Food without sun: price and life-saving potential

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to estimate the price and life-saving potential of alternate foods. The sun could be blocked by asteroid impact, supervolcanic eruption or nuclear winter caused by burning of cities during a nuclear war. The primary problem in these scenarios is loss of food production. Previous work has shown that alternate foods not dependent on sunlight, such as bacteria grown on natural gas and cellulose turned into sugar enzymatically, could feed everyone in these catastrophes, and preparation for these foods would save lives in a manner that is highly cost-effective. Design/methodology/approach This study estimates the price of alternate foods during a catastrophe in line with global trade and information sharing, but factors such as migration, loans, aid or conflict are not taken into consideration. Findings Without alternate foods, for a five-year winter, only approximately 10 per cent of the population would survive. The price of dry food would rise to approximately $100/kg, and the expenditure on this food would be approximately $100tn. If alternate foods were $8/kg, the surviving global population increases to approximately 70 per cent, saving >4billion lives. Research limitations/implications A nongovernmental mechanism for coordinating the investments of rich people may be possible. Identifying companies whose interests align with alternate food preparations may save lives at a negative cost. Practical implications The probability of loss of civilization and its impact on future generations would be lower in this scenario, and the total expenditure on food would be halved. Originality/value Preparation for alternate foods is a good investment even for wealthy people who would survive without alternate foods.

Potential of microbial protein from hydrogen for preventing mass starvation in catastrophic scenarios

“…If the capital, labor, material, knowledge and production capacity of the sector could be leveraged entirely for fast construction of H₂ SCP facilities without bottlenecks, enough food could theoretically be produced to feed the entire global population in just over 1 year. This is longer than the time that current food reserves would last in a sun-blocking scenario, estimated at about 6 months ( Denkenberger et al., 2019a ). In addition, the titanic effort in international cooperation required would be unprecedented.…”

“…those that include disabling of industry ( Denkenberger et al., 2019b , 2017 )), it is found to be a promising technology for providing a substantial fraction of humanity's protein needs during a severe global food catastrophe. Due to these potential difficulties and the existence of other available alternative foods with lower cost per calorie ( Denkenberger et al., 2019a ; Throup et al., 2020 ) and faster production ramp up ( Alvarado et al., 2020 ; Denkenberger and Pearce, 2015 ; Throup et al., 2020 ), it does not seem reasonable to recommend ramping up H₂ SCP any further than required to fulfill the protein requirements of the population. At the speed described by Figs.…”

U.S. Potential of Sustainable Backyard Distributed Animal and Plant Protein Production during and after Pandemics

“…Another protein option that could be grown at household scale is insects. Particularly valuable would be those insects that could feed on residues from leaf processing and also animal waste [120]. Another option for local food production in sunblocking catastrophes would be methane consuming microbes (single cell protein) because of continuing natural gas supply to houses.…”

Preliminary Automated Determination of Edibility of Alternative Foods: Non-Targeted Screening for Toxins in Red Maple Leaf Concentrate

“…Preparing for alternative food production is a very cost-effective way to save expected lives, both globally [35] and from the perspective of only the United States [36]. These calculations are all based on technical feasibility and considerable future research is necessary for more extreme scenarios [37,38], particularly considering the transition from conventional to alternative foods and being able to afford the food without subsidy [39]. It is critical to have a resilient global food system [40] that is continuous (e.g., able to maintain caloric intake consistently).…”

“…The largest challenge with this transition is between the time that stored foods run out globally following a sun-blocking global catastrophe (about six months) [1,32] and the time that many alternative foods are ramped up to full production (about one year) [1,32]. The best theoretical solution for this transition problem is to use leaves killed by the catastrophe (as opposed to leaves that are depleted of nutrients and shed naturally (leaf litter)), especially because the price compared to many alternative foods is reasonable [39]. However, food from leaves presents several challenges [32].…”