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Bill Gates-backed startup makes ‘butter’ out of water and carbon dioxide (www.zmescience.com)

submitted 4 months ago by disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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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.

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[-] nandeEbisu@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

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@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

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

[-] Liz@midwest.social 9 points 4 months ago

Yo this would be great for some actual proper carbon sequestration. Make some butter from the air and pump it back down into the wells.

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[-] blackbrook@mander.xyz 7 points 4 months ago

So this new carbon sequestering program is going to be kind of a good news / bad news thing. ..

[-] Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 months ago

There are ≈950 gigatons of excess CO2 in the atmosphere 27% of that by weight is carbon, the us population is 333milion, so if every American eats 770lbs of carbon sequestered butter we will solve climate change.

[-] blackbrook@mander.xyz 7 points 4 months ago

Of course the danger is that this is cancelled out by increased carbon emissions from a making a commensurate amount of toast.

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[-] charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 months ago

finally someone did the thing everybody wanted

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[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

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

[-] BehindTheBarrier@programming.dev 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

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[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Wait. So a "butter star" is possible?

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[-] rodneylives@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

I love it when foodstuffs get put in scarequotes.