“The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying and being doomed to unending separation. And to do this there was only one resource: to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.”—Albert Camus, The Plague
Altruism is the rational response to an irrational world.
Potential of microbial protein from hydrogen for preventing mass starvation in catastrophic scenarios
My name is Juan B. García Martínez, research associate of the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED). My colleagues Joseph Egbejimba, James Throup, Silvio Matassa, Joshua M. Pearce, David C. Denkenberger and I have researched the potential of microbial protein from hydrogen for preventing mass starvation in global catastrophic scenarios.
As members of ALLFED we are concerned by the fact that the current global food system is critically unprepared for extreme catastrophes of non-negligible likelihood, such as supervolcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, nuclear wars or pandemics that disrupt food trade. Instead of giving up in the face of this fact, we study potential solutions that could help in such events.
Abstract
Human civilization’s food production system is currently unprepared for catastrophes that would reduce global food production by 10% or more, such as nuclear winter, supervolcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts. Alternative foods that do not require much or any sunlight have been proposed as a more cost-effective solution than increasing food stockpiles, given the long duration of many global catastrophic risks (GCRs) that could hamper conventional agriculture for 5 to 10 years.
Microbial food from single cell protein (SCP) produced via hydrogen from both gasification and electrolysis is analyzed in this study as alternative food for the most severe food shock scenario: a sun-blocking catastrophe. Capital costs, resource requirements and ramp up rates are quantified to determine its viability. Potential bottlenecks to fast deployment of the technology are reviewed.
The ramp up speed of food production for 24⁄7 construction of the facilities over 6 years is estimated to be lower than other alternatives (3-10% of the global protein requirements could be fulfilled at end of first year), but the quality of the microbial protein is higher than most others. Results indicate that investment in SCP scaleup should be limited to the production capacity that is needed to fulfill only the minimum recommended protein requirements of humanity during the catastrophe. Further research is needed into more uncertain concerns such as transferability of labor and equipment production. This could help reduce the negative impact of potential food-related GCRs.
Time preference: late session.
In response to the following parts of your post:
“the only relevant-seeming academic field I found (Utopian Studies) is rooted in literary criticism rather than social science”
“most of the people there were literary scholars who had a paper or two on utopia but didn’t heavily specialize in it”
“Rather than excitement about imagining designing utopias, the main vibe was critical examination of why one would do such a thing”
I know a scholar who heavily specializes in the study of Utopia from the social sciences perspective (history) rather than literaty criticism: Juan Pro Ruiz, coordinator of the HISTOPIA project (~30 researchers, link in English). In their latest project, they are:
“analyzing the locations and geographical spaces of utopianism—both of unrealized or merely imaginary utopian projects (literature, cinema, art...) and of utopian experiments tested with greater or lesser success (in the form of social movements or intentional communities) - throughout contemporary history (19th to 21st centuries), while making an exceptional foray into the Modern Age in search of precedents and long-term trends. [...] even testing the heuristic possibilities of the human body as a space for the realization of utopias and dystopias in the field of contemporary science fiction or the transhumanist movement.”
I recently attended a symposium on Utopian thinking by Juan Pro in Madrid. He seemed extremely knowledgeable in the subject, and quite positive about the usefulness of serious Utopian exploration as a tool for navigating the present towards a better future. From the HISTOPIA web page:
“HISTOPIA seeks to go beyond the philological approach that predominates in Utopian Studies and to historicize the study of contemporary utopias and dystopias, showing how they respond to the contexts in which they arise, since they reflect the problems and frustrations of a society as well as the aspirations for change it contains, and the conditions of possibility that a particular cultural and emotional framework offers for developing them. [...] to recognize a new surge of the utopian impulse in the present times, asserting its need to provide a channel for the “hope principle” and stimulate the emergence of innovative ideas that constitute responses to the problems of the present. In short, the group explores the meaning of utopia (and its alternatives) for contemporary societies, as a mechanism for the construction of possibilities, a true laboratory of thought and action, in which we experiment with the forms of political, economic and social organization of the future.”
