1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,200 Making chicken in there. 2 00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:02,840 A lab grown chicken nugget. 3 00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:04,240 Chicken, grown in a lab. 4 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:05,600 Why are people making it? 5 00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:08,320 Climate change that are putting vitamins in the environment? 6 00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:12,000 Lab meat is not going to save the planet or the animals. 7 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,200 So then, why has $3 billion been invested 8 00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:15,720 into lab meat startups? 9 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:17,680 Well, to understand the full picture, 10 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:19,440 well, first, have to take a look at the science 11 00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:23,120 of why scaling lab meat is not practical at all. 12 00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:25,960 Second, we'll look at why no one will be able to afford it. 13 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:28,560 Third, why it could be worse for the environment. 14 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:29,720 And finally, 15 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:31,400 why did the public and investors 16 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:35,840 are being misled by unrealistically optimistic stories? 17 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:38,520 This meat is incredibly unsustainable, 18 00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:40,520 but we figured out a way to solve it. 19 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:42,920 We're going to have to do it if we want to continue 20 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:44,520 living on this planet. 21 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:48,000 So I dare we accept this or we all become vegetarian. 22 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:49,200 It's better for the world. 23 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:51,400 At first, I was really optimistic about lab meat. 24 00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:52,760 It made so much sense. 25 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:54,960 Growing just a stake instead of a whole cow 26 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:56,640 seemed to be way more efficient. 27 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:58,160 But then I started looking into it. 28 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:00,920 And it made less and less sense. 29 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,000 This is aic cells from a cow or chicken 30 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:04,080 and grow them quickly. 31 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:06,800 They need to be put in a very expensive custom made 32 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:08,200 bio reactor. 33 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:10,160 Built with especially formulated liquid 34 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,680 made with purified water, growth factors, purified amino acids, 35 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:15,720 glucose, and salts. 36 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:18,600 The cow just needs rainwater and grass. 37 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:20,840 The facility and the bio reactor need to be totally 38 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:23,080 sterile because a tiny amount of bacteria 39 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:25,200 of virus could ruin the whole batch, 40 00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:26,560 wasting tons of money. 41 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:28,720 The cow has an immune system so it can just 42 00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:30,520 lay in the dirty grass outside. 43 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:32,840 A huge challenge of growing cells quickly inside of a 44 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:36,560 bio reactor is developing ways to efficiently deliver oxygen 45 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:38,600 and nutrients to each cell. 46 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:41,720 While removing waste products like ammonia, lactate, 47 00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:44,480 and CO2, a cow on the other hand, handles all this 48 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,840 really easily with lungs, blood vessels, and its liver. 49 00:01:47,840 --> 00:01:49,000 There's a lot more to this picture. 50 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,040 But the point is it's very expensive to try and do 51 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:54,360 what a cow chicken or pig does. 52 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,240 In a Singapore restaurant, there's a recent addition 53 00:01:57,240 --> 00:01:58,240 to the menu. 54 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:01,360 This is chicken, but not as we know it. 55 00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:04,080 The lab made company eat just was actually selling 56 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:07,680 lab-grown chicken nuggets straight to consumers in Singapore. 57 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:11,200 But those cost upwards of $50 each to make. 58 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:15,160 For that same price, about 1,500 nuggets could be made 59 00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:17,080 from conventional chicken meat. 60 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:18,920 The most common justification for the lab meat 61 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:20,680 is that we needed to prevent conventional meat 62 00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:22,000 from destroying the planet. 63 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:23,840 But it's the problem that we tried to sell 64 00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:24,960 like cultivated meat. 65 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:27,160 So that we have a planet to inhabit. 66 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:29,680 President Biden signed an executive order this year 67 00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,800 requiring federal agencies to support cultivating 68 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:34,120 alternative food sources. 