Every time you breathe you produce carbon dioxide (CO2). As do the nearly 19.6 billion chickens, 1.4 billion cattle, and 980 million pigs we keep on the planet. This gas is one of the main contributors to global warming, and agriculture is one of the human activities with a stronger impact on CO2 emissions.
In Europe, agriculture is the second biggest source of greenhouse gases, after energy production. Given that the human population worldwide is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, the environmental effects of food production can only get worse. That is, unless we could develop new ways to feed an increasing population in a sustainable way. This is the aim of two European projects, HYDROCOW and REACT-FIRST, which are set to recycle the CO2 from the air into proteins, which can be used as animal feed and/or in our kitchen.
Plants do it
In both cases, the process aims to imitate nature. As Peter Rowe, CEO of Deep Branch and partner in REACT-FIRST puts it: “The idea of using carbon dioxide to make food is nothing new. Plants do it. Plants use carbon dioxide as a source of carbon to grow and produce food. What’s more interesting is that plants evolved from the same kind of microbes that we use in our process.” – Read the full interview of Peter Rowe
Although similar, the methods used in these two projects mostly differ in the type of microorganisms they use. Whereas in REACT-FIRST they use non-GMO microbes, in HYDROCOW the consortium aims to modify naturally existing bacteria which “eat” CO2 and hydrogen to produce and secrete β-lactoglobulin, the most abundant protein in cow’s milk. This modification is required as most bacteria do not produce this protein and because it increases the quality of the secreted protein and the efficiency of the process.
Similar to wine making
So, how does it actually work? The best analogy could be wine making, a well-known fermentation process. However, although similar, there are a couple of relevant differences. As Peter Rowe puts it: “First, instead of using sugar, we use carbon dioxide as a carbon source and other gases to provide other basic elements. Second, instead of wine, our microorganisms produce protein…”
This is indeed an important difference. The goal for both projects is to produce high-quality protein products mainly because, as Arttu Lukkanen, Senior Vice President at Solar Foods and partner in HYDROCOW, says “…making proteins is a hard process. Most plants are very efficient in accumulating carbohydrates but not so much when it comes to protein production (except for crops like pea or soybean), and their amino acid profile is not as close as that of animal proteins such as those in milk, for example.” – Read the full interview of Arttu Lukkanen
The end-product is not the (only) end goal
However, producing protein alone is not enough. HYDROCOW and REACT-FIRST want to revolutionise food production methods to become ethical and sustainable. That is why their processes are powered using green energy sources, reducing their carbon footprint. According to Peter Rowe, “using renewable energy for the process can result in at least 70 percent savings compared to soy protein, or according to our data, at least a 25 percent saving in the carbon footprint of a salmon steak.”
Another great advantage is that such a production method could be implemented “anywhere on the planet where there are green energy sources, since CO2 is everywhere” as Arttu Lukkanen explains. In his view, “this is the most sustainable way of producing protein currently on the planet.”
So, the process is efficient, ethical, and respectful to the environment, but are consumers open to eat food produced in a tank? Well, according to Arttu Lukkanen, this should not be an issue as “wine, cheese, and beer exist since immemorial times; we have actually been consuming microbe-derived foods for a long time. We are only now using new kinds of bacteria.”
Nonetheless, we will most likely continue to eat animal foods. What these new products add is a safe, nutritious, sustainable alternative which can also help in situations with limited access to high-quality protein.
In Singapore, a restaurant is already using a microbe-derived protein product in their menu, which includes ice cream. Slowly, these products are paving their way into our pantries, but availability and cost will remain an issue until these production processes can be efficiently scaled up to meet our protein requirements.
Useful links:
• Producing milk with CO2 and electricity
• Revolutionising food production: ‘Similar to making wine’