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Bill Gates-backed startup makes ‘butter’ out of water and carbon dioxide

A California-based startup called Savor has figured out a unique way to make a butter alternative that doesn’t involve livestock, plants, or even displacing land. Their butter is produced from synthetic fat made using carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and the best part is —- it tastes just like regular butter.

chemicalprophet ,

Isn’t that what it’s always been made of?

disguy_ovahea OP ,

Hydrocarbon chains? Yes. The success is that this process doesn’t involve cattle.

Rivalarrival ,

Germany managed to make butter out of coal during WWII.

Duamerthrax ,

How does the cost per co2 captured compare to planting more trees? Or is this just another VC scam?

BehindTheBarrier , (edited )

If CO2 is a byproduct of another process, then I’d make a guess it is fairly cheap. The flaw here is that CO2 and H2 are both products of steam reforming using methane… Which is to say, the cheaper version might just come from using natural gas. Hydrogen has to be sourced from some energy consuming process, and that too is often from the methane steam reformation. So it’s certainly possible, but yet again is ready to become yet another “green” product made from fossil fuel. Doesn’t have to be, but I can be.

Edit: to correct a discrepancy, the article mentioned hydrogen, but if the hydrgon comes from water used in the process then some of the issues of providing H2 is less big. But either way I expect this to be energy costly. Nevertheless, a lab made product is still something that doesn’t need large areas of land to produce.

vxx ,

If you plant more trees, there wouldn’t be enough space for the cows to get milk and make butter.

I guess the calculation always works, even when people apply methods they use to discredit EVs

Olhonestjim , (edited )

I mean cool, but if farts release CO2 after digestion breaks down fats and proteins, then it’s not much of a carbon sink, is it? Not to mention the scale necessary to reverse climate change. We’d have to make billions of barrels of the stuff, then pump it deep underground for long term sequestration. It’ll be so energy intensive we’ll require nuclear fusion.

Dead serious, I say we do it.

sushibowl ,

It’s not intended to be a carbon sink. It’s essentially intended to be a more carbon efficient way of producing margarine without having to grow e.g. palm oil and destroy forests. They thought, instead of making plants do the work of turning water and CO2 into fats, let’s just do it in the lab.

The basic science could work, although it’s usually tough to beat “put seeds into ground and wait” on pure cost. However the fact that they compare this to butter makes me sceptical. Given how wasteful growing a whole cow is just to make some milk fat, it’s easy to look efficient compared to that. They would compare themselves to sustainably produced margarine if they were honest.

vxx ,

It’s chemically identical to butter, so we wouldn’t need milk cows.

explore_broaden ,

Most of the CO2 savings comes from not raising cows, you’re correct that the carbon capture in the butter wouldn’t matter that much due to digestion, but it is likely not all the carbon will be released as CO2 again.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

The largest (farm) landowner in the US is backing a venture that does not require land?

disguy_ovahea OP ,

Smart investors diversify. Food production is a necessary industry.

Asetru ,

During WW2, due to the food shortage, Germans did this using the carbon from coal… The process is old and known.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#Coal_butter

Let’s see if the process can be made more efficient this time. Allegedly, the product was virtually indistinguishable from butter.

derpgon ,

It is just regular margarine, and for me, it is inedible. Tastes like vaseline.

RecluseRamble ,

Allegedly, the product was virtually indistinguishable from butter.

Well it says

Margarine made from them was found to be nutritious and of agreeable taste

Doesn’t sound indistinguishable to me.

charade_you_are ,

finally someone did the thing everybody wanted

sunzu ,

And everybody asked for

mipadaitu ,

Interesting way to get fat alternatives, people are already used to eating fake butter regularly, so it probably wouldn’t take much to add this to our diet.

disguy_ovahea OP ,

It’s also closer to butter than butter alternatives. It’s not made to be more healthy, just more planet friendly.

sunzu ,

Fake food is going to be more healthy than the real deal?

Sure buddy

Omega_Man ,

They said it’s NOT made to be more healthy.

sunzu ,

It won't be, it's processed shite

Omega_Man ,

OKAY

fushuan ,

So is any meat, mayonnaise, even butter is processed. Ever went into a fast food chain? Most ingredients are processed to the bits.

You better not take any medicine, that super processed? And Coca cola or any energy drinks? Bleh, made in labs!

I guess you only eat whole grains collected by you, that must suck.

sunzu ,

Dam y'all really getting bent on shape over this lol

disguy_ovahea OP ,

I wrote it’s not made to be more healthy, because that’s the current marketing of butter alternatives. This isn’t claiming to be more healthy. The compounds are the same as the fatty acids in butter.

It’s simply a way to get butter while reducing carbon dioxide, rather than increasing it.