69 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,120 As a client, founder of the hugely popular news media company 70 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:40,240 Vox, rather an article arguing that we need government 71 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:42,560 funding and to plant based protein and lab meat 72 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:44,640 to save the planet from climate change. 73 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:47,320 And we need government support to get there. 74 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:48,200 But you're getting all these people 75 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:51,000 like pushing the government to fund this. 76 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,400 So as soon as you show me it's better for the environment 77 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:56,320 and there's like positive impacts, let's find it. 78 00:02:56,320 --> 00:02:57,480 It's fine. 79 00:02:57,480 --> 00:02:59,080 But I do not see that. 80 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:00,360 On the other hand, Dr. Derek, 81 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:02,600 rising their points out in his PhD dissertation 82 00:03:02,600 --> 00:03:04,760 that despite all the high-fanded investment 83 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:07,080 that has already been poured into lab meat, 84 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:09,040 a detailed assessment of whether lab meat 85 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:11,080 is actually better for the environment 86 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:12,640 has not been properly dumped. 87 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:14,680 We're going to need all hands on deck 88 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:17,120 to make these the global meat industry. 89 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:19,520 One report commissioned by the Good Food Institute, 90 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:22,200 GFI, a nonprofit which heavily promotes 91 00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:24,240 and supports the lab meat space, 92 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:27,360 admitted that it would cost $450 million 93 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:30,200 to make a facility producing a mere 22 million pounds 94 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:31,480 of lab meat a year. 95 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:33,080 That does sound like a lot, 96 00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:36,440 but if this stake represents the 100 billion pounds 97 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:38,720 of normal meat that the US makes a year, 98 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,360 this represents 22 million pounds, 99 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,240 a mere 0.02% of US meat production. 100 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:48,800 And 450 million is the extra optimistic price tag, 101 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:49,640 another analysis, 102 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:50,840 but the cost of such a facility 103 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:52,480 closer to $5 billion. 104 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:53,800 What that would mean is that, 105 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:56,840 even if we assume that lab meat has zero emissions, 106 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:01,480 if we wanted to reduce global emissions by 120 of 1%. 107 00:04:01,480 --> 00:04:04,880 We would first need to invest at least a trillion dollars 108 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:07,720 just into the facilities for lab meat. 109 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:09,320 This is Dr. Paul Wood, 110 00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:11,320 an expiopharmic consultant and board member 111 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:13,440 of cellular agriculture Australia. 112 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:15,480 That's the standard ability to credentials 113 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:16,680 will have to be at home. 114 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:18,200 They can't just be assumed. 115 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:21,000 They understand the energy intensities. 116 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,520 I mean, you're running a whole lot of tanks at 37 degrees. 117 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:26,960 They produce a lot of then rating heat. 118 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,560 So actually have to air condition your rooms 119 00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:32,240 if you're not using completely renewable energy. 120 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:34,200 You won't be more sustainable. 121 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:37,360 It sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true. 122 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:40,240 In 2021, Joe Fastler published a farm shell article 123 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:43,120 in the counter that laid out the specific technical details 124 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:45,360 illustrated in why the lab meat is very unlikely 125 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:46,400 a pipe dream. 126 00:04:46,400 --> 00:04:50,080 There are multiple breakthroughs that are needed. 127 00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:53,920 Fast advances that would be worthy of Nobel Prizes, 128 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:55,800 multiple Nobel Prizes. 129 00:04:55,800 --> 00:04:58,920 One of the many experts Fastler consulted with was David Humber, 130 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:01,680 a chemical engineer who wrote the most detailed analysis 131 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:03,600 of scaling lab meat yet. 132 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:05,760 Even in the most generous, best case, 133 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:07,880 hypothetical scenario, Humbered considered 134 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:10,120 where various economies of scale are included 135 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:13,400 in all kinds of technological scientific breakthroughs 136 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:14,840 are assumed to have happened. 137 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:16,520 He projected that lab meat in the future 138 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:19,320 would still be very, very unlikely to cost 139 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:22,040 under $11 per pound to produce. 