Re: making cell mass using carbon dioxide and electricity

On Sun, 19 Jan 2025 11:07:33 -0600, RonO <rokimoto557@gmail.com>
wrote:

https://phys.org/news/2025-01-dual-reactor-consumable-cell-protein.html
>
These researchers are using two types of bacteria to produce "consumable
single-cell protein".  It looks like they use an acetate producing
bacteria and feed it with CO2 and Hydrogen.  They make the hydrogen by
splitting water with electricity (Oxygen gets expelled and hydrogen goes
into the growth medium).  They feed the acetate medium into another
culture of bacteria that can utilize acetate.
>
The system uses electricity, so you have to factor in the amount of CO2
produced in order to make that electricity.  Solar power and wind
turbines produce a lot of CO2 in their manufacture.
>
Using photosynthesis is likely more efficient in CO2 production, but it
may be that CO2 utilization is more efficient in producing acetate than
the low efficiency of RUBISCO in photosynthesis.  RUBISCO is the most
abundant protein on earth because it is so inefficient in carbon capture.
>
Ron Okimoto

Since you mention it, it's worth pointing out that, however
inefficient is RUBISCO at carbon capture, it works "good enough".
Although there may be potentially more efficient processes, and I
would expect a supernatural intelligent designer to have used them
instead, the necessary steps to evolve those new systems is too
improbable while those new plant species would still have to compete
with existing C3 and C4 plants.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge