Nothing has yet replaced the ability of the plant to use the energy from the sun to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and create 'food' – carbohydrates, oils and proteins which fuel most of the planet – almost anything that isn't a plant relies on plants for life.
Fossilised plants also fuel the oil and gas industry which provides energy for transport and, through coal, some electrical energy as well.
Plants are the closest thing on earth to overcoming 'nothing comes from nothing'.
Professor Daniel Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, is making progress in this direction.
He has created an artificial leaf which is capable of 'photosynthesising with ten times the efficiency of natural photosynthesis'.
In 2011 it was listed in Time magazine's top 50 inventions, but in 2012 the decision was made not to scale up the prototype – the costs were prohibitive. And it still requires the basic building blocks of a battery.
Talking with Kim Hill earlier this year Professor Nocera expressed confidence that artificial photosynthesis through his bionic leaf will be the answer to energy in the future.
In the meantime, however, the very fact that research is examining the creation of plastic from sugar to replace plastic from the petroleum industry indicates the challenges ahead.
Certainly plastic from sugar is biodegradable – but sugar comes from plants which are grown in the ground.
Cultivation, fertilisers and crop protection, and then harvesting and processing, create greenhouse gases as well as potential for soil and nutrient loss.
The greenhouse gas estimate for sugar cane in Brazil is approximately 2.4 tonnes per hectare; a Ministry for Primary Industries document estimates greenhouse gas for wheat at 2.8 tonnes per hectare.
Cyanobacteria (blue green algae) are being used in some synthetic food fermentation systems instead of sugar.
The Cyanobacteria photosynthesise in large concrete ponds (which in themselves generate greenhouse gases in construction).
University of Oxford research estimates that using Cyanobacteria hydrolysate as the nutrient and energy source for muscle cell growth in the laboratory means that 1000 kg cultured meat will result in considerable savings in energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water and land use depending on the production system being compared – but uncertainty is high.
Overall the Oxford researchers concluded that the environmental impacts of cultured meat production using Cyanobacteria are substantially lower than those of conventionally produced meat.
However the most well-known of the 'animal-free' meat and milk companies are clear that they use sugar in their vat fermentation.
Research led by the University of Texas points out that technology is advancing all the time, and that 'as with most technologies, cultured meat will almost certainly be accompanied by unintended consequences as well as unforeseen costs and benefits that accrue disproportionately to different stakeholders'.
They also point out that uncertainty ranges are large.
Acknowledging the difficulties, the findings suggest that biomass cultivation in vats could require smaller quantities of agricultural inputs and land than livestock.
However, the new technologies mean that the 'natural' biological functions of digestion and nutrient circulation that occur in animals will be replaced by energy-demanding industrial equivalents.
From this perspective, they warn, large-scale cultivation of in vitro meat and other bioengineered products could represent a new phase of industrialisation with inherently complex and challenging trade-offs.
For New Zealand, the manufacture of synthetic food could leverage the countries very high proportion of renewable energy.
However, the prospect of more electric vehicles, and of increased population in general, has already raised the spectre of how to generate more – dams? Hydrothermal? Wind?
Complex decisions require investigation of alternatives and rigorous research to identify credible solutions. Nothing comes from nothing and jumping to solutions is dangerous.
- Jacqueline Rowarth CNZM CRSNZ HFNZIAHS has a PhD in Soil Science and has been analysing agri-environment interaction for several decades.
