe, and reliable grid, access to the energy needed to have a robust economy, and the means to self-defence.

The way out is likely going to have to be technological, though allies could coordinate on shared legislation to be enacted across countries. This doesn't get around the problem of non-allies.

[Sigmetnow]

Sciguy, How is it we decarbonize agriculture? There is a huge problem with globalization of essentials like food dependent on very long distance transport. There is virtually zero effort to even monitor how individual farming practices are preforming let alone improving energy use . There are no zero carbon goals for food production. I am a farmer and can’t find any government agency to audit my farm energy use even if I request it.
 Why are you so convinced net zero is realistic unless you believe we can somehow magically sink carbon even while existing plans never seem to get past planning stages?
 1/3 of our carbon inputs are food based , so what gives?

The Food Farms of the future will use 1% of the land currently needed for animal production.  They can be located anywhere. And “individual farming practices” become moot:
 
Animal Protein produced by Precision Fermentation will be cheaper, more efficient, and will free up 2.7 Billion hectares of land (the size of the US, China, and Australia combined), which can absorb 20% of the carbon emissions we produce today.
— Tony Seba
New video:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3209.msg385887.html#msg385887

[Bruce Steele]

OK Sig, so by 2030 half of all current ag production will be displaced by something else, and all of the worlds current crop and animal protein gone by 2050? I don’t think so but you have been far more prescient than most people on BEV and you put your money where your mouth is and it paid off.
I will probably be here with you in seven years as we have both been here together since ASIF started over ten years ago. I don’t think agriculture will have changed one bit by 2030 other than less small farms and more corporate ones. People will still eat cheap chicken and pigs grown in terrible conditions and they will not think twice about their culpability in what amounts to animal cruelty. Small guys like me will be fewer and fewer and seven years older and probably poorer for their efforts. I put my money into my small farm, the house I sold in Santa Barbara is worth far far more than my chunk of dirt although it was an even trade 23 years ago. Everything will be more of the same until the oil runs out and then my little chunk of ground might look like I knew what I was doing. I enjoyed the ride and I’d rather work than wallow on the couch. I am challenged in more ways than one, no mental giant but a nice physical specimen , just like my pigs. 😅 I am the last pig farmer in Southern Calif. and odds are my whole operation will fail , or my stamina will as I approach eighty but don’t write me off yet. My farm and I will really be fighting odds to make 2050 but I think oil will meet it’s demise before I do. The farm and the riparian  water rights that go with it may indeed be very valuable by 2050 and for all I know orange trees may be  growing in Buellton.
 It shouldn’t be a surprise that I am getting more calls from people interested in my pigs these days but that is merely success by default.
 I will have a nice forest of Mulberry and without a lot of effort to kill them they will outlive you and I and all our living relatives. The USDA farm agent and biologist will be coming by on Thursday , I will show them the spring I have restored, the perennial patch of milkweed I maintain, the dozens of naive Sycamores in their native habitat, the endangered steelhead habitat in the river,
the willows and endangered willow flycatcher and bells vireo habitat, the endangered livestock I maintain, and they will probably show me things I don’t even know are there in the untouched twenty acres of land that I don’t farm. Maybe you think the big corporate guys would do better, maybe when all of us small farmers fail because nobody needs us anymore my thirty acres will magically be maintained by the real estate speculators, but I kinda think the world needs people with dreams and calluses and a lifetime working side by side with the elements. It’s still a free country  and I can thumb my nose at a couple million dollars if I feel like it.

[etienne]

The crops will stay. You also need to feed the precision fermentation. I swear that I prefer your pigs and eating crops directly instead of huge amount of cheap meat. The problem is the kids, now that they are 17 and 18, I can't tell them what to eat, and the older one is a meat lover. Surprisingly, organic beef is a lot cheaper (25 EUR/kg) than organic chicken (between 30 and 40 EUR/kg when bones are removed). 

[oren]

Tony Seba's predictions are wildly optimistic. I wouldn't bet my only planet on him being right in both content and timelines.

Bruce, thanks again for sharing, your posts give hope and show things can be done with enough tenacity.

[Sigmetnow]

Bruce,
• You should keep doing what you are doing on your farm.  Just don’t expect many others to copy you — you serve a niche, and your solution does not scale up.  Wishing for that is like wishing for “faster horses” at a time when self-propelled vehicles were about to entirely transform the transportation sector.
• We need to get rid of Big Ag and CAFO.  Precision Fermentation will do that, by producing more food, more cheaply, in 1% of Big Ag’s footprint, and freeing up multiple continents-worth of land that will then absorb carbon instead of emitting it. 
• Ten thousand years ago, we domesticated animals and started planting crops, so we no longer needed to hunt and gather berries.  Now, we will transform food production again, by using new methods which are a thousand-fold more efficient.  Less waste, fewer emissions, no animal cruelty.  And quite easy and quick to scale up once it catches on.  The food industry has previously completely changed major ingredients in only four or five years.
• Will things be different?  Yes.  But that’s OK.  In many respects, for most of the world’s people — and for the environment — it will be better.

—-

Tony Seba's predictions are wildly optimistic.