140 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:24,920 With Mark up, that would easily be over $22 141 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:26,520 a pound at the supermarket. 142 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:30,760 That's over four times the price of normal ground beef. 143 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,760 Humbered honestly was being nice in his work. 144 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:36,200 I've talked to Dave. 145 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:37,240 I've talked to Dave Humber. 146 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:41,200 He was trying to make it work in a freaking couldn't. 147 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:43,080 Well, he's great. 148 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:45,920 If he's not going to do things that aren't traction. 149 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:47,720 In Vox's Netflix documentary, 150 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:50,120 they said that most of me says it cut production 151 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,560 cost to just $10 a burger. 152 00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:54,320 But I contacted that company and they said 153 00:05:54,320 --> 00:05:56,560 that didn't get down to $10 a burger. 154 00:05:56,560 --> 00:05:59,960 They said that $10 a burger was simply a target set 155 00:05:59,960 --> 00:06:01,080 in 2019. 156 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:03,080 So why is it so damn expensive? 157 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:05,920 Again, the problem is not growing at a bunch of lab meat. 158 00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:09,120 It's growing it for cheap so that people will actually buy it. 159 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:10,840 It's not a simple scale and up your equipment 160 00:06:10,840 --> 00:06:13,240 and has to do with biological limits. 161 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,600 For example, humans exist, but you can't have 162 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:17,160 a 10-foot tall human. 163 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:18,880 You can have a really big animal, 164 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:20,600 but you can't have a really big animal 165 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,080 with a really fast metabolic rate. 166 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,040 You can grow cells outside of an animal 167 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:28,480 in a large bioreactor, but you can't do it efficiently. 168 00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:30,260 If you want to grow just the beef we eat 169 00:06:30,260 --> 00:06:33,560 cheaply and efficiently, you need the rest of that cow. 170 00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:36,200 Two huge problems limiting efficient cell growth 171 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,720 in a bioreactor are getting enough oxygen 172 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:40,640 and nutrients to the cells. 173 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,640 And transporting CO2 and waste products away from the cells. 174 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,360 First, mammals complex vascular system 175 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:49,160 is responsible for delivering oxygen 176 00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:51,280 and nutrients to all of their cells. 177 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:53,760 It's a range in intricate fractal pattern. 178 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:56,000 Sets that all hundred trillion cells 179 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,680 are within a mere 500 microns of a small capillary. 180 00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:02,120 With lab meat, the cells are just dumped in a liquid 181 00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:03,400 that has a nutrients they need. 182 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:04,880 And the mixture has just stirred around 183 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:07,560 to help expose all the cells to those nutrients. 184 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:10,480 Oxygen is delivered to the cells by blowing bubbles 185 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:11,600 into the tank. 186 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:13,840 This nutrient liquid they use in bioreactors 187 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,960 is only able to carry an amount of oxygen 188 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:20,040 that is 45 times less than what real blood can carry. 189 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:21,520 By the way, this nutrient liquid 190 00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:24,880 is currently so expensive and resource intensive. 191 00:07:24,880 --> 00:07:27,200 That Dr. Derek Ryzer's analysis suggests 192 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,720 that lab meat may have a much higher environmental impact 193 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:31,800 than normal meat. 194 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:33,040 It's not good for the environment, 195 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:35,000 but I don't think it is. 196 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:36,720 It's not economically viable, 197 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:39,200 which is my own research is like, 198 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:41,960 I don't know how you guys are gonna make this economically viable. 199 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:44,040 The pharmaceutical industry has been using tons 200 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:46,640 and tons of bioreactors to make all sorts of products 201 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:50,880 for decades now, globally about 23% of all drugs 202 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:52,720 are made in bioreactors. 203 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,360 If we're going to start using bioreactors for meat, 204 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:57,360 we are going to need a ton of them. 205 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:00,320 Pretend this represents a global meat demand. 206 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:03,000 This is half of 1%. 