Savor reshapes the food industry: Butter made from air and water enjoyed by Bill Gates
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 fats from air and water, eliminating the need to use animals, plants, or agricultural land. According to IFLScience, the goal of this initiative is to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated by agriculture, which accounts for about 8.5 per cent 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 emphasised 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.
"They ultimately developed a process that involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating them up, and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids and then the formulation of fat. The result is real fat molecules like the ones we get from milk, cheese, beef, and vegetable oils. The process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good—like the real thing, because chemically it is," 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. It was noted that traditional animal fat production generates from 1 gram to 4 grams of CO2 per thousand calories, while in the lab, the exact amounts of fat can be produced with emissions below 1 gram of CO2.
"Large-scale synthesis of edible molecules through chemical and biological means without agricultural feedstocks is a very real possibility," said Steven Davis, the lead author of the study, quoted by IFLScience. Davis emphasises that lower demand for agricultural land can reduce competition between natural ecosystems and agriculture, avoiding many environmental costs.
According to IFLScience, one of the main challenges for the project is making the process economically viable, which could attract a more significant 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 synthesising fats on a broad scale, using chemical processes that do not require biology, allowing for 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.