Oren,
Tony Seba has also been wildly accurate.  Several of his graphs from ten years ago, for example when batteries were $500/kWh and he predicted $100/kWh in 2023, are spot on.  People called him crazy and asked what he was smoking.  So yes, he may be optimistic.  But he may also be right.

[NeilT]

Tony Seba has found an inflection point in technology where technological advancement, consumer demand and price to manufacture meet and combine to drive producers to produce the new product in place of one or more old products.

The fact is that this inflection point has been fairly consistent over the last century.

Problems which seem insoluble have suddenly found the funding and the production capability to be solved.  Products have taken leaps of development which, for the old regime, were simply not possible.

If you think of the iPhone, screen technology, battery, storage and processor speed came together to allow the creation of a truly groundbreaking device with totally new ways of doing things at a price which was acceptable to the consumer.

It also drove competition from Google with Android and the companies who leveraged this were nothing to do with phones before the transition.

Seba says the true change always comes form outside the existing structure.  Put another way, incumbents get flattened by step changes in technology.

New seed money will always be there for the ground breakers.  Almost 100% of that seed money will go to the new product.  Whereas legacy producers may see as little as 30% of the allocated "transition" funds go to a new and groundbreaking product.  The existing products which are dying out will suck the life out of the business.

Having found the inflection point in the past transitions and tested it thoroughly, the only trick is to determine where the inflection point is today.

I would not bet against Seba on Electrification or Precision Fermentation.  He may be off by as much as half a decade but unlikely to be more.  It is unlikely that he will be totally wrong.

However the most important thing I took from his presentation was designing solar for the trough.  Wind too.  I've been talking about this for a LONG time now and everyone says I'm wrong.

Building your solar or wind or solar and wind to supply as much energy as needed for normal demand, on the worst possible generation day or week, or designing for the tough, means you always have enough power and can reduce the amount of batteries you need.

He has a concept of Super Power.  I agree.  However you do need interconnects.

[kassy]

We need to get rid of Big Ag and CAFO.  Precision Fermentation will do that, by producing more food, more cheaply

So those investing into Big Ag and CAFO will go big on PF.

Another problem is how we actually put the food together. Some of the emulsifiers used in processed food are probably causing health problems.

We will see how far it goes.

We need direct action way before 2030.

[Sciguy]

Here’s a good overview about how agricultural emissions can be reduced to net zero:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18601-1

Costa, C., Wollenberg, E., Benitez, M. et al. Roadmap for achieving net-zero emissions in global food systems by 2050. Sci Rep 12, 15064 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18601-1

Abstract
Food systems (FSs) emit ~ 20 GtCO2e/y (~ 35% of global greenhouse gas emissions). This level tends to raise given the expected increases in food demands, which may threaten global climate targets. Through a rapid assessment, evaluating 60+ scenarios based on existing low-emission and carbon sequestration practices, we estimate that intensifying FSs could reduce its emissions from 21.4 to − 2.0 GtCO2e/y and address increasing food demands without relying on carbon offsets (e.g., related to afforestation and reforestation programs). However, given historical trends and regional contexts, a more diverse portfolio of practices, including diet shifts and new-horizon technologies, will be needed to increase the feasibility of achieving net-zero FSs. One likely pathway consists of implementing practices that shift food production to the 30th-percentile of least emission-intensive FSs (~ 45% emissions reduction), sequester carbon at 50% of its potential (~ 5 GtCO2e/y) and adopt diet shifts and new-horizon technologies (~ 6 GtCO2e/y). For a successful transition to happen, the global FSs would, in the next decade (2020s), need to implement cost-effective mitigation practices and technologies, supported by improvements in countries’ governance and technical assistance, innovative financial mechanisms and research focused on making affordable technologies in the following two decades (2030–2050). This work provides options and a vision to guide global FSs to achieving net-zero by 2050.

The roadmap for net-zero food systems
Without relying on carbon offsets (e.g., related to afforestation and reforestation), FSs have the potential to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 (Fig. 3), but countries’ contextual constraints are likely to limit the potential reach of implementation. However, recent engagement of global FSs actors, along with advances in the plant-based protein industry and disruptive technologies17,35,36, has created momentum for action that may speed the implementation of low-emission and carbon sequestration practices, as well as the dissemination of diet shifts, to move FS emissions away from current trends. In this context, a vision for a net-zero FSs encompasses:

Large-scale adoption of low-emission practices to shift the production to the 30th pctl of least emission-intensive systems (~ 45% emissions reduction across FSs), which could mitigate 10.6 GtCO2e/y, or ~ 50% of the mitigation needed by 2050 compared to the 2020 base year.

Realizing 50% of the carbon sequestration potential associated with low-emission practices (i.e., soil carbon, agroforestry and biochar) could contribute another ~ 24% (5.2 GtCO2e/y) emission reduction.

Reducing the remaining FS emissions (5.6 GtCO2e/y) by decreasing 2050 projected livestock production, especially in high- and middle-income countries, in 25% (1.2GtCO2e/y) and by deploying new-horizon technologies (4.4 GtCO2e/y) (Fig. 3).

[Sigmetnow]

For those who are interested, Tony Seba has an account on X:  @tonyseba
Pessimists need not apply.

