<story><title>Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes</title><url>https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1099648817601921024</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spqr0a1</author><text>In general I’m bullish on biotech but best case for tissue culture meat still leaves me sceptical. Most of the hype focuses around beef substitutes, beef cattle is about as inefficient as animal agriculture gets at ~3% efficient on an energy basis of edible parts.&lt;p&gt;Dairy jerseys and laying hens are both ~12%, with meat chickens ~15%. The best replicating eukaryotic cell culture I know are certain yeast at 50%. So a best case scenario is factor of 3 improvement, I&amp;#x27;d welcome results from multicellular organisms that got anywhere close to that but I haven&amp;#x27;t seen it.&lt;p&gt;Supposing there are no improvements to be had on the cell metabolism side; dressing percentage for broiler chickens is 70% so getting rid of brain, digestive tract, immune system, etc. doesn’t improve things that much. Keep in mind that tissue cultures are a lot more picky about feedstock than whole animals. Good luck shovelling hay into that bioreactor. All of the processing that the feedstock takes will claw back your productivity gains and then some.&lt;p&gt;Margins are slim at the bottom. As capital intensive as modern farming is, biotech puts it to shame. Once you factor in amortizing all that equipment this is a non-starter.&lt;p&gt;The only appeal is from an animal welfare angle. Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>belorn</author><text>Energy efficiency is interesting, but it is important to see the whole picture. Maybe we should be using a land efficiency rating instead?&lt;p&gt;Take reindeer meat as an extreme case. Their energy efficiency from converting lichens to meat is not going to be 100%, but the alternative use for artic land are quite few.&lt;p&gt;Applying the same line of thought, we can find examples also for beef. There are cattle farms here in Sweden that use highland cattle to graze forest areas, including protected forests. They keep down bushes and other plants which results in an increased bio diversity. A win win situation for everyone involved.</text></comment>
<story><title>Paul Graham on the Transition to Meat Substitutes</title><url>https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1099648817601921024</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spqr0a1</author><text>In general I’m bullish on biotech but best case for tissue culture meat still leaves me sceptical. Most of the hype focuses around beef substitutes, beef cattle is about as inefficient as animal agriculture gets at ~3% efficient on an energy basis of edible parts.&lt;p&gt;Dairy jerseys and laying hens are both ~12%, with meat chickens ~15%. The best replicating eukaryotic cell culture I know are certain yeast at 50%. So a best case scenario is factor of 3 improvement, I&amp;#x27;d welcome results from multicellular organisms that got anywhere close to that but I haven&amp;#x27;t seen it.&lt;p&gt;Supposing there are no improvements to be had on the cell metabolism side; dressing percentage for broiler chickens is 70% so getting rid of brain, digestive tract, immune system, etc. doesn’t improve things that much. Keep in mind that tissue cultures are a lot more picky about feedstock than whole animals. Good luck shovelling hay into that bioreactor. All of the processing that the feedstock takes will claw back your productivity gains and then some.&lt;p&gt;Margins are slim at the bottom. As capital intensive as modern farming is, biotech puts it to shame. Once you factor in amortizing all that equipment this is a non-starter.&lt;p&gt;The only appeal is from an animal welfare angle. Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CharlesW</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Even there an argument could be made that humane husbandry is positive-utility rather than the neutral of lab-grown, while also coming out ahead environmentally.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can that be true? Animals from U.S. factory farms generate &amp;gt;1 million tons of manure per day (open-air lagoons of animal waste are a special treat) and are responsible for an impressive percentage of methane emissions.</text></comment>