Chinese Scientists Synthesized Starch From Carbon Dioxide (phys.org) 33
AltMachine shares a report from Phys.Org: Chinese scientists recently reported a de novo route for artificial starch synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first time. Relevant results were published in Science on Sept. 24. The new route makes it possible to produce starch, a major component of grains, by industrial manufacturing instead of traditional agricultural planting and opens up a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from CO2. The artificial route can produce starch from CO2 with an efficiency 8.5-fold higher than starch biosynthesis in maize, suggesting a big step towards going beyond nature. It provides a new scientific basis for creating biological systems with unprecedented functions. "If the overall cost of the process can be reduced to a level economically comparable with agricultural planting in the future, it is expected to save more than 90% of cultivated land and freshwater resources," said MA Yanhe, corresponding author of the study. In addition, it would also help to avoid the negative environmental impact of using pesticides and fertilizers, improve human food security, facilitate a carbon-neutral bioeconomy, and eventually promote the formation of a sustainable bio-based society.
None of this is sustainable (Score:4, Informative)
All the machinery to get food grade pure gasses which won't poison the catalyst and enzymes have a ton of non recycleable parts. Also together with the enzyme production they likely destroy any volumetric or energy advantage for the synthetic approach.
Re: None of this is sustainable (Score:5, Informative)
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Well then, perhaps this will inspire someone to work out a better way to mass-produce sufficiently pure CO2. You're often talking decades to bring whole new technology to market, plenty of time for existing tech to be refined or re-imagined into something more complementary.
It also seems to me like something that could be *very* useful on Mars in the mid-term, where you have a plentiful 95% pure CO2 atmosphere to work with. Efficient, compact industrial food-calorie production would be a huge boon, allowi
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The actual process is behind a paywall, but there's a diagram that shows the first step: convert CO2 to methanol by adding hydrogen. This looks like one of the usual reactions used in the industrial production of methanol from syngas, which is pretty dirty stuff. Once you have the methanol the rest of the process doesn't look so i
Of course obtaining green hydrogen is a huge problem. The most economical source of hydrogen is natural gas steam reformation, which is considered "grey hydrogen" because the pro
A little food coloring (Score:3)
Cue the ... (Score:2)
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Why are racists so good at doing laundry?
They always separate the whites with from the colors.
Nuclear energy (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to develop nuclear energy instead of basically ending all research in the 1970s because of one stupid movie and a couple of overblown incidents. Every other form of energy including solar (people die falling off roofs during installation) has killed more people than anyone from nuclear energy reactors. We have much safer nuclear designs now. And we need to fund nuclear fusion experimental reactor construction a dignified level too instead of slashing its budget and then saying it is always in the 50 years away.
Re:Nuclear energy (Score:5, Informative)
There's plenty of nuclear reactor research and construction happening. China is building thorium reactor, and just a few days ago Russia announced that they're rolling out ship portable mini-reactors to power remote coastal and river communities and truck portable reactors to power inland communities and industrial sites plus they're beginning construction of 30+ fixed reactors to replace the existing stock of 50 year old ones.
Then there's fusion - China just announced that the ITER Tokamak was steady at 120 million C for 101 seconds, and now they're aiming for a week long run time. That said, they're still talking 30 years before the technology can be commercialised, but I'm guessing that we're dealing with exponential growth in fusion know-how, and 101 seconds might be a break-out event.
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Then there's fusion - China just announced that the ITER Tokamak was steady at 120 million C for 101 seconds, and now they're aiming for a week long run time.
China's reactor in question was EASThttps://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a36630528/china-artificial-sun-breaks-fusion-world-record/ [popularmechanics.com]. ITER is an ongoing reactor being built in France which won't be completed until 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER [wikipedia.org].
they're still talking 30 years before the technology can be commercialised
Yes, but other groups are more optimistic. SPARC is hoping to be commercial in 5 to 10 years or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC_(tokamak) [wikipedia.org].
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Fukushina is looking like it will cost Japan half a trillion Euros equivalent, so not really "over blown" even if you don't care about the lives that were cut short or ruined.