Alex @alex_avoigt
With renewable energy generation, many costs will fall significantly, trending near to zero.
Later generations will wonder how we could spend so much money on fossil and nuclear fuels, even though it carries many risks.

10/25/23, 4:36 AM. https://x.com/alex_avoigt/status/1717097791384625182
 

Tony Seba @tonyseba
 
Energy (#SWB), transportation (#TaaS), food (#PF/#CA), intelligence (#AI/#ML) and labor (#Robotics/AI/ML) will become superabundant with costs trending to zero.
 
The end result will be a near-zero cost, distributed, networked, localized, near-zero carbon, superabundant production system. 🌐 🤖 🦾

10/24/23, https://x.com/tonyseba/status/1716971050205139082
 
⬇️ Image below from: pic.twitter.com/wtQj0tWzs5 

[Bruce Steele]

Siguy, if I look around my farm for hundreds of miles I see zero implementation of any of the measures needed. I don’t see biochar being used and have no idea where it could be purchased at a cost encouraging it’s use. We have virtually no compost production that could cover the millions of acres that need it other than food scrap and wood grinders at the waste management facilities anywhere in Southern Calif. The reason is we don’t have any woody crops or cheap nitrogen source like dairy. Largely because it is a desert irrigated by expensive water from distant sources. The Central Valley does have the potential to produce both but that production is based on Dairy and orchards that are replanted as they age out. The orchards don’t cover crop and with almonds and pistachios they dry the ground and strip it to bare ground so they can shake the trees and mechanically sweep the nuts. Grapes are heavily planted locally and partially cover cropped each year( between rows)  but grapes don’t need much nitrogen. If you make the soil too healthy the grapes are crap.
 Horses take up lots of space and alfalfa to please the wealthy. Pets in general use lots of food resources. A large majority of local land lies idle because it is divided as residential property and owned by people who are wealthy and don’t farm. The Central Valley is different ,corporate owned , and cropped with almonds , pistachios , alfalfa and feed corn and some grain. Dairy is the largest producer. The marginal lands between the coast and the Central Valley run beef that head to concentrated feed operations. 
 Although I am very small my farm runs on solar and batteries with an electric tractor. There are larger e-tractors becoming available now. I think I bought one of the first dozen ever sold in the state. I cover crop most every year there is enough rain. I irrigate with riparian water ( renewable) using solar. I am going to plant trees where before I had vegetables. Vegetables are labor intensive and we just can’t compete with free trade labor in nearby Mexico. I doubt any of these techniques are used there.
But as to Sigmetnows  comment that what I do won’t scale WTF . I am doing everything  suggested in how agriculture is suppose to reform. All you need is more solar panels, more batteries and bigger electric tractors. It would be nice to not pump deep aquifers but lawyers and corporate monies resist that like the plague. The thing that bothers sig is my pigs but pigs aren’t methane producers, they can eats food otherwise considered waste and I am going to plant mulberries to reduce their grain intake.
 You have to start somewhere people ! Nobody big is going to adopt radical changes before they are proven. You can’t prove what works without so too monitoring results with audits by qualified third party assessments. You can’t just take government grants , throw them in the air and hope farmers will work out the details.
 It takes years to grow an orchard, it will take years beyond that to prove any technique actually sinks carbon in the environment where the adaptions are implemented. You need biochar sources and compost sources that farmers can afford. You need to get rid of most peoples pets and horses. Even if precision fermentation works and is healthy you need the public to be willing to eat the stuff ie markets and marketing. Lots of marketing. Fake meat already has a bad rap and there will need to be some efforts to backfill mistakes already made. Beyond meat has not been a success . The bioengineered meat in Indonesia is using bovine blood plasma sourced by killing cows to get to the aborted fetuses. This is crazy bad and if the public gets any wind of it years of damage will be done to plans for precision fermentation because people won’t make the distinction between what is good or bad fake meat.
Anyone who has ever sold food has to understand their markets and they take years and years to develop. We aren’t talking adoption of solar panels on your roof that reduces your utility costs , we are talking things that people are putting in their mouths, things that they enjoy and believe are healthy. We are talking what mothers are willing to feed their children . Seven years? Bullshit , not gonna happen, no inflection point, sorry.
 If what I am trying to do won’t scale we are all in for a world of hurt as the oil peters out. If the oil doesn’t peter out we are gonna change the climate so fast farming will peter out.

[etienne]

Bruce, there is one thing you oversee, it is schools, hospitals, retirement 's homes and work canteens. If precision fermentation is cheaper, they'll winn these markets. But I guess they will first try to produce luxury fake meat.

[Sigmetnow]

Bruce, there is one thing you oversee, it is schools, hospitals, retirement 's homes and work canteens. If precision fermentation is cheaper, they'll winn these markets. But I guess they will first try to produce luxury fake meat.

Plus, jails and prisons (the US has a lot of them), homeless shelters, food banks, Meals on Wheels, Border Patrol sites.  Refugee camps and food-starved areas in other countries.  There’s a huge population where any kind of food at all is a luxury.  Even in the US, to those with low income, cheaper food allows for more food*, and cheap protein in any form is better nutritionally than the typical nutrient-poor junk food which has led to the increase in obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

*Or, any food at all.  “Sometimes we can’t eat, because we have no money for it.”  Choosing between food and medication.  Or rent.

