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Comment by algoatecorn | Hacker News Reader

The agriculture section is disheartening. What is the VCs worlds' obsession with cellular ag and mushrooms? Totally missing the forest for the trees here.

Global calorie supply is dependent on the Haber-Bosch process i.e. Nitrogen fixation.

The next big agricultural breakthrough will be some form of nitrogen fixation:

1. That is not affected by a reduction of fossil fuels

2. Is on par with Haber-Bosch in terms of elemental Nitrogen application

3. Does not require a massive shift in consumer preferences

Also, the food industry is heavily reliant on energy sources that are not easily replaced by renewables. It needs dense energy like diesel and natgas. So there's another topic that should be funded.

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Projects to run the Haber-Bosch process with clean hydrogen are already underway:

https://www.bicmagazine.com/projects-expansions/renewable-su...

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/08/26/avaada-to-invest-5-bi...

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/egypt-...

They use electricity from wind and/or solar power to electrolyze hydrogen from water. Then the hydrogen gets combined with nitrogen in the Haber-Bosch process like usual. This is not a good bet for VCs because the capital commitments are large (billions of dollars' worth of physical chemical plant) and there's no prospect of winning the market by being early. Big industrial players are already earlier than VCs could hope to be at this stage.

In some ways this is a trip back in time. In the 20th century, many renewable ammonia plants were constructed and operated using hydroelectric power:

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4079/3/2/11/htm

It peaked in the 1960s (figure 6). A combination of rising demand for electricity at home and industry, plus optimization of hydrogen production from fossil feedstocks, made electricity-to-hydrogen (and from there to ammonia) less popular. But now rising natural gas prices and climate concerns, plus falling costs for renewable electricity from wind and solar, make it attractive again.

worked on control & modelling software for some of these PtX plants. Pretty neat stuff, although I got the impression there are quite a few already running

> Does not require a massive shift in consumer preferences

This is getting more and more irrelevant by the day. If “climate tech” fails to “fix” climate change (a goal which I believe to be impossible), then it’s not going to matter what people’s preferences are — the choices are going to be made for them and it won’t matter what they like/dislike.

You're confounding the people of today with the people of the future. We've learned over the last couple of decades that the people of today in general refuse to make any sacrifice for the people of the future. This doesn't change when the people of today are negatively affected because any sacrifice is felt in the future and doesn't mitigate the negative consequences of today.

Would you happen to have read “ministry for the future” by Kim Robinson ?

I just read the chapter where he elaborate on that exact idea.

I think it’s absolutely on point with our attitude as a society / specie

Will check it out thanks

> You're confounding the people of today with the people of the future.

This is is just alarmist talk that was made famous by the likes of the Effective Altruism guys.

Then ignore it, but rest still applies and requires innovation.

But keep in mind that if two companies provide N-fixing technology, and one of them doesn't require changes in consumer preference, then they will be the winner

The only way you will get change at scale before disaster is to help people keep their lifestyle.

Climate change is a fixable problem. It is not anywhere near the point that choices will be made for people in the next two to three decades.

Curbing climate change without curbing behavior and lifestyle are completely at odds with each other.

That is not the case. In the past we've made huge improvements to human efficiency in terms of resource usage and waste output. We still can and will. Unless we destroy the economy before we can develop the required technology.

“You kidding me? I love eating bacteria-modified-plastic-waste-paste. Have you tried the blue flavor yet?”

I would eat that. And I like food, real food, and cook from scratch most days.

Would hydrogen work as a fuel source here?

It would make sense for heavy machinery to use hydrogen rather than batteries as an energy store because it is a lot more energy dense (and lighter), but it's still not as energy dense as fossil fuels.

And it's assuming that you have enough cheap energy to produce enough hydrogen in the long term. Which probably won't happen.

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