'It’s not a panacea.'
If confirmed, the research could be damning: lab-grown meat, long seen as a greener alternative to meat products that don't involve the slaughter of animals, could be more harmful to the environment than the products it's trying to replace.
Assessing the cycle of energy needed and the greenhouse gas emissions involved in all stages of producing lab-grown meat compared to conventional beef, they found that the global warming potential — an environmental metric measured in kilograms of CO2 emissions — of lab-grown meat is between four and 25 times greater than the average for beef products sold in stores.
"If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential," said lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner, in the statement. "If this product continues to be produced using the 'pharma' approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.
Lab-grown meat companies have tried to end their reliance on pharmaceutical-grade ingredients and focus on food-grade ones instead, something that would make growing meat in a lab far more environmentally competitive.
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