[El Cid]

I listened to Seba's presentation on precision fermentation. I think it is BS. First of all, food does not only contain proteins but many many more things necessary for human health (which reminds me of the time when "experts" suggested that breastfeeding is unnecessary because baby formulas contain all that is needed...turns out that it is as far from the truth as possible). Yet he says that the only valuable part of milk is the 3% protein, all else is "just water" or unnecessary things.

 Proteins are important but carbohydrates are even more. Where do these come from? Not from fermentation.  Which relates to the second question: what is the foodstock fo this "precision fermentation"? I would guess sugars. Which will come from corn or other plants which are grown on fields. So all this talk of growing our food on a few acres of land is not credible to me

[NeilT]

A quick look at some articles elicits.

These are then fermented with nutrients and sugar in tanks akin to those that use beer

Looking for biosugar shows that marine algae Kappaphycus alvarezii can produce biosugars by acid hydrolysis.

From an abstract.

The results showed that that the highest biosugar yield was obtained at an algal concentration of 0.5% and an acid concentration of 0.1 M, yielding a sugar content of 0.54 g sugar/g dry biomass.

Which I would say is a pretty high concentration.  Not sure about how polluting the H2SO4  is though or how easily it can be re-used.

https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/precision-fermentation-animal-free-dairy-facts/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/860/1/012078

[Sigmetnow]

Yet he says that the only valuable part of milk is the 3% protein, all else is "just water" or unnecessary things.

To start, the food industry is using the cultured dry milk proteins in place of the dried cow’s milk proteins they normally use.  Other ingredients will come later.  But even use such as that could free up the land equal to all the dairy farms in Canada, IIRC.

General Mills, which produces household brands like Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Annie’s, Nature Valley and Häagen-Dazs, launched a series of Bold Cultr cream cheeses, first using precision-dairy milk proteins from Perfect Day, then from Israeli foodtech start-up Remilk. (Last month, General Mills said it was “deprioritizing funding” for these cream cheeses, so its future is uncertain.) Perfect Day’s ingredients are being used in Brave Robot ice cream in the United States, Modern Kitchen cream cheese in the United States, California Performance Co. protein powder in the United States, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Coolhaus ice cream products in the United States and Singapore.

Perfect Day, the first to market in the United States, is also partnering with Mars, Nestlé, Starbucks, Graeter’s and other companies to provide milk protein for products. Its office is a gleaming, multistory facility in an industrial part of Berkeley, Calif. that has become a locus for food and biotech start-ups. It has fermentation and separations teams, analytics and regulatory experts, legal and logistics teams, as well as two full-time chefs to prototype products and dishes in a sleek exhibition kitchen. In addition to its Berkeley facility, the company operates a 90,000-square-foot production facility in Bangalore, India and a 58,000-square-foot factory in Salt Lake City.

Change Foods, founded in 2020, is headquartered in both Australia and the United States, and is in the process of building a commercial manufacturing plant in Abu Dhabi that will produce the volume of animal-free milk protein casein equivalent to the output of 10,000 dairy cows. Like Perfect Day, it aims to be an ingredient company that supplies its milk protein to other established food companies, but it will launch its own branded cheese products in 2025. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/12/precision-cultivated-dairy/
 
If that link is paywalled, much of the article is here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3209.msg361739.html#msg361739

Need to find a link to his written reports….  EDIT:  see next post.

[Sigmetnow]

Registration is required to download the full report, but the executive summary is here:  https://www.rethinkx.com/food-and-agriculture-executive-summary

Excerpts:

Food and Agriculture
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
We are on the cusp of the deepest, fastest, most consequential disruption in food and agricultural production since the first domestication of plants and animals ten thousand years ago. This is primarily a protein disruption driven by economics. The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035 than existing animal proteins, before ultimately approaching the cost of sugar. They will also be superior in every key attribute – more nutritious, healthier, better tasting, and more convenient, with almost unimaginable variety. This means that, by 2030, modern food products will be higher quality and cost less than half as much to produce as the animal-derived products they replace.

The impact of this disruption on industrial animal farming will be profound. By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50% and the cattle farming industry will be all but bankrupt. All other livestock industries will suffer a similar fate, while the knock-on effects for crop farmers and businesses throughout the value chain will be severe.

This is the result of rapid advances in precision biology that have allowed us to make huge strides in precision fermentation, a process that allows us to program microorganisms to produce almost any complex organic molecule.

These advances are now being combined with an entirely new model of production we call Food-as-Software, in which individual molecules engineered by scientists are uploaded to databases – molecular cookbooks that food engineers anywhere in the world can use to design products in the same way that software developers design apps. …

This rapid improvement is in stark contrast to the industrial livestock production model, which has all but reached its limits in terms of scale, reach, and efficiency. As the most inefficient and economically vulnerable part of this system, cow products will be the first to feel the full force of modern food’s disruptive power. Modern alternatives will be up to 100 times more land efficient, 10-25 times more feedstock efficient, 20 times more time efficient, and 10 times more water efficient.1,2 They will also produce an order of magnitude less waste.
…
The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the proteins in a bottle of milk – just 3.3% of its content. The industry, which is already balancing on a knife edge, will thus be all but bankrupt by 2030.

