🌍 Jet fuel made from CO2 #06
Tuna made from seaweed, chocolate made without cocoa, and reaching net zero
Hi!
Welcome to the sixth edition of the 'tings with impact newsletter 🌍
This week we are looking at BettaF!sh who have made seaweed taste like tuna, QOA who have developed a way to make chocolate without the need for cocoa, and Dimensional Energy who are creating carbon neutral jet fuel from CO2.
As a little 'ting I've included a link to a funny yet scary video about reaching net zero by 2050.
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🐟 BettaF!sh - TU-NAH instead of Tuna
Our population is set to reach 9.1 billion people by 2050, of which 70% will live in urban environments (49% today). To feed this larger and richer population we will need to increase food production by 70%. This massive growth in food production and consumption does not mean equal growth across the board. According to the UN the share of staples such as grains and rice will decrease while vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, and fish will increase.
If we focus in on fish I'm sure many of you are already realising a massive issue... how the hell are we supposed to increase fishing, an industry that is already f**king our planet? You are not wrong, around 34% of fish stocks are overfished and 60% are maximally fished. In addition to massively straining fish stocks around the world, two of the top 10 most polluting foods are fish, namely farmed salmon and canned tuna who produce 11.9kg and 6.1kg of CO2e per kilogram of consumed food respectively.
Yeah... that doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Thankfully, the oceans are not only home to fish but also to a powerful climate superhero, algae. Macroalgae, or more commonly called seaweed, can grow up to 30 times faster than land-based plants with specific varieties such as kelp being able to absorb 50 times more carbon than most land-based plants. Seaweeds are also an excellent food source, specific varieties are high in protein and are actually the original source of omega-3 – fish don't produce omega-3 by themselves but obtain it from eating algae.
These climate superpowers alongside the seafood-y taste of seaweed is what BettaF!sh, a Berlin-based startup, are using to replace tuna with a similar tasting but more sustainable alternative. They have developed TU-NAH made out of fava beans and seaweed. Their first product, the TU-NAH sandwich, was launched at the end of October and is available in 4,000 ALDI locations across Germany. I managed to find a sandwich, and if you would've told me its a normal tuna sandwich from a grocery store I would have believed you! It has that nice fishy taste and is quite moreish. It is still a supermarket sandwich though, the bread is pretty dry and the flavour is quite one-sided due to an overload of sauce. Nevertheless, the TU-NAH itself is great and I am very excited to try the canned version once it comes out!
Image: picture of the sweet chilli TU-NAH sandwich that I got from ALDI
A big shoutout to the venture capital fund Pale Blue Dot, who have invested in BettaF!sh, for open sourcing their research on the topic of Algae! Their research made writing about BettaF!sh a lot easier. I highly suggest checking out their substack newsletter where they provide insights into their investments.
🍫 QOA - Making chocolate without Cocao
The Ivory Coast and Ghana produce more cocoa than all other cocoa producing countries combined – almost 3,000,000 metric tonnes (56% of global production). Cocoa accounts for 40% of Ivory Coast's and 30% of Ghana's exports. This economic reliance on cocoa has had severe climate impacts in both countries. The Ivory Coast has lost more than 80% of its rainforest in the last 50 years to make space for cocoa production and the government has unveiled plans to remove protection of its remaining forests to hand them over to international cocoa traders. The situation in Ghana is just as bad, they are losing their rainforest faster than any other country in the world, their rate of rainforest loss jumped by 60% from 2017 to 2018.
QOA, a Munich-based, are hoping to significantly reduce the climate impact of chocolate by taking cocoa out of the chocolate making process entirely. They have figured out how to replicate the taste and texture of chocolate using other ingredients such as grains or scraps from sunflower oil production. The magic comes from 'precision fermentation'. QOA started off by identifying the key flavour compounds of chocolate and how they were created – realising that most of the taste of commercial chocolate comes from the processing and not the cocoa itself. They then fermented and roasted a variety of raw ingredients to replicate those flavour compounds, and with the right, proprietary combination they are now able to replicate the taste so closely that even chocolate experts could not tell the difference between a QOA sample and a real chocolate sample.
Their goal is not to replace high-quality bean-to-bar chocolate but rather address mass market applications. Their QOA chocolate has the potential to be 10x more sustainable than conventional chocolate.
For those who want a chance to try some of their chocolate, head over to their website for a chance to be selected as a QOA tester.
🛩 Dimensional Energy - Carbon neutral jet fuel made from CO2
There are startups working on electrifying regional air travel like Swedish Heart Aerospace who are developing a 19 seater electric airplane with a range of 400km set to launch in 2026. A 400km range would get you from Berlin to Copenhagen with a few kilometres of range to spare. Electrifying flights longer than that is extremely challenging due to the current limited energy density of batteries. The energy density of Tesla Model 3 batteries is 0.936 MJ/kg while the energy density of jet fuel is 45x higher at 42.8 MJ/kg. A significant amount of jet fuel's energy is lost as heat during combustion, up to 50%, but the difference in energy per kg is still staggering. Battery technology will take some time to reach that level of energy density, so, in the meantime, figuring out a way to create sustainable jet fuel at a competitive price is vital!
Dimensional Energy an Arizona-based startup is trying to do exactly that by using the power of the sun and CO2 captured from industrial sources such as steel or cement factories. They direct and concentrate the energy of the sun using a powerful mirror, called a heliostat, into a reactor. In this reactor, CO2 is mixed with hydrogen that was separated from water using electrolysis to produce syngas. Syngas is an intermediate fuel-gas mixture that is used to create synthetic fuels. Dimensional Energy convert the syngas into liquid fuel and further refine it into jet fuel. In 2020, their first prototype was able to create jet fuel at a cost of $60 per gallon, which is set to drop to $27 at their new pilot facility.
They are planning to open a new facility in 2023 that will produce 1,000 gallons of jet fuel per day at a cost of$2.70 per gallon. An undisclosed airline has already partnered with Dimensional Energy to purchase the fuel from this facility. Dimensional Energy's grand ambition is to reduce the price per gallon to as low as $1 by 2025, which would be significantly cheaper than traditional jet fuel, which last week (05.11.21) was priced at $2.25 per gallon according to the IATA (International Air Transport Association).
This sustainable fuel will still release CO2 when burned but is equal to the amount taken out of the atmosphere to produce it, so it is carbon neutral. If the technology is able to scale to being cheaper than pulling fossil fuel out of the ground it could be a gigantic leap in our battle against emissions without the need to retool an entire industry.
🌍 A little 'ting - Net f**ked by 2050
Not much to explain, here's the video, enjoy 😂
Thank you for making it to the end!
If you happened to enjoy reading this, why not send it around to a few friends so that more people can get an insight into what is being done to preserve the future of our planet 🌍
Until next time, much love,
Pascal