[Retric]

There’s not enough land for cows eating grass to make enough meat to satisfy humanity. Net result you get feedlots where cows consume the majority of the calories in their lifetime from optimized crops. That involves a great deal of labor and 80% of global agricultural land, but results in more meat from the same land.

The ~10 billion people in 2060 who will on average be better off than we are today are going to want a great deal more meat than we can produce using current methods because land is ultimately finite. Lab grown meat is simply the next stage of industrial agriculture where you need less feedstock and thus less land to produce the same amount of meat.

Cost is currently a major issue, but supply and demand means it’s not going to compete with current meat prices but where prices end up when scarcity becomes an issue.

[jmyeet]

The land requirement for cows you refer to is probably the US-centric one. That's not universal. For example, Australian cattle pretty much roams arid land not suitable for crop production. The food is supplemented but still the carbon footprint of Australian cattle is very different to US cattle.

My main point is that if we ignore the tragedy of the commons of land use (which we do), the energy cost of growing a cow is largely free.

Lab grown meat requires probably a sterile environment and you'll be paying for that energy. Where is that energy coming from? What is the footprint of that? Now maybe that density of lab meat production is really high but I'd be surprised. Large herbivores can gain hundresd of pounds a year just grazing.

I do believe in the future of industrial farming. I just don't think it'll be meat. It's more likely automated greenhouses of likely hydroponics. It's entirely feasible that this way can easily support a trillion people on EArth [1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzVxdmC8c-g