This is not, therefore, one disruption but many in parallel, with each overlapping, reinforcing, and accelerating one another. Product after product that we extract from the cow will be replaced by superior, cheaper, modern alternatives, triggering a death spiral of increasing prices, decreasing demand, and reversing economies of scale for the industrial cattle farming industry, which will collapse long before we see modern technologies produce the perfect, cellular steak.
…

By 2035, about 60% of the land currently being used for livestock and feed production will be freed for other uses. This represents one-quarter of the continental U.S. …

Modern foods will be cheaper and superior to animal-derived foods. The cost of modern food products will be half that of animal products and they will be superior in every functional attribute – more nutritious, tastier, and more convenient with much greater variety. Nutritional benefits could have a profound impact on health, both in a reduction in foodborne illness and in conditions such as heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes that are estimated to cost the U.S. $1.7 trillion every year.
 …

The cost of modern foods and other precision fermentation products will be at least 50% and as much as 80% lower than the animal products they replace, which will translate into substantially lower prices and increased disposable incomes. … All other livestock and commercial fisheries will follow a similar trajectory.

…
The volume of crops needed to feed cattle in the U.S. will fall by 50%, from 155 million tons in 2018 to 80 million tons in 2030. This means that, at current prices, feed production revenues for cattle will fall by more than 50%, from $60bn in 2018 to less than $30bn in 2030.

Farmland values will collapse by 40%-80%. The outcome for individual regions and farms depends on the land’s alternative uses, amenity value, and policy choices that are made.
…
The average U.S. family will save more than $1,200 a year in food costs. This will keep an additional $100bn a year in Americans’ pockets by 2030.
…
Water consumption in cattle production and associated feed cropland irrigation will fall by 50% by 2030, on course to 75% by 2035. Even when the modern food production that replaces animal agriculture is included, net water consumption in the sector as a whole will decline by 35% by 2030, on course to 60% by 2035.

…
Higher quality, more nutritious food will become cheaper and more accessible for everyone. In the developing world in particular, access to cheap protein will have a hugely positive impact on hunger, nutrition, and general health.
…
Large endowments of arable land and other natural resources are not required to lead the disruption, so the opportunity exists for any country to capture value associated with a global industry worth trillions of dollars that ultimately emerges over the course of this disruption. …

https://www.rethinkx.com/food-and-agriculture-executive-summary

[oren]

The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030

By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50%

Nice and clear predictions. I assume the first one is the globsl cost.
I call complete BS at least on the first one, and probably on the second one. No way in hell such a large global system can be transformed so quickly.
Perhaps the first few facilities will be ready?

Global protein consumption was ~200 million ton per annum a few years ago, expected to rise to 300-400 million ton by 2030, with growing population and rising affluence.
If prices drop 5-fold, global annual consumption could easily be 500-600 million ton.
Tony Seba claims for some reason that precision fermentation production facilities will be ready and operational by 2030 in an amount that can produce hundreds of millions of tons of protein.  That is pure and utter fantasy.

[Sigmetnow]

The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030

By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50%

Nice and clear predictions. I assume the first one is the globsl cost.
I call complete BS at least on the first one, and probably on the second one. No way in hell such a large global system can be transformed so quickly.
Perhaps the first few facilities will be ready?

Global protein consumption was ~200 million ton per annum a few years ago, expected to rise to 300-400 million ton by 2030, with growing population and rising affluence.
If prices drop 5-fold, global annual consumption could easily be 500-600 million ton.
Tony Seba claims for some reason that precision fermentation production facilities will be ready and operational by 2030 in an amount that can produce hundreds of millions of tons of protein.  That is pure and utter fantasy.

Change Foods, founded in 2020, is headquartered in both Australia and the United States, and is in the process of building a commercial manufacturing plant in Abu Dhabi that will produce the volume of animal-free milk protein casein equivalent to the output of 10,000 dairy cows.

One plant = 10,000 dairy cows.  So 100 plants could take the place of a million dairy cows. And these are just the first factories; later ones will be scaled up much further.  Other factories will produce other proteins, also scaling up as the process becomes accepted, desirable, affordable yet profitable.  Millions of tons?  Easily.  Estimate off by a few years?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

[Sublime_Rime]

One plant = 10,000 dairy cows.  So 100 plants could take the place of a million dairy cows. And these are just the first factories; later ones will be scaled up much further.  Other factories will produce other proteins, also scaling up as the process becomes accepted, desirable, affordable yet profitable.  Millions of tons?  Easily.  Estimate off by a few years?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

According to the USDA Sept. 2023 report, there are 89.2 million cows in the US, down from 94 million in 2021. Going by this trend of 2.5 million per year decrease, we'd be at half the number in a little under 20 years. But if from these factories alone, it would require 4000 more factories by the above estimate. Not in any way feasible in 6 years and change.

