> Ruggedness and low maintenance is kind of debatable. A lot of that is just anti-biotic overuse. Which is a big issue.
Not compared to a bioreactor. From the OP:
> The simple reason: In cell culture, sterility is paramount. Animal cells “grow so slowly that if we get any bacteria in a culture—well, then we’ve just got a bacteria culture,” Humbird said. “Bacteria grow every 20 minutes, and the animal cells are stuck at 24 hours. You’re going to crush the culture in hours with a contamination event.”
> Viruses also present a unique problem. Because cultured animal cells are alive, they can get infected just the way living animals can.
> “There are documented cases of, basically, operators getting the culture sick,” Humbird said. “Not even because the operator themselves had a cold. But there was a virus particle on a glove. Or not cleaned out of a line. The culture has no immune system. If there’s virus particles in there that can infect the cells, they will. And generally, the cells just die, and then there’s no product anymore. You just dump it.”
It's like comparing steel plate to a piece of tissue paper. Sure, an armor-piercing bullet can defeat the plate, but pretty much everything can defeat the tissue paper.
The amortized cost is not that expensive. What's big is the price tag on a new fab with all the new tech gadgets from all the vendors (for example when you buy one big EUV machine from ASML and it takes 40 rounds with their special 747 to deliver it).
silicon (the interesting part) inside plastic that you see is quite small and thin. You would need hundreds/thousands of them to approach the size/weight ratio to single steak.
And silicone that needs that high level of cleanliness is not cheap.
Most chips are fabricated on larger/older processes that do not require that high level of cleanliness
The sliced wafer is small, but due to the precision and process requirements everything else is big. Chip fabs have a complete chemical plant in them because they need high purity solvents and deposition feedstock.
That older level of cleanliness is still above a typical pharma factory level cleanliness. (Where there's no laminar air flow and no need for bunny suits, but everything is sterile and consumables like containers, pipes, feedstock is unpacked right before. And there are a number of verification (QA) steps before the finished lot leaves the factory. Just like with chips, just in the pharma/chemical case it can be done in bulk if it's in a homogeneous liquid phase.)
As I have read, that’s primarily a difference between pasture and feedlot breeds; pasture breeds mostly do fine without antibiotics whereas feedlot breeds require constant attention.
Also worth noting that antibiotics in meat production is not only about health. For unclear reasons (or at least, it was unclear years ago when I learned about this) giving cows antibiotics just makes them grow much better and fatter. Presumably, there are bacteria that inhibit growth without making the cows visibly sick. Result: antibiotics get deployed to all cows as a general growth enhancer, rather than focusing on actual sickness.
Not compared to a bioreactor. From the OP:
> The simple reason: In cell culture, sterility is paramount. Animal cells “grow so slowly that if we get any bacteria in a culture—well, then we’ve just got a bacteria culture,” Humbird said. “Bacteria grow every 20 minutes, and the animal cells are stuck at 24 hours. You’re going to crush the culture in hours with a contamination event.”
> Viruses also present a unique problem. Because cultured animal cells are alive, they can get infected just the way living animals can.
> “There are documented cases of, basically, operators getting the culture sick,” Humbird said. “Not even because the operator themselves had a cold. But there was a virus particle on a glove. Or not cleaned out of a line. The culture has no immune system. If there’s virus particles in there that can infect the cells, they will. And generally, the cells just die, and then there’s no product anymore. You just dump it.”
It's like comparing steel plate to a piece of tissue paper. Sure, an armor-piercing bullet can defeat the plate, but pretty much everything can defeat the tissue paper.