I found this email online if you want to contact him: juan.pro@uam.es. If you prefer, I could make an introduction.
I’ve seen a few people wondering how this relates to our work at ALLFED (@JoelMcGuire , @George Vii , @Brian Lui).
Bivalves can be grown in sinergy with seaweed in what is know as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) systems, which promise a consistent feedstock, in situ, with the co-benefit of recycling aquaculture waste (ref). They are also resilient to food trade restriction and the pests that affect land crops. They look like they could be significantly more resilient to changes in climate than land crops, thus being useful to counter falling agricultural yields in two ways like most resilient foods: 1) resilience—the higher the production of this food is prior to an abrupt food production shock, the smaller the overall fall in food production capacity, 2) response—the fall in agricultural yields could be countered by rapidly scaling production of this food post-catastrophe.
These are the things that we have yet to ascertain though. Uncertainty remains, but there definitely seems to be potential for bivalves and IMTA to compete in price and speed with other resilient food options, indeed contributing to a resilient food portfolio. It mostly depends on how growth rates would be affected by changes in climactic conditions. Because bivalve cultivation is not very complex technologically it looks like it could not only contribute to resilience and response against global catastrophic food shocks involving an agricultural collapse, but also those originating from a loss of critical infrastructures.
In short, I agree with the post and believe there could be significant potential for bivalves to increase food security overall and as a resilient food for extreme scenarios and would like to see more work on this. I proposed a project to look into this but we haven’t yet got around to working on it (so many important projects to do, so little time… We could use a little help). Below I paste the rationale for working in this topic I wrote for my bivalve project proposal:
Ramping up bivalves could have significant potential food for GCR, seeing as to how they’re somewhat similar to seaweed (which is very promising as such),
Depending on how fast production can ramp up, they could be an excellent alternative food for both sun-blocking and loss of industry scenarios
they are similar to seaweed but very rich in protein and nutritious
feed on phytoplankton
are as plant-like as possible
do not require fish feed
do not require conversion of habitat
do not contribute to pollution
not likely to experience pain and suffering
General info here
Technical info here
Production and price info here
Clams cost approx 6 USD retail/person/day (on the medium side of cost). Of these calories 50-70% is protein
I found this really interesting:
Humbird first models a Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) where all parameters are similar to baker’s yeast [...] The analysis comes to $3.87/kg of wet (70% water) cell mass for the constrained yeast process. As yeast production at scale is already a highly optimized process over many decades, and the additional constraints mentioned so far are pretty close to the fundamental biological nature of animal cells, it seems unlikely that we can do better than a lower bound of $3.87/kg. Unfortunately, there are other constraints.
If you believe this analysis to be representative of reality, then it follows that cultured meat will never be able to reach parity with current chicken and pork meat prices. Together, these two make over 2⁄3 of global meat production.
See: https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=pork&months=120 https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=chicken&months=120 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-consumption-by-type-kilograms-per-year?country=~OWID_WRL
There is peer-reviewed literature estimating that this work is likely to be more cost-effective than GiveWell interventions for saving lives in the present generation, and likely more cost-effective than artificial general intelligence safety for improving the long run future (resilient foods and resilience to loss of electricity/industry).
Other independent or non-academic related evaluations of cost-effectiveness can be found here:
How do you think the push to replace humans with AI systems in nuclear warfare decision making will affect the chance of accidental nuclear war going forward? I hear some countries have been considering it.
Has EA growth slowed? Has EA reached most of the people who were going to be interested in it? Where are you getting this from?
The Spanish-speaking community is growing fast. I assume there are other countries/languages that are yet to be significantly reached, all of which are bound to have some amount of people with significant E and A factors.