207 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:04,920 That is how much lab meat we would get 208 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:08,760 if we had 11 to 22 times the entire pharmaceutical industry's 209 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:11,760 current stainless steel bioreactor capacity, 210 00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:13,320 just for growing lab meat. 211 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,400 How many reactions you would need if you 212 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:20,280 are very significant replacement of common meat consumption? 213 00:08:20,280 --> 00:08:23,280 That's one hell of a lot of steel. 214 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,000 Take the type of steel that you would need to make these tanks. 215 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,160 You got to mine all that. 216 00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:28,200 You got to get it out of the ground. 217 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:29,320 You have to process it. 218 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:30,640 Where do these tanks come from? 219 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:32,840 As part of normal cell metabolism, CO2, 220 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:34,160 and waste products like ammonia, 221 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:36,280 and lactate are produced by the cells. 222 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:38,720 It's almost like the cells are sitting in their own urine. 223 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:40,880 When too much of these things build up in the tank, 224 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:42,560 the cells don't do too well. 225 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:45,200 And it reduces the rate that the cells grow. 226 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:47,760 At some point the cell growth will slow to a halt. 227 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:50,720 And your cells will die from bathing in all that urine. 228 00:08:50,720 --> 00:08:53,360 So before that happens, you need to harvest your cells 229 00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:55,040 and start a new batch. 230 00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:57,680 David Humberd explains in his 2021 paper that 231 00:08:57,680 --> 00:08:59,680 biological limits like this 232 00:08:59,680 --> 00:09:03,440 are more often the issue than physical limits like tank size. 233 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:06,400 Meaning you could have a 250,000 liter tank, 234 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:08,400 but it would be completely worthless. 235 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:11,280 If your cell stop going at only 20,000 liters, 236 00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:14,240 because of too much CO2 or ammonia building up. 237 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:16,240 In the case of a cow, it's bloodstream 238 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:18,960 would simply transfer the CO2 away from the cells 239 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:20,720 to the lungs to be breathed out. 240 00:09:20,720 --> 00:09:23,280 And ammonia and lactate would be transported to the liver 241 00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:24,160 to get rid of it. 242 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,280 With bio reactors, there is a process called perfusion, 243 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:30,560 which can clear out some of the CO2 and ammonia, 244 00:09:30,560 --> 00:09:32,560 which will improve the cell growth. 245 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:34,960 But that equipment is way too expensive to use 246 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,280 for making millions of pounds of lab meat. 247 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:39,520 Humberd calculates that even though you are growing the cells 248 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,160 more efficiently, it would cost even more, 249 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:45,680 driving up the cost of lab meat in extra $6 per pound. 250 00:09:45,680 --> 00:09:48,960 This is just one of the many problems that need to be solved 251 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:52,480 to make a lab meat cheap enough for the average person to buy. 252 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,280 You know, the papers that people like the good food 253 00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:57,360 instituted put out. 254 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:00,640 They actually have stated that the cost has to come down 255 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:03,040 over 1,000 fold. 256 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:07,760 When I was in leading discovery in a large pharmaceutical company, 257 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:09,200 if I went forward and said, 258 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,240 here's our product and it's a thousand fold away. 259 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:14,160 That's a get out. Get out of the room. 260 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:16,480 I mean, come back when you've got something real. 261 00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:18,960 But is lab meat even meat? 262 00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:21,520 It is 100% meat. 263 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:23,920 Because it will taste like animal meat, 264 00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:25,680 because that's exactly what it is. 265 00:10:25,680 --> 00:10:27,680 There's all. There's actual animal flesh. 266 00:10:27,680 --> 00:10:30,480 First of all, what usually comes out of these bio reactors is called 267 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:33,200 cell slurry of cells. 268 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:35,200 That's what's coming out of a bio reactor. 269 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,320 It's not the most appetizing thing. 270 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,560 I call it a product. 271 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:42,800 Little Lisa's petting did animal slurry. 272 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:45,440 The spoon full of slurry will cure what it is. 273 00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:46,480 Yeah. 274 00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:50,800 Most future lab meat products will be blended with other non-meat ingredients 275 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:53,840 and formed into homogenized things like burger patties, 276 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,720 nuggets, sausages, meatballs, and hot dogs. 277 00:10:56,720 --> 00:10:58,240 We're not going to come out with a steak. 