Regarding the technology of synthetic starch, I did not want to talk about it, but I saw many articles that simply portrayed this technology as, "air into steamed buns", "one cubic starch synthesizer equals 5 acres of corn yield", because the depiction is a bit excessive, I can't help but want to come out and say two sentences.
Synthetic starch is regarded as a breakthrough technology for us to solve the food problem in the future, which is absolutely unquestionable, and because this technology is really shocking, it suddenly makes many people think that this achievement may win the Nobel Prize in the future, at the same time, the decline in the stock price of the agricultural sector actually reflects that some investors believe that the emergence of this technology will make some agricultural technology lose value, or will become more and more unnecessary.
These are probably the two aspects that many people are more concerned about.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > the odds of winning the Nobel Prize are slim</h1>
So, in my personal opinion, let's start with the first one, whether this technology of synthetic starch has any hope of winning the Nobel Prize.
I can say my answer first, not ruling out the possibility, but the possibility is very small.
Synthetic starch is an achievement in the field of natural sciences, excluding the Nobel Prize in physics, which also belongs to the field of natural sciences, and this achievement can be awarded either a chemistry prize or a physiology or medicine prize.
Generally speaking, most of the Nobel Prizes awarded to the field of natural science are inclined to basic scientific discoveries rather than a technological breakthrough.
Some people say that whether they can win the award mainly depends on the application of this technology in the future, that is, the contribution of this technology to the future (referring to the bovine insulin synthesized for the first time by Chinese scientists, at least until now, it has been confirmed that it is not of much use).
And many people say that Chinese the number of Nobel Prize winners in the field of natural sciences is so small, the reason is that when others are not engaged in research and development, we are still running to fill our stomachs, and when we can finally fill our stomachs to engage in research and development, others have long entered the harvest period of research and development results, Chinese will enter the Nobel Prize harvest period in the field of natural sciences in large quantities, and it is estimated that we will have to wait for another twenty or thirty years.
After all, the degree of contribution of R&D results also takes time to verify, so whether the person who led the realization of synthetic starch technology can win the Nobel Prize may need to wait for decades.
But if we pull the time back to decades in an instant, will the probability of winning a prize for this technology become great?
If the synthetic starch technology does have great achievements in the future, is fully in line with social and economic benefits, and can be promoted, that is, it will make some agricultural technologies useless, then the probability of the relevant people winning the Nobel Prize is indeed quite large.
However, if we speak from a more realistic point of view, the problem of cost alone is prohibitive.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > energy efficiency versus carbon sequestration</h1>
From carbon dioxide to the final synthetic starch, Although the energy utilization rate of artificial synthesis is 3.5 times that of photosynthesis, and the efficiency of carbon sequestration efficiency is 8.5 times that of plant photosynthesis, we still have to return to the most fundamental problem from this beautiful data, which is the corn you grow, no matter what food products are made, it will eventually need to be consumed within three or two years, that is, the carbon you fix from the air, because the fixed is a fast moving consumer product, you still have to use and put it back into the atmosphere, so this 8.5 times carbon sequestration efficiency may not actually be as good as everyone thinks.
Unless you use this technique to synthesize starches and end up using them as glue or some other non-completely decomposing product.
But if synthetic starch is not eaten, but used for other non-edible purposes, how can the meaning of synthetic starch be reflected? Take it for other industrial uses?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > synthetic costs much higher than cultivation</h1>
Moreover, in the process of synthesis, there are many people who do not understand biotechnology should have no concept, that is, to use expensive biological enzymes, although biological enzymes only play a catalytic role, and do not participate in the synthesis of starch, it is not consumed, can be reused indefinitely, so what does it matter if it is expensive.
But in fact, although the biological enzymes used are not consumed, the loss is inevitable, because they must be mixed in large quantities into the semi-finished products of starch, and then to catalyze the synthesis of starch, and after the starch is synthesized, it is impossible not to take away a part of the biological enzymes.
So we can basically predict that if the cost of naturally grown high-quality corn starch is 7 yuan a pound, and the synthetic starch with a single component and low quality is far more than this number.
Of course, many people will say that in the early stage of technology, everything is expensive, and when the future matures, the cost will naturally come down.
This is indeed very reasonable, and I hope that this will be the case in the future, but it is a single ingredient and difficult to meet the needs of consumption, which is also a fact that needs to be faced.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > nutrients are too single</h1>
So back to the previously mentioned "air to become steamed buns", "a cubic starch synthesizer is equal to 5 acres of corn yield" problem, although the main ingredient in the steamed bun and corn is starch, but the starch is definitely not equal to the steamed bun and corn.
We usually eat steamed bread and corn itself or other nutrients in it, the starch we use now is not a simple starch, they can also give us a variety of necessary nutrients, but the air out of the steamed bun?
The technique of synthetic starch is indeed amazing, but if it is deliberately ignored for some real problems and it is described too well, what is the difference between it and rumor-mongering?