I’ve been wondering why we’re so behind on this, why we are still dependent on the exploitation of other species, for example, for our food supply. Doesn’t sound very advanced and sophisticated to me.

Also, “food and agriculture is responsible for about a quarter of all planet-heating carbon emissions. Its share of pollution is likely to grow as other industries shift to using green electricity, and ever-expanding middle-classes demand more meat for their tables. Up to now the focus for some climate campaigners has been to try to persuade people to eat less meat and more plants. Non-farmed proteins such as solein might make that approach more appealing.“

Solein sounds like a real change-maker.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/19/finnish-startup-food-air-solar-power-solein

This is also more or less – tubs of microorganisms – how we may generate electricity in the future. I realized that when I sat in a presentation by Craig Venter at Oxford, back in 2007. We are all – that is, our metabolism – electrical currents and some soil microorganisms even run thin wires to one another.

Scaling that may be the biggest challenge; it’s going to require some major ingenuity. If you can use organisms that take carbon dioxide and methane for example from the air, you might have a bonus side effect.

I can’t see any negative effects of a development like that yet (which would depend on species and process) and that is always the problem with anything that is new. It’s very hard to see negative side effects of something that you don’t know yet. Runaway is the first risk that comes to mind, after contamination and mutation.

It would likely have to be a synthetic organism and CRISPR could play a major role here. In building it, too, but you might be able to have CRISPR repair unwanted mutations. I don’t know if it is possible to prevent mutations. I doubt it. But you can usually predict them (anticipate them). (The latter is something I learned from watching the COVID research for a while. These weren’t exactly the kind of developments I used to be on top of.)

In case you don’t know who Craig Venter is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter

That reminds me. Not wanting to be late because of train delays and having missed out on something in Oxford twice before (not being let in because I’d run late, even though by only minutes), I took no chances and had to stand outside for maybe two hours as the doors to the building were closed. I had not anticipated that. I think it was cold that day. When there finally was some movement going on inside, Venter briefly stuck his head out and said “don’t leave, it will be worth it”.

I have no idea what made him say that but in hindsight, I have to wonder. Maybe he’d seen me standing there from a nearby office window, unbeknownst to me? By that time, however, I was no longer waiting on my own, but it wasn’t as if there was a massive crowd outside. (This was not the kind of lecture that drew huge crowds.)

Speaking at Oxford held special significance for him.