278 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:00,080 We're going to come out with a hamburger. 279 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:01,440 So it's a structured stuff. 280 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,080 Real meat is composed of various types of cells. 281 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:05,360 It has its familiar texture. 282 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:07,680 Thanks to both muscle fibers and fat cells, 283 00:11:07,680 --> 00:11:11,200 as well as blood vessels, tendons, connective tissues, and so on. 284 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:16,000 But bio reactors typically can only cultivate one type of cell at a time. 285 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:20,720 Meaning an entirely different process will be needed to assemble various cells and 286 00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:25,920 additives together into a texture that resembles something like a steak or pork chop. 287 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:28,160 So the price is even more important 288 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:31,840 because while someone might pay top dollar for a tea-bone steak, 289 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,680 they're not going to pay $20 a pound for a mash-y ground beef. 290 00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:40,000 Several of the compounds that contribute to the flavor and nutritional profile of meat 291 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:44,080 arrive there thanks to processes going on an elsewhere in the animal's body. 292 00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:46,400 These things don't just appear in the cells. 293 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:51,920 So to match real meat, various nutrients and compounds will need to be added one by one 294 00:11:51,920 --> 00:11:54,560 at some point in the process of making lab meat. 295 00:11:54,560 --> 00:11:57,760 In the end, when I've got a cell paste, I don't have any structure. 296 00:11:57,760 --> 00:11:59,680 I actually need some fibers material. 297 00:11:59,680 --> 00:12:01,760 So I'll blend in some plant material. 298 00:12:01,760 --> 00:12:06,560 I think in the end cell-base meat will be the new plant-based category. 299 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:10,720 Because I'm going to guess that there's probably going to be more plant-based material 300 00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:13,120 in those products and then there is cell-based. 301 00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:17,920 The point is a lot of work will need to be done to get consumers to actually like it 302 00:12:17,920 --> 00:12:19,360 as much as real meat. 303 00:12:19,360 --> 00:12:24,000 The lab meat industry has a history of making promises they can't keep. 304 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:29,760 In 2021, Mother Jones published an illustration of the many predictions made by research institutions 305 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:35,280 and lab meat companies, but when lab meat would be available, that ended up being wrong. 306 00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:38,400 As you're building a business, don't be naive about the power storytelling. 307 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:42,240 You need them to give you money when all you have is a PowerPoint deck. 308 00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:43,760 This is Josh Hoffman. 309 00:12:43,760 --> 00:12:47,040 He was a CEO of the synthetic biology company's Zymergen. 310 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:52,800 His skill of painting a vision for the future earns I'mier than $1 billion of venture capital. 311 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,520 Zymergen is rewriting the potential of biology. 312 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,640 Our work has the potential to revolutionize chemicals and materials, 313 00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:03,120 agriculture, a human health, so we really think this has the potential to change the entire economy. 314 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:07,920 He had an optimistic vision of reducing our reliance on petrochemicals by producing 315 00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:13,040 everyday products like anything from optic film to mosquito repellent in bioreactors. 316 00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:18,240 These bioreactors would be filled with microbes, especially engineering to produce specific compounds 317 00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:23,120 who regularly rely on petrochemicals for, but the challenge was the same as lab meat. 318 00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:27,040 How would they ever do this at scale for a reasonable price? 319 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:31,920 Zymergen went public in April 2021, but just four months later, they announced that they would 320 00:13:31,920 --> 00:13:36,080 bring in zero dollars in product revenue for 2021 and 2022. 321 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:42,480 CEO Josh Hoffman ended up leaving Zymergen in August of 2021, and by July of 2022, 322 00:13:42,480 --> 00:13:46,800 94% of the company's stock value had vanished since going public. 323 00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:52,320 A former employee said that Josh Hoffman misled people with exaggerated financial figures 324 00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:56,240 and made overly optimistic projections about the company's capabilities. 325 00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:59,440 One of the big players in the lab meat space eat just. 326 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:05,040 Has raised over $800 million in venture capital has recently faced a slew of negative coverage, 327 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:08,080 accusing it of classic silicon valley hubris and overreach. 328 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:13,200 Eat just came under scrutiny in 2016 when they sent many of their workers into grocery stores 329 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:16,000 to buy out tons of their vegan manning's product. 330 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,240 Hundreds of jars of its own products. 331 00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:19,360 Here you go folks. 332 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:21,600 Yeah, here's the extra mayonnaise you ordered. 