[TheAntiDoomer]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/06/cellul ... ition.html

Tweet Pronutria offers a scalable solution to the rising economic, human, and environmental cost of food. Our Nutriculture™ technology is so efficient at producing pure nutrients, it could satisfy the global demand for protein ingredients in a land area smaller than New York City and meet the daily protein requirements for a billion people in a land area no bigger than Rhode Island.

The Pronutria process is radically more efficient than current agriculture and livestock cultivation, and produces pure nutrition up to 1,000 times more efficiently, with minimal environmental impact and maximal nutrition quality.

[Tanada]

If it works it will be great, we can stop monocrop agriculture and shift to edible forest gardens for variety with minimum labor input and still feed everyone.

That is assuming it doesn't need a lot of fossil fuel inputs for production, processing, shipping and end user delivery.

[PrestonSturges]

I remember a book about algae from the 1960s about feeding the world using chlorella.

[Keith_McClary]

Pronutria offers a scalable solution

Looking at their site, I don't see any indication of what scale they have attained.

[Rune]

David Berry

In 2005, Berry founded LS9 which uses synthetic biology to engineer microorganisms to covert sustainable, plant-based materials into low-carbon fuels and chemicals. LS9 has successfully built on technologies he invented with other co-founders to produce a scalable platform for renewable fules and chemicals.[8] This technology has now been successfully scaled to a fully operational 135,000L facility in Okeechobee, Florida.[9] The impact and importance of LS9's technology led to its being named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum in 2008[10] and its being awarded the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s highest environmental honor.

ProNutria was founded by the same wunderkinf scientist who founded Joule Unlimited which uses engineered organisms to produce liquid fuel.

[Beery1]

Tweet Pronutria... could satisfy the global demand for protein ingredients in a land area smaller than New York City and meet the daily protein requirements for a billion people in a land area no bigger than Rhode Island.

In a world whose biggest problem is overpopulation and the pollution it brings, how on Earth is Soylent Green a solution?

[Rune]

Joule is making commercial scale direct solar conversion biofuel plants starting in 2014/

Upon full-scale commercialization, the company ultimately targets 25,000 gallons of Sunflow™-E and 15,000 gallons of Sunflow™-D per acre annually, for as little as $1.28/gallon and $50/barrel respectively (excluding subsidies). These products will directly address the global markets for ethanol and diesel fuel without the economic or environmental consequences of their biomass- or fossil-derived counterparts.

Joule has successfully pilot-tested its platform for over two years, commissioned its SunSprings™ demonstration plant, and launched a global subsidiary, Joule Fuels, to deploy fuel production sites worldwide. Construction of the first commercial plants is expected to begin in 2014.

This article just out today on NextBigFuture.com.

This brilliant scientist/venture capitalist is using the same fundamental knowledge of engineering organisms to do a variety of things - make liquid fuel, create edible proteins... It's true 21st century industrial revolution.

The guy is solving some major world-class problems.

Joule Unlimited, LENR - these have been two of my favorite posting subjects. But there has been a long lull in news from either of them. It`s funny that news is breaking on both of these subjects once again.

As long as technology supports a huge human population, there will be one - until maybe machine intelligence really kicks in and the average Joe's skillset is completely obsolete. Then we would be at The Technological Singularity.

Assume, for a moment, that clean, ultra-cheap, portable energy is available to anyone anywhere. And healthy proteins (food) can be created on location anywhere in the world. Dense population centers would no longer be necessary. The population would spread out to desert areas and previously uninhabitable areas. Water would not be a problem given gobs of energy to distill and pipe fresh water.

It boggles the mind how profoundly these technologies could utterly change the whole world, the whole economic system, could utterly change the basic valutations of everything. The financial markets would experience tsunamis leading to who knows what.

But what is so stunning is that these technologies - engineered organisms used to produce fuels, foods, etc. and the harnessing and widespread use of the Pons-Fleischman effect (LENR) - apparently these technologies are definitely on the way in the very near future.

[Rune]

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Teachings
In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way, argued in terms that today go under the banner of convergent evolution. Teilhard argued in Darwinian terms with respect to biology, and supported the synthetic model of evolution, but argued in Lamarckian terms for the development of culture, primarily through the vehicle of education.[12]

Teilhard makes sense of the universe by its evolutionary process. He interprets complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, into consciousness (in man,) and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point).

To wax profundo about these technologies - cheap, abundant, sustainable energy and cheap, abundant, sustainable food, along with the already global and rapidly advancing network of human communications girdling the planet - no one has stated it better than Pierre Teilhard De Chardin.

In evolutionary terms, the whole skin of the Planet Earth seem destined to blossom into some kind of mega-awareness. Human Beings appear to be ushering in this Noosphere.

Teilhard de Chardin could be considered the first "Singularitarian" in that regard. His ideas were polar opposite from those ofthe assorted apocalyptics of the world - or the eschatological views of various religions.

