![]() The Finnish company uses the Direct Air Capture (DAC) technique for sequestering carbon, sourced from its energy partner firm Fortum. What drives the whole process is uptake of carbon, extracted from the air as carbon dioxide. The electricity is 100% from renewable sources in the case of Finland it is supplied by the energy giant Fortum, which operates its own solar and wind farms (as well as coal plants and nuclear plants). The electrolysis to produce the hydrogen is conducted in the growth vessel (vat) rather than externally, so that the designation “electric food” (a term used formerly by Monbiot) is quite accurate. The organism is not toxic to humans, and contains all the essential amino acids, fats and carbohydrates needed for our survival. The chosen bacterium is autotrophic (it can literally “feed itself”) so that it does not require a plant- or animal-based growth medium. Solar Foods has made a number of smart choices in putting together this package. The flour has neutral taste – which is deliberate, so that the Solein can be used as an additive that will not impart its own flavour to foods. The autotrophs capture these ingredients and grow to produce large quantities of biomass, which is continually extracted from the growing vessel, dried, and packaged as something that looks like a yellow flour. There are also some nutrients such as phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N) and sulphur (S) added. The growth medium is water and air it is made up of water which is electrolysed to produce hydrogen (and which sends oxygen into the air) and carbon dioxide that is concentrated from the air. In its lab-based version, which has actually produced an edible product that the company calls Solein (for “solar protein”), an autotrophic soil bacterium called Cupriavidus necatur is selected for rapid growth in an incubator or vat (as in a brewery). The Finnish start-up Solar Foods, ably presented through its co-founders Pasi Vainikka and Juha-Pekka Pitkanen, has put together a package of biotechnologies that they see as having a huge future as they are scaled up.
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