I have no experience in the area, but just to point out that you could equally apply some of those arguments to meat production.
The current meat industry is only cost effective because we've spent the last few millennia optimising the everloving hell out of it - and its scale is just as unfathomable. A significant proportion of the Earth's land surface is currently dedicated to either growing animals or growing animal feed.
So of course, for an alternative to displace it, it would also have to work at unfathomable scales too.
And bearing in mind, the technology to grow meat is essentially an exercise in recreating eons of evolution in a factory. It's an enormous challenge, but that alone doesn't mean it's impossible. Current meat production is also incredibly inefficient from a thermodynamic perspective.
I have no idea whether lab meat will ever come to pass. I suspect it will eventually, but probably take longer than expected.
The current meat industry is only cost effective because we've spent the last few millennia optimising the everloving hell out of it - and its scale is just as unfathomable. A significant proportion of the Earth's land surface is currently dedicated to either growing animals or growing animal feed.
So of course, for an alternative to displace it, it would also have to work at unfathomable scales too.
And bearing in mind, the technology to grow meat is essentially an exercise in recreating eons of evolution in a factory. It's an enormous challenge, but that alone doesn't mean it's impossible. Current meat production is also incredibly inefficient from a thermodynamic perspective.
I have no idea whether lab meat will ever come to pass. I suspect it will eventually, but probably take longer than expected.