Solar Foods’ says it is 200 times more efficient than beef for land use. This modesty regarding their own numbers in their own situation envisages solar power fields or using the total area of land covered by wind farms (rather than the direct impact area of the roads and towers). If only the direct impact of wind towers and roads is used, the size of the power generation and proposed Solein factory complex land could be about 1/2400 times the size required for other protein sourcing such as soy and 20% of Solein production replacing animal protein.
The factory complex proposed by Solar Foods would produce 50,000 tonnes of Solein at 78% protein, amounting to 39,000 tonnes of protein, at an electricity use of 270 Mw. Soy beans produce an average of 3.16 metric tonnes per hectare per year. At 42% protein, this amounts to 1.33 tonnes of protein per hectare per year. The proposed factory complex would produce the protein of 29,323 hectares of soy beans, or 17.1 square km.
In comparing to meat, we see that poultry meat is assessed as 7.1 square metres per 100g of protein at Land use per 100 grams of protein. For poultry this amounts to 276,900 hectares for the yearly protein of the proposed Solein factory complex. For pork, this number is 10.7 square metres per 100g. The proposed Solein output of protein would require 417,300 hectares. Beef is assessed as 163.6 square metres per 100 g of protein. The proposed Solein output of protein would require 6,380,400 hectares for beef herds that were described as existing on primarily pasture. Milk is assessed as 27.1 square metres per 100 g of protein. This amounts to 1,056,900 hectares to provide the yearly protein of the proposed Solein factory complex.
Doing a search for “percentage of protein from meat average person” in Microsoft Copilot yielded the data that meat provides 50% and dairy 15% of protein for the average North American, based on “dietary-survey data”. About 35% – 40% of meat consumed is chicken. About 30% – 35% is pork and about 20% -25% is beef. If, for example, 20% of the proposed Solein factory complex’s protein were to represent a change over from meat, then that would represent, say 8%, 7% and 4% of the yearly Solein output that would replace chicken, pork and beef respectively. This amounts to 22,152 hectares of chicken land use, 29,211 hectares of pork land use and 255,216 hectares of beef land use. These amount to 306,579 Ha used for raising the meat of 20% of the proposed Solein factory complex’s protein. If the other 80% of the proposed factory complex were to replace soy production, this would amount to an additional (29,323 Ha x 0.8) = 23,458 Ha. Therefore 100% of the Solein factory complex’s output under this scenario would replace 306,579+23,458 = 330,037 Ha.
Wind power direct impact area in the United States takes up approximately 0.3 Ha +/- 0.3 Ha per installed Mw capacity, but a more specific number given in a previous study indicated 0.3 – 0.4 Ha per turbine for permanent direct impact: Land-Use Requirements of Modern Wind Power Plants in the United States at page 12. Typical wind turbine sizes in BC are 3 Mw. Wind power capacity factors average 26% globally Wind turbine capacity factors: by country, by facility? – Thunder Said Energy. Therefore for the 270Mw proposed Solein factory, there would have to be installed capacity of 270Mw/0.26 = 1038 Mw installed capacity. This would require 346 turbines of 3 Mw. At 0.4 Ha per turbine, this amounts to 138 Ha. This is 1/2391 of the land that would be saved if the proposed Solein factory complex were to have 20% of its output replace meat consumption. If it is possible for the 1038 Mw installed capacity to be put on 33 Ha direct impact area including the factory complex, then a factor of 10,000 x would be possible.
PSUMA 