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ThePhysicsOfBaseball t1_itjk6lx wrote

Reply to comment by ThrowAwayGenomics in World's largest protein factory uses fermentation to produce 20,000 tonnes of protein annually for use in fish food in China by mutherhrg

Something tells me they aren't recovering methane from landfills or other renewable sources...

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mutherhrg OP t1_itjuefl wrote

There's also dozens other versions that use combinations of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide etc etc so there's lots of potential there. Eventually, you could have enough renewables that you're pulling methane out of the air, made from carbon dioxide of the of the air instead of digging it out of the ground.

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ThePhysicsOfBaseball t1_itl3sde wrote

>Eventually, you could have enough renewables that you're pulling methane out of the air, made from carbon dioxide of the of the air instead of digging it out of the ground.

No way that'll ever be as profitable as just using nat gas pulled from the ground. So unless that's paired with a massive carbon tax to make nat gas financially infeasible, you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical.

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ChaosRevealed t1_itk6kxg wrote

Better use the methane (and convert into an extremely useful agricultural product) than burn it or worse, let it escape into the atmosphere.

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ThePhysicsOfBaseball t1_itl2rk9 wrote

This isn't an either/or situation. If this catches on we'll just do both.

As a result, the problem is this creates a new demand source that will support and/or drive up prices for methane, encouraging further exploitation both of existing gas wells, reactivation of currently dormant wells, as well as exploration for new gas, right when we should be doing everything we can to reduce our use of petrochemicals.

We're already very good at turning oil into food through the production of ammonia. I'm really not excited by the prospect of finding new reasons to pull sequestered carbon out of the ground, and particularly nat gas given we're incapable of doing so without it leaking (and, between the two options, we are far better off burning methane than releasing it into the atmosphere).

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johnblairdota t1_itk7k3s wrote

I know of a ex open cut mine turned landfill utilising the methane to regulate the temp for fish farming. Woodlawn near Canberra Australia. does that count?

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