It’s worth mentioning that the new Charity Entrepreneuship book How to Launch a High-Impact Nonprofit does go into some of the “concrete issues” questions you’re asking. Particularly, the one on legal structure receives very good treatment (though somewhat lacking for non-US/UK orgs). They also go in some depth into media/website/aesthetics.
I agree the benefits of closed environments system that you bring up are considerable, in fact there are even more benefits than those mentioned (see this paper). I wanted to bring in some other considerations to enrich the discussion around this:
If the closed environment system depends significantly on sunlight-based renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, then it is not resilient to abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios such as nuclear winter.
There are many other possibilities outside of vertical farming for closed environment food production, many of which are significantly more efficient in their energy usage. I ran a simple estimation based on a yield of between 5-40 kg lettuce/m2/y and a calorie content of 150 kcal/kg, resulting on and energy efficiency in terms of electricity to calories of 0.1-0.9%. Compare to other systems with efficiencies around 20% such as single cell protein from CO2 (From one of my papers on closed environment food production methods for space/bunkers).
While transitioning to food production systems like these minimizes or even removes many risks (climate variability/change, including sunlight dependence as long as the energy system can be operated independently from sunlight as well, environmental pollution, pests, pathogens, trade restrictions etc), it could also maximize or introduce other vulnerabilities such as those that could cause a loss of electrical/industrial infrastructure. In other words, The interdependence between fuel extraction, energy production and industrial infrastructure could result in a multi-region or even global collapse of industry, and in a world in which we depend entirely on industrial infrastructure for food this could also destroy the entire global food system. You can find more info here. See this diagram from my colleague’s presentation on this topic.
For more discussion on the topic of potential concerns around the idea of cutting humanity’s ties with the Earth’s biosphere, see this paper by Lauren Holt: Why shouldn’t we cut the human-biosphere umbilical cord?.
As always it’s great to read your thoughts Pablo, and I like your scheme for getting the best of both worlds. I think it’s worth recommending that you build accountability to prevent yourself from drifting away from your stated plan or a similarly good one. Wishing you the best at Xanadu!
I’ll be looking forward to see if/how they deal with the aftermath of the impact, and specifically with the agricultural collapse that would ensue which is probably the most severe consequence of an asteroid/comet impact.
Thank you so much for writing and sharing this resource Sam, and again I can’t thank you enough for your support in helping us launch our policy org ORCG, we quite probably could not have done it without you.
One important caveat regarding flour fortification with vitamin D3 is that if the flour is used for baking bread, you could be losing 70% or even more of the added vitamin due to thermal degradation: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1750-3841.14764
Regardless, experts seem to think it is a cost effective measure even without accounting for the COVID-19 prevention potential. These researchers estimatd the effectiveness at £9.5 per QALY gained, which admittedly sounds too good to be true: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-019-0486-x
if this space was closer to my grantmaking, I’d be excited to fund a fully neutral study into these questions.
Here’s hoping that the new set of studies on this funded by FLI (~$4 million) will shed light on the issue within the next few years.
https://futureoflife.org/grant-program/nuclear-war-research/
One of the best, most useful posts I’ve read on the forum. Terrific work, Sam.
This looks like a much needed inititative. I’m interested to sign up for the reserve, it looks not unlike the type of work I’ve done in the past .
Outreach in groups with higher ratios of women: this is the one thing that comes to my mind every time I think about this. As long as EA is downstream of a few male-dominated disciplines/fields, it seems virtually impossible for the gender ratio to change.
Here’s a diagram I made to explain my thinking. The width of the arrow represents how many people are coming from each field, and the colored surface in each figure represents the gender ratio in each field:
If correct, this picture shows that you’d need to do something against this very strong society-wide selection pressure. Short of changing the gender ratios of the disciplines that EA is downstream of (society already spending significant amounts of resources on this), you would need to change which fields EA is getting people from. So here the outreach intervention you propose is equivalent to increasing the width of the arrows that represent female-dominated fields.