Cagi ,

This fallacy is called an appeal to nature.

sunzu ,

It is also a fact that butter is a staple food that has been used for thousands of years with a proven track record.

Cagi ,

This fallacy is called an appeal to tradition.

sunzu ,

Just because something is fallacy the way it was presented does not make it wrong if he facts check out :)

Cagi ,

Your facts don’t check out, that’s what makes you wrong. Fallacies are just the symptom.

sunzu ,

Is butter not the best product in its class? both from health ie nutrition value and taste perspective?

Cagi ,

Not anymore. This product matches butter on both counts and puts out much less pollution and takes up much less land than factory farming. I urge you to actually read the article, many of your points are addressed within.

sunzu ,

I trust you bro

MentalEdge , (edited )
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

“Bro”, butter is literally just a hydrocarbon. As in carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms.

Making it in the lab produces chemically identical molecules.

As in, literally the same thing. Like actually for real no difference. Including however bad or healthy it is to eat.

Any nuances in the real thing will be from impurities that would have to be added to the lab produced stuff, should you want to.

The real difference is how it is made, not in what it produces. Meaning the synthetic option can be produced without livestock, and potentially using much less energy and land.

sunzu ,

"Bro", butter is literally just a carbohydrate.

🤡🤡🤡

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

If you want to be pedantic, straight out of the lab this stuff would be equivalent to “clarified butter”. Butter, from which all impurities have been removed.

Still butter tho.

sunzu ,
  1. that's ghee, i won't dispute that
  2. clarified butter is not a replace for butter as food, it is merely as "cooking fat". butter it self is very nutritious, clarifying it, you would lose a lot of it.

So headline is a bit of PR voodoo as i expected.

Big food companies has made a lot of afford to discredit butter and eggs since these foods are very good and cheap, aka processed food industry's main competition.

yeahiknow3 ,

*hydrocarbon, not carbohydrate (the latter contains oxygen). Otherwise spot on.

MentalEdge ,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Thanks.

glimse ,

Don’t trust them. Read the article, use your brain, and understand why your comments are wrong.

sunzu ,

Yes daddy

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

What are you, 12?

sunzu ,

I am just going with ol realiable

y'all have fun testing another "product"

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

This is called the fallacy of being a dope.

ragica ,
@ragica@lemmy.ml avatar

This may be a logical fallacy known as false equivalence, when one fact is stated or implied to be conflated with another not directly related fact.

fushuan ,

So was margarine before veganism was a widespread thing?

Deebster ,
@Deebster@programming.dev avatar

If it’s chemically identical, what does it matter if it’s come from dairy, this process, or a Star Trek replicator?

MonkderDritte ,

Fake medicine is going to be more healthy than the real (plant) deal? Sure buddy.

eatthecake ,

It’s not made to be more healthy, just more planet friendly.

uhmbah ,

Good or bad, it’s still processed food.

That’s my half-assed neutral statement. I choose not to eat processed foods. As long as there’s disclosure, I don’t care.

What people eat or don’t eat is their business.

atro_city ,

My thought was "I doubt you can make fat only with hydrogen and carbon", but fats/lipids are literally hydrocarbons. Adding other elements changes the taste, so it isn't necessary to have mammals anywhere in the production chain.

Very interesting and probably not the first time this is/has been done. It seems quite obvious.

phdepressed ,

It’s quite obvious at a theoretical level but not easy in terms of figuring out the actual process. A lot of science like that.

Zorg ,
@Zorg@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

According to the savor team, it was quite easy for them:

“We start with a source of carbon, like carbon dioxide, and use a little bit of heat and hydrogen to form chains which are then blended with oxygen from air to make the fats & oils"

I want to guess they are glossing over a complicated enzyme they created, or other form of reagent.

phdepressed ,

Yeah, they’re definitely glossing over a lot of things. They don’t even mention the source of co2 or even a real timeline.

emergencyfood ,

That’s like saying you can build a nuclear bomb by smashing pieces of uranium together. Technically true, but it’s a lot more complicated than that.

ValenThyme ,

www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01241-2 article on how to do this

i learned the nazis made butter from coal!

Ephera ,

Something I wondered with this, is that butter/margarine/similar need an emulsifier. They consist of basically 80% fat + 20% water, which would not normally mix, but then you add an emulsifier and they do.

There’s lots of different emulsifiers. In butter, it’s apparently mostly casein. My margarine lists lecithin and glyceride.

And well, looks like glyceride consists out of lots of H, C and O, so I’m guessing that’s probably what they’re using in this process…

disguy_ovahea OP ,

Hopefully by producing a potentially profitable product, they’ll secure the funding to drive some carbon capture systems as well.

