Uplifting News

If it's not dairy, is this not margarine rather than butter?

Also, a

proprietary process

Ugh, capitalism

This isn't new technology. This is the Fischer-Tropsch process, which cracks and/or lengthens hydrocarbon chains to produce molecules of the specifically desired length. The Germans used this same process almost a century ago. They cracked coal to produce lighter chemicals (primarily methane) then re-lengthened those methane chains to produce a variety of products, ranging from fuels, lubricants, and yes: edible "butter".

This article repackages the same technology the Nazis used to feed their U-boat crews in WWII.

Once we kill the Earth, this will be how food is manufactured. I am now going to finish my box of Soylent Green.

...carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen...

Pretty sure that is what regular butter is made out of too.

How is this not just crisco, hydrogenated fat? Butter seems like it has more going on, traces of milk proteins & sugars that give it flavor.

This isn’t butter, this is one type of butter fat. It’s missing the milk solids, proteins, and other molecules that contribute to butter’s smell and taste.

Bill Gates will eat the real thing anyway.

Edit: this comment is not about Bill Gates. It's not even about butter.

I bet that price is the main issue. The reason all of these startups fall into oblivion is that price is astronomical.

I would like to see the LCA analysis on this one. I would not be surprised if this ends up using energy causing more damage than the damage that dairy farming methane and land conversion is doing.

Sound like coal butter, which existed in WW2 but was discontinued because of inefficiency.

And the most important question: how does it taste?

No the most important question is how much energy does it take?

[...] they take carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, [...]

So direct air capture, instead of industrial waste CO2, good luck with that.

If Bill Gates is involved we can be sure it's to help humanity, and not to help capitalists and rich people to get richer.

He has a very good PR team because this man was also backing the former Monsanto company, with proprietary grains, supposed to help solve famine in the world, but causing poor farmers to be sued into bankruptcy and commit suicide. Oh and the grains also commit 'suicide' so if you are not sued because the wind flew proprietary grains to your field, you better have enough money to buy new grains from corporations every year.

So I'm sure anything he does can't be bad. It's all altruistic and for the good of humanity. Surely nothing proprietary there. All open source. For humanity.

Fuck Bill Gates.

“Tastes just like the real thing” is a sure sign that it is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the real thing

Margarine?

Sure, if you want to call a hydrocarbon like methane "carbon" I guess. Why not.

Anything but stop polluting...

We could cut our carbon emissions? NO, no! This is an opportunity for profits! We can use this to squeeze just that bit more money out of people and it sets us up nicely to replace real butter when the total collapse of the ecosystem means that real dairy becomes an impossible luxury.

So, how's that work on bread made from sand coming along?

The planet can be saved! We just need to eat CO2 HO butter.

How long till Epsteins best friend bans this?

I can't believe it's not butter.

Just a hydrogen atom away from being plastic.

Whilst yes, uplifting, I also have a certain inherent skepticism to artificial facsimiles. Too often it's an unwelcome discovery.

For instance about a year ago we found a new product in the cheese aisle, slightly cheaper than regular gouda and called "gaudina" - turns out, not actually cheese but instead made from milk powder, palm oil and other assorted stuff.

Until somebody proves through proper trials and reviews that the products have no statistically significant difference in health outcomes, I'll be hesitant.