333 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:25,680 A former scientist at the company said that this type of behavior was common in the company's 334 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,640 entire boards stepped down last month with little explanation. 335 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:34,080 Just because you can do something in the lab, there's not at all mean you can do something 336 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:35,200 at commercial scale. 337 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:40,560 But in 2022, eat just made the impressive announcement that they will be building 10 338 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:44,960 never before seen 250,000 leader bio reactors. 339 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:48,480 People say, oh, we're going to grow 250,000 leaders. 340 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:50,880 I don't think that's feasible. 341 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:54,080 I don't think it's feasible by a box from a biological point of view. 342 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:59,680 It just claims a 250,000 leader bio reactors will be able to produce 30 million pounds of meat 343 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:01,120 a year by 2030. 344 00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:05,840 These big numbers may wow investors and earn them more investment, but even if everything 345 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:12,800 goes perfectly to plan, their magic facility would replace a mere 0.03% of the United States 346 00:15:12,800 --> 00:15:14,560 conventional meat production. 347 00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:19,440 Even Neko of Nakhmiya, CEO of the LAMMET Company Beliver Meat, says that a quarter of a 348 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:22,480 million leader bio reactor is just a fantasy. 349 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,000 And though it's the talk about, you know, a quarter of you, neither bio reactor is 350 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:29,360 our and the dreamy and college. 351 00:15:29,360 --> 00:15:33,840 Nakhmiya explains that while a bigger bio reactor would help scale the production, 352 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,320 it makes the cell growing process less efficient. 353 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:40,800 The bio reactor is small, pound, then her factories now do the inefficient. 354 00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:43,360 The problem is that the bigger the bio reactor is, 355 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:47,520 the more of non-Homogeneous heat becomes. 356 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:49,840 The process becomes less efficient. 357 00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:52,960 There's a, in a contamination. 358 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:54,880 Something got into the lab. 359 00:15:54,880 --> 00:16:00,720 Another huge difficulty with massive lab meat plants is that they need to be exceedingly clean. 360 00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:04,560 A bio reactor doesn't have an immune system to protect the fragile animal cells. 361 00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:10,480 So if the tiniest bit of bacteria, virus, or other contaminant on a worker's glove or clothing, 362 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:15,680 gets into these massive bio reactors, the entire batch of cell slurry would be ruined. 363 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:21,280 This is a well known million dollar problem with bio reactors in the pharmaceutical industry. 364 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:24,000 It was telling us about the million dollar club. 365 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:25,920 They lost a batch because of contamination. 366 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:29,760 So there's dudes walking around San Francisco that because they contaminated a tank. 367 00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:31,760 Join the million dollar club. 368 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:33,920 He said, you only get to join it once. 369 00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:35,440 You do it again, you're gone. 370 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:41,120 Some people have used the misleading analogy that a lab meat facility will basically be like a beer brewery. 371 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,280 Kind of like brewing beer or a growing yogurt. 372 00:16:43,280 --> 00:16:46,960 Is that a dissimilar from how you had culture food or how you would brew beer? 373 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:49,520 It's your friendly neighborhood meat brewery. 374 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:50,640 Do you know how to make beer? 375 00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:53,120 So you'll know how to make cultured meat. 376 00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:55,120 That is not the same. That drives me nuts. 377 00:16:56,960 --> 00:16:59,360 We know that this isn't like brewing beer. 378 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:03,520 Beer can be made in your backyard while you're smoking a cigarette and wearing the same sweaty clothes 379 00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:04,880 you had been wearing at the gym. 380 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:10,880 An extra clean lab meat facility handling the same volume as a beer brewery could be well over 381 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:14,960 six times the price due to all the measures necessary to keep it clean. 382 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:19,920 Like for example, level six and level eight clean rooms that constantly purify the air. 383 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,640 I don't think it's a backyard operation. 384 00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,040 This is a sophisticated technology. 385 00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:31,760 The people who operate these facilities get paid very very well and they're very well qualified 386 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,320 because you cannot afford to get your sales contaminated. 387 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:41,600 Back in 2017 when eat just was selling vegan Mayo products, all of their products were pulled 388 00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:44,000 off of the retailer targets shelves. 389 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,800 After allegations of food safety problems like Listeria and Salmanila contamination at the 390 00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:50,240 Manufacturing Facility. 