[Sigmetnow]

One plant = 10,000 dairy cows.  So 100 plants could take the place of a million dairy cows. And these are just the first factories; later ones will be scaled up much further.  Other factories will produce other proteins, also scaling up as the process becomes accepted, desirable, affordable yet profitable.  Millions of tons?  Easily.  Estimate off by a few years?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

According to the USDA Sept. 2023 report, there are 89.2 million cows in the US, down from 94 million in 2021. Going by this trend of 2.5 million per year decrease, we'd be at half the number in a little under 20 years. But if from these factories alone, it would require 4000 more factories by the above estimate. Not in any way feasible in 6 years and change.

Later factories should gain efficiencies that increase output by an order of magnitude or more….

[Sciguy]

Siguy, if I look around my farm for hundreds of miles I see zero implementation of any of the measures needed. I don’t see biochar being used and have no idea where it could be purchased at a cost encouraging it’s use. We have virtually no compost production that could cover the millions of acres that need it other than food scrap and wood grinders at the waste management facilities anywhere in Southern Calif. The reason is we don’t have any woody crops or cheap nitrogen source like dairy. Largely because it is a desert irrigated by expensive water from distant sources. The Central Valley does have the potential to produce both but that production is based on Dairy and orchards that are replanted as they age out. The orchards don’t cover crop and with almonds and pistachios they dry the ground and strip it to bare ground so they can shake the trees and mechanically sweep the nuts. Grapes are heavily planted locally and partially cover cropped each year( between rows)  but grapes don’t need much nitrogen. If you make the soil too healthy the grapes are crap.
 Horses take up lots of space and alfalfa to please the wealthy. Pets in general use lots of food resources. A large majority of local land lies idle because it is divided as residential property and owned by people who are wealthy and don’t farm. The Central Valley is different ,corporate owned , and cropped with almonds , pistachios , alfalfa and feed corn and some grain. Dairy is the largest producer. The marginal lands between the coast and the Central Valley run beef that head to concentrated feed operations. 
 Although I am very small my farm runs on solar and batteries with an electric tractor. There are larger e-tractors becoming available now. I think I bought one of the first dozen ever sold in the state. I cover crop most every year there is enough rain. I irrigate with riparian water ( renewable) using solar. I am going to plant trees where before I had vegetables. Vegetables are labor intensive and we just can’t compete with free trade labor in nearby Mexico. I doubt any of these techniques are used there.
But as to Sigmetnows  comment that what I do won’t scale WTF . I am doing everything  suggested in how agriculture is suppose to reform. All you need is more solar panels, more batteries and bigger electric tractors. It would be nice to not pump deep aquifers but lawyers and corporate monies resist that like the plague. The thing that bothers sig is my pigs but pigs aren’t methane producers, they can eats food otherwise considered waste and I am going to plant mulberries to reduce their grain intake.
 You have to start somewhere people ! Nobody big is going to adopt radical changes before they are proven. You can’t prove what works without so too monitoring results with audits by qualified third party assessments. You can’t just take government grants , throw them in the air and hope farmers will work out the details.
 It takes years to grow an orchard, it will take years beyond that to prove any technique actually sinks carbon in the environment where the adaptions are implemented. You need biochar sources and compost sources that farmers can afford. You need to get rid of most peoples pets and horses. Even if precision fermentation works and is healthy you need the public to be willing to eat the stuff ie markets and marketing. Lots of marketing. Fake meat already has a bad rap and there will need to be some efforts to backfill mistakes already made. Beyond meat has not been a success . The bioengineered meat in Indonesia is using bovine blood plasma sourced by killing cows to get to the aborted fetuses. This is crazy bad and if the public gets any wind of it years of damage will be done to plans for precision fermentation because people won’t make the distinction between what is good or bad fake meat.
Anyone who has ever sold food has to understand their markets and they take years and years to develop. We aren’t talking adoption of solar panels on your roof that reduces your utility costs , we are talking things that people are putting in their mouths, things that they enjoy and believe are healthy. We are talking what mothers are willing to feed their children . Seven years? Bullshit , not gonna happen, no inflection point, sorry.
 If what I am trying to do won’t scale we are all in for a world of hurt as the oil peters out. If the oil doesn’t peter out we are gonna change the climate so fast farming will peter out.

While some programs may take more time to roll out, like bio char, others have been used for decades.  Seattle has been composting yard waste and food waste for decades.

And California is a leader on agricultural methane emission reduction.  UC Davis has a good overview of the program at this website:

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/news/new-report-california-pioneering-pathway-significant-dairy-methane-reduction

New Report: California is Pioneering a Pathway to Significant Dairy Methane Reduction
Analysis by UC Davis researchers shows continued implementation of California’s incentive-based dairy methane reduction efforts should, by 2030, achieve the full 40% reduction goal.
December 14, 2022

The California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF) and University of California, Davis CLEAR Center today announced the release of a new analysis of methane reduction progress titled Meeting the Call: How California is Pioneering a Pathway to Significant Dairy Sector Methane Reduction. The paper, authored by researchers at UC Davis concludes that efforts are on track to achieve the state’s world-leading target for reducing dairy methane emissions by 40% by 2030.

The report finds that methane reductions from California’s programs and projects in place today, coupled with the implementation of a moderate feed additive strategy to reduce enteric emissions, is on track to reduce between 7.61 to 10.59 million metric tons of methane (CO2e) by 2030, all from the dairy sector alone.

