Not sure if relevant, but one topic I am curious about but have not seen much writing about is how biotechnology can be used for a circular economy? For example, imagine that we can grow brain matter to create biological computers. Or grow trees into the shape of houses? Then, when these are no longer needed you just toss them at the side of the road and they decompose just like any other organic matter. No waste, no toxins, just immediately plugging into the circular economy of existing biology. Not sure if this is very EA though, but it is something, as an environmentalist, that gives me hope about biotech. I can see a future with no more landfills, no more toxic waste. Just everything being bio and part of the existing, fine tuned cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen etc.
I haven’t seen much writing on this either, but we are certainly after some. “Living” or “self-healing” materials are big in biotech, and it just becomes a matter of seeing what is actually possible and can be done at scale. But yes, things such as living-roof materials, cables made from bacteria, and self-healing concrete are being explored.
Not sure if relevant, but one topic I am curious about but have not seen much writing about is how biotechnology can be used for a circular economy? For example, imagine that we can grow brain matter to create biological computers. Or grow trees into the shape of houses? Then, when these are no longer needed you just toss them at the side of the road and they decompose just like any other organic matter. No waste, no toxins, just immediately plugging into the circular economy of existing biology. Not sure if this is very EA though, but it is something, as an environmentalist, that gives me hope about biotech. I can see a future with no more landfills, no more toxic waste. Just everything being bio and part of the existing, fine tuned cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen etc.
I haven’t seen much writing on this either, but we are certainly after some. “Living” or “self-healing” materials are big in biotech, and it just becomes a matter of seeing what is actually possible and can be done at scale. But yes, things such as living-roof materials, cables made from bacteria, and self-healing concrete are being explored.
https://asm.org/articles/2022/july/cable-bacteria-electric-marvels-of-the-microbial-w
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352710223010677