I once got in a really weird argument with a redditor who I simply suggested to that cultured meats will likely never scale up. I was so fascinated with how anxious the redditor seemed as they accused me of being a big Ag shill, then a VEGAN, then a Luddite who was try to dissuade the public. That the only problem is public perception.
I didn't even say it was going to be unhealthy if though it is going to be goo used to make burgers and chicken nuggets. I just said it's not going to happen because the laws of physics as detailed in a really good article below. And if anybody was insane enough to put billions into the kind of facilities you would need to mass produce this food then you are talking about $17 chicken nuggets that wouldn't even be vegan.
https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
Not only that but the significant energy required for the clean room environments to grow these cells could make it even more carbon intensive then even beef agriculture.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00005/full
They just started babbling that people's insane demand for meat dictates no other solution can be found. But people increasingly don't want slop like burgers or nuggets, carnivores want their steak medium done rare and basic bitch rack of lamb on easter. Why does the customer always have to be right? So what people want meat, they also want sport cars and mcmansions. People are shits and giving a select minority of them almost everything they could want is destroying this planet.
It's not really related and fuck cars but I remember how one redditor lecture me how biodiesel is better then electric cars. I asked if they figured out the land use or nitrogen input problem and the redditor was like "oh just vertical agriculture and GMO crops". It really bothers me how some people don't actually try to understand how these things work and resort to magically thinking that CRISPR or Musk's new battery will solve everything.
Ah yes vertical farms, the farms only capable of growing salad greens and basil at scale. You’ll have to replace the sun with fusion before this shit becomes viable for a biodiesel feedstock at which point why aren’t you JUST POWERING YOUR CAR WITH THAT?!??!