Synthetic butter startup backed by Bill Gates aims to cut CO2 emissions
A start-up named Savor, financially backed by billionaire Bill Gates and operating under the aegis of Orca Sciences has surprised the world with its innovative method of butter production. The research team decided to use biochemistry to create air and water fats, eliminating the need to use animals, plants, or agricultural land. According to IFLScience, this initiative aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by agriculture, which accounts for about 8.5 percent of global CO2 emissions.
Bill Gates, one of the project's investors, shared his impressions about one of Savor's products – butter. In a blog post, he expressed amazement, stating that the product tastes like real butter. According to Gates, this is possible because the fats produced by Savor are chemically identical to those found in animal and plant-based products. The billionaire also emphasized that the production process for this butter does not emit greenhouse gases, uses significantly less water than traditional agriculture, and does not require agricultural land.
"Ultimately, Savor developed a process that involves capturing carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids, and then forming the fat. The result is real fat molecules, like those we get from milk, cheese, beef, and vegetable oils. This process does not release any greenhouse gases, does not use agricultural land, and uses less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture uses. And most importantly, it tastes really good," wrote Bill Gates.
The work of the Savor team and scientists from the University of California—Irvine, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, demonstrates how synthetic fat production can impact the reduction of CO2 emissions. Traditional animal fat production generates from 0.001 to 0.003 kilograms of CO2 per thousand calories, while in the lab, the same amounts of fat can be produced with emissions below 0.001 kilograms of CO2.
"Large-scale synthesis of food molecules without agricultural raw materials is very real," said Steven Davis, the lead author of the study, quoted by IFLScience. Davis emphasizes that lower demand for agricultural land can reduce competition between natural ecosystems and agriculture, which in turn will avoid many environmental costs.
According to IFLScience, one of the main challenges for the project is making the process economically viable, which could attract a larger number of consumers. Nevertheless, the scientists are optimistic about the possibility of scaling up production. Professor Davis notes that there is potential to build large reactors synthesizing fats on a wide scale, using chemical processes that do not require biology, which allows for maintaining high efficiency.
This groundbreaking project opens the door to new methods of food production that could significantly contribute to reducing agriculture's negative impact on the environment.
