Energy use
Lifecycle analyses have estimated different energy use levels for cultured meat compared to their conventional counterparts, depending on the underpinning assumptions including the type of bioreactor and growth medium used.[1] Estimated energy use ranges from slightly lower than conventional beef but similar to or slightly higher than poultry[2] to as much as three times higher than conventional beef.[3] These estimates have levels of uncertainty.
Whilst energy use is similar to or higher for cultured meat than for its conventional counterparts, this is in the form of industrial energy rather than consisting of a trade-off between using human edible energy for livestock production.[4] Moreover, cultured meat production replaces energy use for biological processes in animals (calorie conversion) with energy in the form of electicity and heat. The latter can be produced sustainably, with greater potential improvements in this area over time as compared to conventional agriculture.[5]
[1] Tuomisto HL, ‘The eco-friendly burger: Could cultured meat improve the environmental sustainability of meat products?’ 20: e47395, 2019, https://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201847395.
[2] Tuomisto HL, Teixeira de Mattos MJ, ‘Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production’, Environ. Sci. Technol. 45(14), 6117, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1021/es200130u; Sinke P, et al., 2023.
[3] Mattick CS et al., ‘Anticipatory Life Cycle Analysis of In Vitro Biomass Cultivation for Cultured Meat Production in the United States’, Environ. Sci. Technol. 49(19) 11941, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b01614; Tuomisto HL, Ellis MJ, Haastrup P, ‘Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat: Alternative Production Scenarios’, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-Food Sector, 2014. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/38629617.pdf; Tuomisto HL, ‘Challenges of assessing the environmental sustainability of cellular agriculture,’ Nature Food, 3:801-803, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00616-6; Mazac R, Jarvio N, Tuomisto HL, ‘Environmental and nutritional Life Cycle Assessment of novel foods in meals as transformative food for the future,’ Science of The Total Env., 876, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162796.
[4] Human edible energy refers to. crops used as animal feed that could be used as human food; Mattick CS et al., 2015.
[5] Sinke P, et al., 2023.