[Sciguy]

A quick internet search reveals a lot of studies and many programs involving startup of biochar production facilities.

https://journalstar.com/news/local/government-politics/bloomberg-formalizes-grant-fund-that-helped-lincoln-build-biochar-facility/article_bc91bd0c-31a1-58f3-8dfc-60e7e4f0e199.html

The Bloomberg Cities Ideas Exchange builds on the success of programs like an environmental initiative in Lincoln that turns wood waste into a charcoal-like material called biochar that reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

In 2022, the city received a $400,000 grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch the program, and it has already made a difference in the city, said Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird. The biochar — which the city produces from trees blown down in storms or damaged by the emerald ash borer beetle — traps carbon, conserves water and improves the soil.

Without the Bloomberg Philanthropies grant, Lincoln would not have been able to launch the biochar initiative so quickly, Gaylor Baird said, or receive a $100,000 grant from the Nebraska Forest Service.

Mattias Gustafsson, co-founder of the consulting firm EcoTopic and the project manager of the Stockholm Biochar Initiative, which the Lincoln project is modeled after, said he is “proud and amazed” to see the idea replicated around the world. In the United States, Cincinnati and Minneapolis have also launched biochar projects, along with Helsinki, Darmstadt, Germany, Helsingborg, Sweden, and Sandnes, Norway – all with help from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

https://carbonherald.com/plans-approved-for-pioneering-mersey-biochar-facility-in-warrington/

Plans Approved For The Pioneering Mersey Biochar Facility In Warrington

by
Petya Trendafilova
October 24, 2023


Planning permission has been granted for a state-of-the-art new carbon-capture facility at Lingley Mere business park in Warrington, UK.

The facility, Mersey Biochar, will lock away thousands of metric tons of carbon a year into biochar, a versatile product with a range of uses from improving soil quality to decarbonizing the construction industry. Led by climate-action organisations Severn Wye Energy Agency and Pure Leapfrog, a consortium of experts is behind the project which will be hosted by United Utilities at Lingley Mere business park.

Construction is due to begin in November, with the unit supplied by PyroCore and the biochar facility built by energy specialists Vital Energi. Capturing carbon and other greenhouse gases will be critical for the UK’s plans to meet net zero by 2050 and the facility promises to make an important contribution to the country’s carbon-capture potential.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/business-food/sand-to-green-desert-morocco-spc-intl/index.html

This Moroccan startup is growing crops in the desert
October 24, 2023

Sand to Green is a Moroccan startup that can transform a patch of desert into a sustainable and profitable plantation in five years, according to Wissal Ben Moussa, its co-founder and chief agricultural officer.

The system can be deployed anywhere near a source of brackish water, which Sand to Green desalinates using solar-powered technology. It then plants a variety of fruit-producing trees and herbs in the same space — a practice known as intercropping — and drip-irrigates their roots directly with the desalinated water, to minimize evaporation.

The soil is regenerated using what Sand to Green calls “green manure,” a mixture that includes compost, biochar and microorganisms that help the soil “wake up,” according to Ben Moussa. Biochar is a form of charcoal that can help arid soils retain water.

This allows some herbs to be ready for harvest after just two years.

[oren]

The cost of proteins will be five times cheaper by 2030

By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50%

Nice and clear predictions. I assume the first one is the globsl cost.
I call complete BS at least on the first one, and probably on the second one. No way in hell such a large global system can be transformed so quickly.
Perhaps the first few facilities will be ready?

Global protein consumption was ~200 million ton per annum a few years ago, expected to rise to 300-400 million ton by 2030, with growing population and rising affluence.
If prices drop 5-fold, global annual consumption could easily be 500-600 million ton.
Tony Seba claims for some reason that precision fermentation production facilities will be ready and operational by 2030 in an amount that can produce hundreds of millions of tons of protein.  That is pure and utter fantasy.

Change Foods, founded in 2020, is headquartered in both Australia and the United States, and is in the process of building a commercial manufacturing plant in Abu Dhabi that will produce the volume of animal-free milk protein casein equivalent to the output of 10,000 dairy cows.

One plant = 10,000 dairy cows.  So 100 plants could take the place of a million dairy cows. And these are just the first factories; later ones will be scaled up much further.  Other factories will produce other proteins, also scaling up as the process becomes accepted, desirable, affordable yet profitable.  Millions of tons?  Easily.  Estimate off by a few years?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

I know you are sn eternal optimist but really? A startup puts out a press release and the problem is solved?
In Oct 2022 Change Foods claimed to have raised $15 million to date, and that contruction will begin by the middlle of next year (2023). When will it be ready? When will it reach full capacity? Are we certain the startup will not fail? What will be the price of protein coming out of the plant?
There are 270 million dairy cows worldwide, and over 1.5 billion cows in total.
Say the one plant is ready by 2025 and really generates protein equivalent to 10k cows.
Later plants are supposed to be more efficient by studying the first plant. So they will be ready by 2028? (study existing plant, redesign, make financial plans and raise money, construct).
Need 27000 plants just to replace the proteins from the global number of dairy cows.
Need an unknown number of further plants to replace the 5-fold number of other cows.
And yet Tony Seba claims all of this happens and is ready by 2030.
Tony Seba is purely and utterly wrong and misleading in this prediction and I bet he knows it too. Off by a few deacdes is more likely. Yet it brings him popularity and support from those who prefer to think global problems can be magically solved and fail to consider the scales of the global problems and the time it takes to change things that have a large installed base.
Let's circle back to 2030 and we'll see.

