[bttrfl]

Every time I read stats like this I wonder what are the externalities the PR team decided to omit. One day you hear that farmed fish are eco, the next day you find out that gigantic trawlers are depleting Antarctic oceans for feed.

I tried to google the possible environmental downsides of lab-meat (taste/health aside), but couldn't find anything. Any suggestions?

[frankus]

There’s the question of what sort of feedstocks they’re using and where they come from.

I would assume that it’s something like what the animals they’re replacing eat, but presumably in smaller quantities since they’re only growing muscle tissue and not an entire animal.

There’s something to be said for a device that transports itself around marginally-arable land eating grass and pumping out fertilizer while creating edible protein. Especially if the alternative is intensively-farmed row crops like corn and soy that tend to require tons of fertilizer and herbicides.

IMO an equally exciting area of research is taking something like algae that only need water, sunlight, and some minerals to produce food. Which could then be further processed into lab-grown meat or be eaten as is.