The problem with investing in R&D is that people have been doing it for decades and it never pays off. It's always "just give us a few more billions and this time it will work, promise!" and investors just aren't falling for it. It's not like they don't have many other much safer opportunities with really good ROIs in the energy se
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This is offtopic, as we can explore multilple things at once.
However, solar isn't necessarily riskier than nuclear. You mention rooftop solar but a more apples to apple comparison would be solar farm to nuclear plant.
Rooftop solar vs. nuclear plant would suggest attributing power grid fatalities to nuclear, as the power from rooftap solar didn't need it. Just as operating on rooftops carries potential risk, so too does operating on power lines. Also, without solar panels, people still need roof maintenan
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While nuclear is safe, that it is safer than solar and wind is largely an internet myth. Even if you exclude accidents with the reactor, there are accidents during construction, mining, processing, operation, etc. Recent studies put it at 0.07 deaths per TWh which is low but above solar and wind.
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.. and there we have the token xenophobic anti-chinese post.
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List of western dominated technologies benefiting from Chinese research and development taken without compensation:
1. Guns, gunpowder. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2. Rockets. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
3. Modern paper. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
4. Helicopter technology, inspiration for Wright Brothers airplanes. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
5. Vaccines. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
* Possible:
Hot air balloons (unmanned ones fi
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The Chinese absolutely did not pioneer helicopter technology, only a toy that barely superficially resembles one part of a helicopter. So scratch that off the list, and give it to the Russians.
Quick quiz, what developments has China invented in the last thousand years?
Nobody should deny China's contributions to technology, but nobody should forget that they are all old.
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Via methane? (Score:2)
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If you did that, you would still be converting fossil fuel into atmospheric CO2, which is the problem. Still, I could easily see it being immensely more efficient than traditional farming using fossil fuels, so might be a great stopgap solution.
Of course, once you start talking bioreactors, the real competition is algae and the like, several of which are already being developed into commercial products, and which are themselves immensely more efficient than farming. I suspect it will come down to enzyme c
Re:Via methane? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody has yet found an algae that anyone wants to eat, but it makes a dandy carbon-neutral feedstock for liquid fuels...
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Bull - the most well known counter-example is seaweed. Full-flavor dried sheets of the macroalgae get used in lots of things, from sushi to snack chips.
Perhaps more significantly, many food additives are made from it as well. Things like flour and oil from microalgae are gaining ground as ingredients. They have little flavor, but offer lots of calories and protein. Which could establish a valuable dietary foundation that invites more traditional farming to focus on bringing flavor and nutrients to your di
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I'm obvs talking about the micro, so seaweed doesn't count. And if you have to hide it and nobody can stomach more than a small amount of it, or you're actually just processing stuff out of it, then they don't actually want to eat it.
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I give you flour, sugar, all the various refined vegetable oils, etc.
If you're turning a food into a processed ingredient anyway, who cares what it comes from?
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I'm pretty sure I've heard of various enzymatic processes being used in industry, but can't think of a specific example.
Yeah, I don't know about the name.... more of a biochemical reactor than a biological reactor? But both could shorten to bioreactor. And it's probably basically the same hardware, creating optimal conditions for biochemical reactions probably doesn't care much about whether tor not there's a cell surrounding it.
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"various enzymatic processes being used in industry"
Rennin to make cheese comes to mind?
Here's a short list of that and more:
https://infinitabiotech.com/bl... [infinitabiotech.com]
Some Examples Of Industrial Uses Of Enzymes:
Rennin for coagulation of milk to make cheese
Invertase from yeast and lactase in the food industry
Cellulase and amylase to remove waxes, oils, and starch coatings on fabrics and to improve the look of the final product
Pollution Noodles (Score:3)
The food of the future.
We already have pool noodles cleaning up the ocean. Why not start eating pollution noodles now, so we can perfect the recipe while we still have real food left?
Just add some yeast and you're ready to go.
Replicator (Score:5, Interesting)
Unhealthy (Score:2)