China is experimenting with turning coal into food

[NickB79]

https://newatlas.com/science/coal-protein-feed/

One solution is moving toward lab-grown meat – but another may be to start producing protein for livestock feed using other methods. This would be a particular boon to China. According to Biotech researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country is currently forced to import around 80% of its protein raw materials in the form of soybeans and the like – and that's a serious food security issue for the nation.

So the team set about research into processes that could use fossil fuels to produce proteins, building on oil-to-protein biotechnology pioneered by BP as far back as the 1960s.

The CAS team's process works something like this: firstly, coal is transformed into methanol via gasification – a technique that can now be executed with near-zero carbon emissions. That methanol is then fed to a special strain of Pichia pastoris yeast, which ferments the methanol to produce a single-cell protein complete with a range of amino acids, vitamins, inorganic salts, fats and carbohydrates. The resulting organism is much richer in protein than plants are, and it can be used to partially replace fish, soybeans, meat and skimmed milk in a range of animal feeds.

I'm both intrigued and disgusted.

[NJCher]

1. I laughed at your last line

had the same reaction here !

[limbicnuminousity]

9. It is intriguing but I think it is a diversion.

It's a diversion from the fact that we need to rely more heavily on sustainable fuel and energy sources now.

Biologists can be weird. Harmless, but weird.

[Walleye]

2. Soylent Black?

[madinmaryland]

5. IT'S....

I don’t know what the fuck it is!!

[limbicnuminousity]

3. As a retired scientist I have to say it makes perfect sense.

As a person, it makes me squirm.

Icck.

[CentralMass]

4. How is it ? It's a bit crude. 😉

[Angleae]

6. That sounds yummy

[Wonder Why]

7. Isn't gasification already a problem with livestock? 😀

[Talitha]

8. It'll be added to animal feeds, not food that we would be directly eating.

"The resulting organism is much richer in protein than plants are, and it can be used to partially replace fish, soybeans, meat and skimmed milk in a range of animal feeds."

And since it's "much richer in protein than plants are", maybe acreage now being used to grow fodder plants can be used to grow plants for us to eat. And it'll keep coal miners employed. Maybe it'll work out ok.

[Bayard]

10. That, "resulting organism'," bit makes me a little nervous....

[jmowreader]

11. I don't know here

On one hand, if they can make synthetic proteins out of coal that wouldn’t be terrible.

On the other, China is famous for its attempts to screw with protein readings. So one does have to wonder how many ways people will try to abuse this.

[Hugin]

13. Hmm... Gasification?

Isn’t that what is currently done with cattle and methane?

:innocent look:

[Ursus Rex]

14. We already do that, in effect.

Our entire food production chain makes heavy use of fossil fuels, from planting and harvesting equipment, to fertilizers and other treatments, to the fuel that transports the products. This seems like it would just use more coal, albeit with potentially less pollution from burning it. It's still a finite resource with high extraction costs, though, and we should do everything we can to stay away from using it to produce consumables.