If Teilhard de Chardin were to regard technology advancements such as engineered organisms to make food, fuels, materials of vast variety, or virtually free energy from LENR, he would consider them as important precursors to his "Omega Point" - a planetary, super-consciousness, an ultimate spirituality.

Read "The Phenomenon of Man" for a better idea. It's the best synthesis of science and religion I've ever seen.

[Ibon]

Cutting back on land used for livestock and making a protein alternatives to meat would be good for preserving biodiversity since deforested lands, particularly in the tropics, are often converted to cattle pastures.

However, I tend to agree with Beery1's comment above. The article mentions this could be a way to feed the 950 million malnourished starving people on the planet.

Do we really want to commit resources to feeding the 1/7th on the planet who live in such marginal habitats that they cannot grow enough food to feed themselves. Aren't we better off scaling back on the heroic efforts and allow our population to fall back to a sustainable number without some fancy agro technology to feed the hungry?

This protein combined with grains would create a complete balance of protein and carbohydrates. It does really make sense as part of a solution with scaled down human numbers.

But let me make this once again clear...... Attempting to find sustainable solutions for 7 billion going on 9 billion is not a solution for man does not live by bread alone. Once you get 1 billion fed and out of poverty they move up the next rung on the ladder of consumption. There are other constraints beside food that define exceeding carrying capacity.

I personally do not want to see this technology increasing the resilience of Kudzu Ape until we bring down the population to a level where we can call ourselves humans again.

[PrestonSturges]

A couple years ago there was a good article about I think photosynthetic cyanobacteria that had been engineered to directly secrete butanol (? )

[Beery1]

[As long as technology supports a huge human population, there will be one...

If that's true, then the human race has about 200 years max before it causes a runaway greenhouse effect.

[eclipse]

The really interesting thing about Pronutria is the money. Their claims about isolating out specific protein structures from algae for aiding human health and muscle development have been taken fairly seriously as a drug potential. Their parent company, Flagship, have an income of $370 million, of which nearly $11 million has gone to Pronutria.

These guys aren't going away any time soon.

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/201 ... ner-table/

If one assumes that they pay off in terms of enhanced protein tablets for the elderly, then their funding base is locked in. They could make big money. If that happens, a whole Pronutria R&D division could open up in its own right. If it is possible to provide the world's protein needs from an area roughly the size of Sydney, for a tenth the price, then these guys seem cut out to do it!

[Ulenspiegel]

For me the interesting aspect is that all these we-save-the-world projects depend on photosynthesis, therefore, a rough estimate of efficiency and maximum potential should use the efficiency of photosynthesis as reference.

BTW: Hartmut Michel, the guy who won the Noble price for his work on the structure and function of the photosynthetic reaction centre calls in the editorial of very good journals these approaches in principle nonsense because of the low efficienc (esp. compared to available PV) of the photsynthesis. For me all this is a simply selling of snake oil (seach for dumb money) as long as no hard data are delivered.

[KaiserJeep]

The concept of algae cellular based nutrition replacing yeast cultures as a source of food was advanced in the visionary 1968 SF novel Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. It was a stunningly fresh SF plot in the late 1960's, and it remains fresh today, even though it depicts an alternative reality (it is set in 2010 and depicts a world that does not exist, but still somehow seems like it is more likely to arise than the world we have). It predicted Peak Oil, an overpopulated planet, extreme environmental damage, etc. Considered a Dystopian plot at the time, today it seems positively escapist in nature, because it describes a world under united, effective, and positive political management - those people were working on - and in fact solving - the problems they had.

Of course, this is also about the dozenth time I have seen a bit of SF technology abstracted out of a classic novel, then promoted on the net. Prospective investors beware.

[Keith_McClary]

Of course, this is also about the dozenth time I have seen a bit of SF technology abstracted out of a classic novel ...

Where does your "scooping gasses from gas giant planets" technology come from?

[Tanada]

Of course, this is also about the dozenth time I have seen a bit of SF technology abstracted out of a classic novel ...

Where does your "scooping gasses from gas giant planets" technology come from?

That's hard science. It was in Wired magazine. Or was it Omni?

The theory goes way back at least to the 1960's and appeared in sci-fi novels by Jerry Pournelle by at least the 1970's. An Aerobraking maneuver was used in 2010 (the movie not the year) to slow a ship down into Jupiter orbit. In 1994 the Magellan radar mapper in orbit around Venus used aerobraking to adjust its orbit, then eventually used it to cause reentry after its final data had been sent back to Earth. As a fuel saving step some Earth satellites have used a one or two orbit aerobraking maneuver to lower the highest point in their orbit with less fuel expended than if they had used the fuel alone to do the maneuver.

Scooping gas is just a version of aerobraking where the satellite or space ship has enough speed to exit the atmosphere after closest approach.