391 00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:54,640 So let's hope that they're able to keep their lab meat facilities cleaner or they could be 392 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:56,800 wasting millions of dollars. 393 00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:00,880 When talking to Joe Fassler, Dr. David Humbered summed up the feasibility of scaling lab 394 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:03,360 grown meat as a big wall of no. 395 00:18:03,360 --> 00:18:09,200 He even said that it was a fractal no that the big no is comprised of many smaller no's. 396 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:14,640 Derek Reisner has written two papers at point out the extreme cost and resource intensity 397 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:18,400 of preparing that nutrient liquid the growth medium for the sales. 398 00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:23,040 He agrees with Humbered's assessment that lab meat is a big wall of no. 399 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:26,960 Yeah, I would say with the big wall now I'm on that vote for sure. 400 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:33,040 However, in late 2022, Yakovnikmias founder of Believer meats and now said his team's new work 401 00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:38,960 growing sales in the lab had conclusively shattered Humbered so-called big wall of no. 402 00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:40,240 This is pretty big. 403 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:44,160 After I read about this, I thought I might have to just rewrite this entire video. 404 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:48,720 Believer meats approach is to increase the number of sales in the buyer reactor by getting rid of 405 00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:53,200 those toxic waste products like ammonia and lactate that we talked about earlier. 406 00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:56,960 More sales in the buyer reactor means more meat at a lower cost. 407 00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,600 In their experiment, they used a perfusion device. 408 00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:04,080 It's kind of like an artificial liver that pumps fluid in and out of the buyer reactor and 409 00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:05,840 clears out the toxins. 410 00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:10,480 They claim that their protocol using this perfusion device allowed them to get a number of 411 00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,720 sales per liter that is way higher than what Humbered said would be possible. 412 00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:20,880 That sounds really exciting at first, but these results were done in a mere 2-liter buyer reactor. 413 00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:25,280 If we're talking about what can be done at very small scale in the lab, this isn't actually 414 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:31,040 new at all. Another team already achieved similar sell growth results way back in 2013. 415 00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:34,720 And it was with less resource intensive equipment. 416 00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:38,480 So an experiment in a 2-liter tank doesn't really tell you much. 417 00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:43,600 To mass produce lab meat at commercial scale, we need buyer reactors that handle thousands of 418 00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:49,760 leaders. Like is it reasonable at all to say a 2-liter experiment that is going to scale to a 419 00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,120 1000 liter or 10,000 liter buyer reactor? 420 00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:58,960 Look, I think with this sort of technology now, I think I think you've got to be very careful about 421 00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:03,840 claims should make on scaling. Derek Riser pointed out that the pharmaceutical industry will often 422 00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:09,120 attempt to scale in multiples of four. So if you achieve 2 liters in the lab, the next step is to 423 00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:14,240 run an experiment at 8 liters. You don't just jump from 2 liters in the lab to commercial 424 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:18,640 scale of a 1000 liters. And when it comes to cost, Dr. Nakame as himself, 425 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,680 acknowledges that using this type of perhesion technology is so expensive that it's not appropriate 426 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:28,240 for commercial scale production of lab meat. One of the things that they said in the food 427 00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:33,680 navigator article was like this conclusively shatters the limit set forth by humbored 428 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:41,200 to say that it's shattered, I think that is a pretty big overstep. And I think it's the sort of 429 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:47,280 things we're seeing from a lot of companies because they're still capitalizing. So you always have 430 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:52,240 to be positive. The way that the general media reports on culture meet is through the lens of 431 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:58,560 investment. This company just raised $40 million. This company just raised $140 million. And some 432 00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:03,440 of the off the record conversations I've had with people within the industry, they're like, listen, 433 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:08,480 investors do not do their due diligence. Some of them like couldn't pass a biology class. 