{"id":8301,"date":"2018-11-02T16:42:36","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T15:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8301"},"modified":"2018-11-02T16:42:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T15:42:36","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-food-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8301","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week – food from air"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Monbiot wrote an article on a weird sounding idea “food from air” in the Guardian this week.\u00a0 All bacteria need an energy source (a source of electrons).\u00a0 Most bacteria also need a carbon source (usually the same molecule e.g. glucose) to make proteins and DNA etc.\u00a0 However, bacteria that are photosynthetic (and there are many) use light as the source of electrons and CO2<\/sub> as the carbon source.\u00a0 There are other slightly more unusual bacteria that do not photosynthesis but can still use CO2<\/sub> as the carbon source.\u00a0 It is this group that solar foods<\/a> are using.\u00a0 The energy source is hydrogen produced by electrolysis using solar powered electricity.\u00a0 The idea is the bacteria are harvested for their protein which we then eat.\u00a0 The diagram below swiped from the pdf file they sent me when I registered on their website outlines the process.<\/p>\n

\"food<\/a>The advantages claimed are ones relating to land area and and soil use (there is no soil involved).\u00a0 Its also not weather dependent ( a big advantage going forward).\u00a0 Nor does it need light.The question is is food from air more efficient in terms of land area than conventional farming?\u00a0 Also would it have public acceptability?\u00a0 Looking at acceptability the answer is almost certainly yes.\u00a0 After we eat Quorn which is fungi based.\u00a0 I would add making the bacteria suitable flavour wise will involve continue to involve stuff grown in fields.\u00a0 Nutritionally they claim it contains all the essential aminoacids (we cannot make them all ourselves).<\/p>\n

The big question is how much of contribution doe we want it to make?\u00a0 Should it as George seems to think replace conventional agriculture?\u00a0 I am a bit suspicious\u00a0 of the land area claims made over artificial meat and the same with this.\u00a0 There are a lot of us and replacing conventional food with biotechnological products will not be easy.\u00a0 This is despite the fact you could carry out the process underground.\u00a0 In addition I’m not a big fan of hydrogen.\u00a0 The reason its been used is to avoid the necessity of using light as an energy source (which gives its own problems as we looked at with Algae in our book<\/a>) in addition from the biology point of view hydrogen is a high potential energy source of electrons.\u00a0 From the electrolysis point of view thanks to thermodynamics its not terribly efficient and of course the land area ceded by growing stuff is required by solar PV to power the splitting of water.\u00a0 Can this make a contribution to cutting our meat consumption?\u00a0 Certainly.\u00a0 Is it the answer to all our problems no.\u00a0 I’d rather eat this than insects though*.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n

* I quite happily eat Quorn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Monbiot wrote an article on a weird sounding idea “food from air” in the Guardian this week.\u00a0 All bacteria need an energy source (a source of electrons).\u00a0 Most bacteria also need a carbon source (usually the same molecule e.g. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-one-thing-we-have-learnt-this-week","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOne thing we have learnt this week - food from air - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8301\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8301\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8301\",\"name\":\"One thing we have learnt this week - 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