[El Cid]

I still don't know where the sugars for the fermentation come from.

[John_the_Younger]

Surely someone has visioned a factory that produces sugar from seaweed or fungus growing in a test tube. Half jest and half serious.  But darn it, those test tubes will use up all the known supplies of quartz sand …

[Richard Rathbone]

I still don't know where the sugars for the fermentation come from.

Its the grass that isn't being eaten by cows but mowed by robots and fed to steel tanks instead.

Robocows.

Its another step along the ultra-processed route, "food" thats designed to make you obese.

See
Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris Van Tulleken

Interview (audio with transcipt) if you don't want the whole book
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-science-behind-food-and-dangers#details

[Sigmetnow]

Tony Seba
You mean #PrecisionFermentation (PF) still needs sugar as feedstock, right?
Yes, it does. Although we could use many #carbohydrates as a source of #sugar.

10/26/23, 7:05 PM. https://x.com/tonyseba/status/1717678907972010006

—-

Its another step along the ultra-processed route, "food" thats designed to make you obese.

To start, the food industry is using the cultured dry milk proteins, biologically the same molecules as dried cows milk, and thus the food containing it is no more “processed” than that using the cow product.  Plus, it’s less prone to contamination and spoilage versus the usual, more lengthy, supply chain.

 

Change Foods, founded in 2020, is headquartered in both Australia and the United States, and is in the process of building a commercial manufacturing plant in Abu Dhabi that will produce the volume of animal-free milk protein casein equivalent to the output of 10,000 dairy cows.

One plant = 10,000 dairy cows.  So 100 plants could take the place of a million dairy cows. And these are just the first factories; later ones will be scaled up much further.  Other factories will produce other proteins, also scaling up as the process becomes accepted, desirable, affordable yet profitable.  Millions of tons?  Easily.  Estimate off by a few years?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

I know you are sn eternal optimist but really? A startup puts out a press release and the problem is solved?

Pretty sure Tony Seba studied more than one startup press release before making his calculations about how Precision Fermentation would completely disrupt the food industry.

General Mills, which produces household brands like Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Annie’s, Nature Valley and Häagen-Dazs, launched a series of Bold Cultr cream cheeses, first using precision-dairy milk proteins from Perfect Day, then from Israeli foodtech start-up Remilk. (Last month, General Mills said it was “deprioritizing funding” for these cream cheeses, so its future is uncertain.) Perfect Day’s ingredients are being used in Brave Robot ice cream in the United States, Modern Kitchen cream cheese in the United States, California Performance Co. protein powder in the United States, Singapore and Hong Kong; and Coolhaus ice cream products in the United States and Singapore.

Perfect Day, the first to market in the United States, is also partnering with Mars, Nestlé, Starbucks, Graeter’s and other companies to provide milk protein for products. Its office is a gleaming, multistory facility in an industrial part of Berkeley, Calif. that has become a locus for food and biotech start-ups. It has fermentation and separations teams, analytics and regulatory experts, legal and logistics teams, as well as two full-time chefs to prototype products and dishes in a sleek exhibition kitchen. In addition to its Berkeley facility, the company operates a 90,000-square-foot production facility in Bangalore, India and a 58,000-square-foot factory in Salt Lake City. …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/12/precision-cultivated-dairy/
If that link is paywalled, much of the article is here:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,3209.msg361739.html#msg361739

[El Cid]

Well, that is not exactly an answer. He says, yes we need sugars. I ask: where do those sugars come from?


(what currently happens is that solar energy is transformed into sugars by plants and cows use those sugars to create your protein...he suggests that cows are very inefficient in converting sugars to proteins - which is true as the feed conversion ratio is quite high for cows, cca 5-10, but eg. only 2 for chicken! - so we should use microorganisms to convert sugars into proteins. I don't know the feed conversion ratio of microbes but they are surely above 1. And chicken have cca 2, fish are also around 2, so there is no room for improvement but not that much as he states. The point is that you still need huge areas to grow carbs unless you can use solar to directly to create sugars out of air (co2) like plants do)

((secondly, cows are really not very good for the ecosystem IF we grow corn and soybeans for them on prime land that could be used to grow food directly for humans, Cows are very useful when they use MARGINAL land that could NOT be used for growing crops. Good example is the hilly feet of the Alps and semidry steppes. Big herbivores are part of these ecosystems. We need them. What we don't need is them being cramped into "cow-factrories")

[Sigmetnow]

Well, that is not exactly an answer. He says, yes we need sugars. I ask: where do those sugars come from?

As he wrote, Carbohydrates, which are composed of complex sugars. 
So the question becomes:  How much milk protein can cows make from a ton of grass, corn, hay, etc. versus converting a ton of carbohydrates directly into milk protein using yeast?
He’s not saying all farmland will be eliminated.  But the land needed to raise cattle or maintain dairy farms, plus the land needed to grow their inefficient feedstock, is much, much more than the land required to grow crops that yeast will process into an equal amount of food protein.