[extropy-chat] Brazil and China to legalize geneticallymodifiedcrops

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Tue Nov 23 20:21:36 UTC 2004


--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > And so forth.  In theory, it can be made cheaper. 
> In
> > practice, it's going to take a lot of developmnt
> to
> > make it so.
> 
> This is a good example of how 'efficient' doesn't
> necessarily mean
> 'cheaper'. High efficiency generally costs more than
> low efficiency.
> Given the output of a vat grown steak is merely a
> one time impact on
> the human palate, I doubt spending $1 million
> growing a steak at 99%
> thermodynamic efficiency is a worthwhile investment.

Efficiency wouldn't be the sole reason to do this.
Vegetarians might not object to vat meat, for
instance, and space colonies might be able to support
vats where they might not be able to support farm
animals.

That said, $1,000,000 - or even $1,000 - steaks (as
price per steak, not the one-time R&D costs) would be
too expensive for almost any food use.  $100 per pound
of steak *might* barely be viable, but it'd be
borderline.



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