434 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,960 Last year, Dr. Jeffrey Lee, Funk Publishen article titled Fake It Till You Make It, 435 00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:18,480 is an old trick Silicon Valley startups used to get money. He explains a cycle of how startups 436 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:24,000 are often overly optimistic to the point of misleading investors into investing. But even then, 437 00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:29,040 people see that investment as evidence that the company is likely to succeed, which drives more 438 00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:34,240 investment. Bruce Friedrich is the CEO and founder of the earlier mentioned good food 439 00:21:34,240 --> 00:21:39,280 institute. He's featured in Ezra Klein's article saying public investment in lab grown meat is 440 00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:43,920 urgently needed. Joe Fassler wrote in his article that when Friedrich was skeptically questioned 441 00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:49,120 by Ricardo Sun Martin, who has a PhD in biotechnology, Friedrich Snap Max saying that the proof that 442 00:21:49,120 --> 00:21:54,480 people have invested is proof that scaling lab meat is practical. There is a surprising number of 443 00:21:54,480 --> 00:22:00,080 overfunded house of cards startups today. As laid out by Dr. Jeffrey Lee, Funk, just a name of 444 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:07,760 you, Uber has raised $25 billion, but their cumulative losses are $32 billion. We work raised $21 billion 445 00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:13,840 with cumulative losses of $20.7 billion. Even Dinko BioWorks, which has acquired the earlier mentioned 446 00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:20,480 companies I'm urging, has raised $800 million, but has cumulative losses of $3.3 billion. 447 00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:24,720 Throwing money at companies doesn't make them profitable, so why should we assume that throwing 448 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:30,160 money at lab meat will make it cheap to produce? One reason why that perfusion technology is so 449 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:36,320 expensive is that it uses tons of that expensive growth medium. The cost of growth medium has been 450 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:41,200 a concern for the bio processing industry for decades. If anybody could make a super cheap yet 451 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:46,800 effective medium, then they would be rich just from that. Yet various lab meat companies act as if 452 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:51,440 it's a given that this is going to be solved really soon. So as things are now lab meat is a 453 00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,680 kind of catch-22. If you want to make a lot of lab meat efficiently, you need a big vessel. 454 00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:01,280 But it's really difficult and expensive to keep big vessels clean. And the bigger the vessel, 455 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:06,800 the less efficient the cells grow. You can use perfusion to make your cells grow more efficiently, 456 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:12,320 but perfusion is even more expensive, and it doesn't scale. It uses way too much of that expensive 457 00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:17,760 growth medium. And making tons of growth medium is currently too resource expensive and bad for 458 00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:22,880 the environment, which defeats the whole purpose of lab meat. Some companies are aiming to make 459 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:27,600 hybrid products instead. For example, they'll just make the animal fats and bio reactors and use 460 00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:33,920 that to make plant-based products taste better. Perfect day alone, where you're $361 million. 461 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:39,520 Perfect day is a company making synthetic way protein, using fungus and fermentation tank. 462 00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:44,800 They mix that with water, sugar, sunflower oil and other ingredients to make a milk-like product. 463 00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:49,520 Even though this type of fermentation is typically way easier to do than growing meat and a 464 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:56,400 bio reactor, their animal-free milk product currently costs about 3 times as much as organic grass-fed 465 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:02,480 milk. And about 10 times as much as regular milk. The optimistic of us may still assume that just 466 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:08,480 like how Moore's law allowed us to go from mac and tosses to tiny iPhones, we'll go from $50 467 00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:15,840 lab chicken nuggets to $5 lab stakes. But Moore's law doesn't apply to biological systems. 468 00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:20,480 And even if it did, Moore's law is plateauing lately. It can't go on forever. 469 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,760 Lab meat technology will probably improve, but at some point that progress will hit a plateau. 470 00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:32,560 Thinking that that plateau won't come before lab meat's cost is practical, is a huge gamble. 471 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:38,000 About $3 billion has been invested into lab meat so far. Yet the available evidence does not 472 00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:42,640 guarantee that lab meat will be practical, profitable, or even good for the environment. 473 00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:48,240 Lucky for us, humans aren't like a bioreactor. We don't need to drink growth medium. We just 474 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,960 need to drink enough water to stay hydrated. That's where this video's sponsor element comes in. 475 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:57,200 Element is a great way to add electrolytes and stay hydrated without any sugar. 476 00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:01,120 Many people don't realize that electrolytes are a big part of hydration and are important 477 00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:05,600 for maintaining energy levels, especially if you're fasting, doing a low carb diet, or just 478 00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,920 losing electrolytes through sweat when you exercise. Rather than a pre-workout or caffeine, 479 00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:13,680 I usually just have some element before my workouts. The other thing is that sometimes hunger 480 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:18,560 can just be a craving for sodium, which is why I also have a pack if I'm starting to crave some snacks. 481 00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,760 Element is great, and there's no junk in it. It's just a good balance of electrolytes, 482 00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:26,000 sodium, potassium, and magnesium, but a flavoring and some stevia. There's also a raw 483 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:31,120 on flavor type if you prefer. If you've got a drink, lmt.com slash what I've learned, 484 00:25:31,120 --> 00:25:33,360 you can get a free sampler pack with any purchase.