FAQs & Mythbusting
Browse some of our most frequently asked questions and the myths surrounding the Energy, Transportation and Food & Agriculture disruptions.
Energy
- Myth: A sustainable energy future will require us to embrace austerity and use less energy.
- Myth: There is not enough lithium on earth for a global electric economy reliant on lithium-ion batteries
- Myth: Switching to clean technologies will be expensive, and the cost of converting to an electrified civilization is more than the cost of maintaining the current system.
- Myth: It is impossible to build enough battery storage to power our civilization with clean energy.
- Myth: The same amount of energy is needed for a combustion civilization as an electrified civilization.
- Myth: Solar, wind and batteries cannot support the entire global population.
- Myth: Cloudy days present a real challenge to solar, wind and battery meeting daily global energy demands as weather fluctuates.
- What is the role of hydrogen in our energy future?
- Myth: It is impossible to have a 100% renewable grid because it is too inefficient to build solar, wind or battery capacity that we only use for a small amount of time.
- Will the cost of batteries rise because of supply shortages?
- What is the role of conventional nuclear power in our energy future?
- Can we build batteries fast enough to maintain exponential growth of renewables and electric vehicles?
- Myth: Nickel is a less abundant resource. There is not enough of it to power an electric future.
- Does the scarcity of raw materials needed to make lithium-ion batteries mean that we won’t be able to build enough batteries for our energy demands?
Transport
- Myth: Electric vehicles are too expensive to produce to replace traditional vehicles globally.
- Myth: Roadtrips are impossible with electric vehicles because of the need to recharge. Charging an EV is lengthy and inconvenient.
- Myth: Autonomous vehicles are more dangerous than manual driving.
- Myth: “I could never give up my car!”
- Myth: Robotaxis cannot compete economically with human-driven taxis because of the cost of taxi licenses (‘medallions’).
- Myth: Electric cars require cobalt, the mining of which uses child labor.
- How will the roads be financed when there is no gas tax? Will there be an electronic distance-based toll system?
- How many jobs will be created by the disruption of transportation? How many jobs will be destroyed?
- What will happen to the existing fleet of vehicles as a result of the transportation disruption? Can these vehicles be converted to EVs? AEVs?
- How will the disruption play out in India, Southeast Asia, Africa and other places where consumers are very price-sensitive?
- Will automated vehicles really be safer?
- How many autonomous electric vehicles will be needed?
Food and Agriculture
- Myth: The new modern food system will be centralized and corporation owned, just like the pharmaceutical industry.
- Myth: The disruption of food and agriculture means that in the future there will be no meat available from animals.
- Myth: Foods made with precision fermentation are GMOs
- Myth: The companies and products we see today are the future of the food industry.
- Myth: Modern foods are only able to replicate the animal products we already have.
- Myth: Precision Fermentation is only a production method for making proteins.
- Myth: Modern foods are, and will forever be, too expensive to compete with animal products.
- Myth: Cultivated meat is not real meat.
- Myth: Technologies like Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture will not be able to be scaled enough to feed our global population.
- How can we trust meat, milk or other animal products grown in a lab?
- How much will the energy for Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture cost?
- How much farmland acreage would be impacted by a transition to Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture food systems?
- Where will Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture technologies be most suited geographically?
- How will the modern food disruption work in poorer regions and nations around the world?
- How can we avoid a sudden transition to the modern food system that could threaten the livelihoods of subsistence and artisan farmers and others that work in food production?
- What will happen to all the cows?
- What if I never want to give up my meat?
- How much waste material is produced by modern foods, and are there any associated environmental risks?
- How can we avoid large-scale corporate control of these technologies?
- What is the difference between Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture?
- How much energy do Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture require?
- Why aren’t other modern food technologies disruptive in the same way that Precision Fermentation is?
- Where will the energy for Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture come from?
- How does Precision Fermentation and Cellular Agriculture water use compare to the animal agriculture it will replace?