A research team from FInland has developed a scientific breakthrough that could change the world. By creating a method for producing food from electricity this tool if able to scale up will fight world hunger and climate change.
The Finnish team has created a single cell protein using only renewable energy that is nutritious enough to be served for dinner. The synthetic food which requires only electricity, water, carbon dioxide, and microbes is part of the Food From Electricity project started by Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Raw materials are first exposed to electrolysis in a bioreactor, forming a powder that is more than 50 percent protein and 25 percent carbohydrates.
Commercial capacity is realistically 10 years away in terms of the necessary legislation and process technology.
Currently it takes about two weeks for a bioreactor about the size of a coffee cup to produce one gram of protein. The next stage is working on improving efficiency and optimize the system to scale up and produce more.
Jero Ahola, a Professor at LUT, said in the press release that it “does not require a location with the conditions for agriculture, such as the right temperature, humidity or a certain soil type.”
A working solution toward solving world hunger. Imagine a world without hunger and reducing carbon emissions at the same time.
The machine could provide food for people constantly since it works independently of environmental factors.
The Food From Electricity technology can be hooked up to renewable power sources providing cleaner and healthier food supply.
Thus decreasing the amount of unsustainable farming needed to feed the world providing us with a smaller, cheaper, and renewable method of getting our nutrients. The team is also working on other solutions to this same problem including lab-grown meat and insect farming to continue producing less waste and require less energy in feeding the world.
