In the last 20 years or so, I've heard it said, repeatedly, from various sources, that there was no feasible alternative to petroleum as a feedstock for various petrochemicals. I always considered this ridiculous, but it kept popping up, without any real evidence to support it. Por dios it may not be long before actually making FOOD from AIR may be a real option. The mind boggles.
Starting around 50:00, the discussion veers off into an area that really perked up my ears. If you can synthesize almost anything, including food, synthetically from hydrocarbons or other very simple molecules, then you can make almost anything from almost anything. Great-as long as you get it completely right. So what if your original carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen atoms, and so on, come from feedlot sewage? All those H, C, N, O, P, S, and so on are EXACTLY the same, right? But it sounds completely possible to make something the senses don't catch, or even the instruments you're using, but which is VERY nasty, and possibly very dangerous. So where do you really come down on this question?
In the last 20 years or so, I've heard it said, repeatedly, from various sources, that there was no feasible alternative to petroleum as a feedstock for various petrochemicals. I always considered this ridiculous, but it kept popping up, without any real evidence to support it.
Por dios it may not be long before actually making FOOD from AIR may be a real option. The mind boggles.
Starting around 50:00, the discussion veers off into an area that really perked up my ears. If you can synthesize almost anything, including food, synthetically from hydrocarbons or other very simple molecules, then you can make almost anything from almost anything. Great-as long as you get it completely right. So what if your original carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen atoms, and so on, come from feedlot sewage? All those H, C, N, O, P, S, and so on are EXACTLY the same, right? But it sounds completely possible to make something the senses don't catch, or even the instruments you're using, but which is VERY nasty, and possibly very dangerous. So where do you really come down on this question?