Tryptaminev ,

Adding other elements changes the taste,

This is not how chemistry works at all.

To start with, fatty acids also need Oxygen because of the COOH and OH group of the glycerin in fat. They are not hydrocarbons. You know what also is just made of Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen? Hundreds of thousands of molecules. All sugars and carbohydrates. If you allow for Nitrogen too, you could cover most molecules found in biological life.

None of this has any bearing on how difficult or complicated it is to synthesize these from more basic molecules like CO2 or H2.

pezmaker ,
@pezmaker@sh.itjust.works avatar

Guarantee that A) it doesn’t taste just like real butter, and B) it’ll make you shit yourself and bring a return of the label “may cause anal leakage”.

Does that mean it’s not a potentially viable product? No, it doesn’t. But let’s not bullshit.

Fiivemacs ,

I get sick everytime I eat meat from Walmart. I fear bill gates butter will kill me.

disguy_ovahea OP ,

The problem with Olestra (the anal leakage oil alternative) is it’s a mixture of hexa-, hepta-, and octa-esters of sucrose with various long chain fatty acids. The resulting radial arrangement is too large and irregular to move through the intestinal wall and be absorbed into the bloodstream.

What Savor has supposedly created is chemically identical to the fatty acids in butter. It’s not made of new compounds, but made in a new way.

atro_city ,

What's up with people talking about shitting themselves?

Nasan ,

We’re in the presence of masters of the art of shitting one’s self

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

There was a run of fat replacement back (iirc) in the late nineties. Olestra was one of the name brands.

It wouldn’t digest at all, and it also wouldn’t mix in happily with the rest of the body waste in the colon. Hence, anal leakage becoming a phrase you would see on food labels.

And you would, sometimes, have not only leakage, but diarrhea. Sometimes violent diarrhea.

Basically, the oil was slippery enough to escape the anus no matter how tight it was. And there was a lot of it, under pressure from other waste behind it.

atro_city ,

Thank you for that insight. Kind of hilarious they didn't figure that out during product testing.

Etterra ,

If it tastes and spreads like a tub of Land o Lakes then I’ll probably try it. I don’t care where the hell it comes from as long as it tastes correct.

nandeEbisu ,

I wonder if they can use CO2 that comes from industrial carbon capture, or if it needs to be something purer that takes a lot of energy to produce.

Also, I’m not sure if we can get industrial volumes of hydrogen from sources other than fossil fuels now. Its been a while, but last I checked it was coming from things like byproducts from reformers.

FauxPseudo ,
@FauxPseudo@lemmy.world avatar

It would need to be food grade CO2. So breweries would be a good source.

Ephera ,

Fat and oil production from animal and plant-based sources are collectively responsible for about 3.5 billion tons of CO2

You cannot be serious that animal-based and plant-based are grouped in this figure. Plant-based is likely close to carbon-neutral, and only not net-negative, because of transport, cooling etc., which will also be necessary for this artificially created fat…

disguy_ovahea OP ,

Tilling, seeding, treating, and harvesting all require machinery and therefore increase carbon output in farming.

Tryptaminev ,

Plus the simple effects of land conversion. Plus the emissions from the feces.

CasualPenguin ,

Your comment existing has a carbon footprint, doesn’t mean it should be paired with the dairy industry’s

Ephera ,

Yeah. But since farm animals are often fed from farmed plants these days, animal-based tends to be worse by quite a solid factor. This article puts butter at 4x worse than margarine, for example: forkranger.com/…/is-margarine-a-sustainable-alter…

How plant-based compares to this new process still needs to be seen for sure. If it’s just a machine you can plug in at the store and everyone can get their butter like out of an ice cream machine, without transport and cooling chain, then it’s likely a lot better.
But at this point, I don’t expect the process to be much more efficient than what plants are doing, which means you’d still need a ton of energy and particularly also land area for it.

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

Well you see, animal sources are responsible for 3.7 billion tons and plant sources are responsible for -0.2 billion tons.

LowtierComputer ,

I thought that was funny.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Is it as bad for your health as hydrogenated oils?

CoffeeJunkie ,

Even if it is – I’m interested in seeing how it performs. Feed some rats 3-5x the recommended amount, see what happens. Have some long term studies.

If it is the same as what we use, right now, for a lessened cost or environmental impact, that is still worth exploring.

cyborganism ,

So they invented another kind of margarine.

Xtallll ,
@Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

No, they invited another kind of cow.

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Did the cow accept their invitation?

https://media.tenor.com/eD97JdPXgnUAAAAC/teambestb.gif

I_Fart_Glitter ,

Computer! Butter! Room temp!

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2283b935-f3ec-48d9-abf9-73bbe5cff074.jpeg

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