Addressing the Climate Crisis Through Diet
Agriculture proves to be one of the most challenging human activities to reduce carbon emissions, as it is an essential part of life, yet the land-use practices connected to crop cultivation contribute to approximately 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists from the University of California, Irvine, and other research institutions are exploring a novel approach to tackle this problem: eliminating the need for farms.
In a recent study published in Nature Sustainability, the team, led by UCI researchers, examines the potential of large-scale synthetic production of dietary fats through both chemical and biological processes. This innovative method uses the same raw materials as plants: hydrogen from water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“Large-scale production of consumable substances using chemical and biological methods, independent of traditional agricultural resources, is a feasible prospect,” stated lead researcher Steven Davis, who is also a professor of Earth system science at UCI. “This concept of ‘agriculture-free food’ has the potential to reduce substantial quantities of emissions that contribute to climate change while also preserving ecologically diverse regions that might otherwise be converted into farmlands.”
Addressing the Climate Crisis Through Diet: various additional ecological and societal advantages
In their paper, Davis and his fellow authors underscore various additional ecological and societal advantages associated with farm-free food. These include decreased water consumption and reduced pollution in watersheds, local autonomy in food production, decreased vulnerability to weather-related food supply disruptions, and a reduced need for low-wage, physically demanding agricultural labor. Davis also mentioned the possibility of restoring current farmlands to their natural state, promoting biodiversity and enhancing natural carbon storage.
“I find it appealing not to rely exclusively on photosynthesis for all our food,” Davis expressed. “Regardless of the scale, producing food synthetically can reduce the competition between natural ecosystems and agriculture, thus circumventing the numerous environmental drawbacks associated with farming.”
Davis specifically highlighted the detrimental practice of clearing tropical rainforests to establish palm oil plantations, which are a primary source of dietary fats for various processed foods. He posed the question of whether consumers would notice any difference if the oil used for baking their cookies originated from a nearby food refinery rather than a plantation in Indonesia.
Addressing the Climate Crisis Through Diet: Dietary Fats
The study primarily concentrated on dietary fats because they are relatively simple to synthesize through thermochemical processes, similar to established methods used in large-scale soap production and polymer chemistry.
Agriculturally sourced fats yield approximately 1 to 3 grams of carbon dioxide emissions per thousand calories, as per the researchers. In contrast, fats that are chemically identical but synthesized from natural gas feedstock using available electricity would produce less than one gram of CO2 equivalent emissions. If carbon capture technology from the air and non-emitting sources of electricity were used, the emissions would be nearly zero.
“The advantage of producing fats is that you can synthesize them through chemical processes that don’t involve biology. It’s all chemistry, and because of that, you can operate at higher pressures and temperatures, which leads to excellent efficiency,” noted Davis. “This means you could construct large-scale reactors to produce synthetic fats.”
However, a significant question remains: Will people accept food created in this manner?
Certainly, here’s a further reduction. “Unlike electricity, the source of food is a significant concern for many, presenting a more intricate challenge, as Davis noted.” “Processed foods, therefore, are a likely application for synthetic fats. People may show less concern about the type of fat used in a store-bought cookie or pie crust because they frequently lack knowledge about its current contents.
The research project was a collaborative effort involving Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution for Science and Breakthrough Energy. Kathleen Alexander, Ian McKay, and Matthew Shaner from Orca Sciences; Juan Moreno-Cruz from the University of Waterloo; and Chaopeng Hong from Tsinghua University. The study received financial support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Read the original article on ScienceDaily.
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