Thanks for sharing your computation. This highly resonates with a (very rough) back of the envelope estimate I ran for the cost-effectiveness of the Good Food Institute, the guesstimate model is here https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/16617. The result (which shouldn’t be taken to literally) is $1.4 per ton CO2e (and $0.05-$5.42 for 90% CI).
I can give more details on how my model works, but very roughly I try to estimate the amount of CO2e saved by clean meat in general, and then try to estimate how much earlier will that happen because of GFI. Again, this is very rough, and I’d love any input, or comparison to other models.
I’m surprised by the level of agreement between our assumptions. In your model, 200 M$ funding is required to advance clean meat with 0,7 years, whereas I assumed 100M$ and 1 year. You assume a lower greenhouse gas saving: 50% of the current 7,8 Gton CO2 emissions, whereas I assumed an increase in meat consumption in businass as usual scenario, and a reduction of 1 ton CO2 per vegan year, that means a reduction of around 10 Gton (assuming 10B people), but you assumed a 25% probability of success, whereas I assumed 10%. But with more lognormal error distributions, you arrive at higher $/ton estimates. Here’s my guesstimate
I too was surprised when I first read your post. I find it reassuring that our estimates are not far from each other, although the models are essentially different. I suppose we both neglect some aspects of the problem, although both models are somewhat conservative.
I agree that it is probably the case that cell-based meat is very cost-effective at greenhouse gas reduction, and I would love to more sophisticated models than ours.
Thanks for sharing your computation. This highly resonates with a (very rough) back of the envelope estimate I ran for the cost-effectiveness of the Good Food Institute, the guesstimate model is here https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/16617. The result (which shouldn’t be taken to literally) is $1.4 per ton CO2e (and $0.05-$5.42 for 90% CI).
I can give more details on how my model works, but very roughly I try to estimate the amount of CO2e saved by clean meat in general, and then try to estimate how much earlier will that happen because of GFI. Again, this is very rough, and I’d love any input, or comparison to other models.
I’m surprised by the level of agreement between our assumptions. In your model, 200 M$ funding is required to advance clean meat with 0,7 years, whereas I assumed 100M$ and 1 year. You assume a lower greenhouse gas saving: 50% of the current 7,8 Gton CO2 emissions, whereas I assumed an increase in meat consumption in businass as usual scenario, and a reduction of 1 ton CO2 per vegan year, that means a reduction of around 10 Gton (assuming 10B people), but you assumed a 25% probability of success, whereas I assumed 10%. But with more lognormal error distributions, you arrive at higher $/ton estimates. Here’s my guesstimate
https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/16723
I too was surprised when I first read your post. I find it reassuring that our estimates are not far from each other, although the models are essentially different. I suppose we both neglect some aspects of the problem, although both models are somewhat conservative.
I agree that it is probably the case that cell-based meat is very cost-effective at greenhouse gas reduction, and I would love to more sophisticated models than ours.