Butter was long thought to be magic. Ancient civilizations imbued it with divine beliefs and it factored into 17th-century witch trials as evidence of the dark arts. Scientists have since decoded its chemistry, but a new version of this favorite dietary fat is making it seem otherworldly again: butter made from greenhouse gases.
Scientists at Savor, a firm founded in 2022, have developed ways to convert these gases into fat molecules, and ultimately butter, in what they claim is “the most efficient, most resilient, least polluting way known to science.” The goal is to create sustainable fats without cows or crops, thus reducing the land needed for agriculture, which is responsible for nearly 12 percent of global emissions. Savor takes captured carbon dioxide or methane from natural gas and puts it through a thermochemical process to build butter, tallow, and even ice cream. The company isn’t the only one making food from gas. Novozymes, part of the pharma giant Novo Nordisk, and Air Protein both use a fermentation process that eats up CO2 to create proteins, and AIR Vodka is made using captured CO2.
“What do we need to have invented so that in 2100, on a climate-changed planet, our species can flourish?”
Savor’s CEO, Kathleen Alexander, calls this air-to-food pipeline “a new paradigm,” but the general concept has been around a while: During World War II, disruption in rural supply chains compelled the Nazis to try to produce “coal butter.” It was part of a broader scientific shift beginning in the early 20th century toward synthesizing chemicals for medicine, nutrients, and fuels. Savor is also tapping into a quest for butter alternatives that dates as far back as a food shortage under Napoleon III, when a French chemist mixed animal fats with milk to create the first margarine.
Savor’s founders are also pondering food insecurity, Alexander told me, as humanity barrels toward “irreversible changes” that will affect our ability to survive: “What do we need to have invented so that in 2100, on a climate-changed planet, our species can flourish?”
She estimates at least 5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to producing fats and edible oils. Diverting land away from agriculture could reduce pollution and deforestation and make way for larger carbon sinks, natural areas that sequester, rather than emit, CO2. Based on a study co-authored by two of Savor’s founders and published in Nature Sustainability in 2023, synthesizing dietary fats in a lab would produce only about half as much CO2 as traditional butter production does. If you factor in captured carbon dioxide (which Savor sometimes uses) and renewable energy (which it doesn’t presently), the authors speculate that zero-emission butter is achievable.
Even if the math works out, Savor will have to convince enough people to try, and buy, its synthetic butter—not to mention break into established markets and scale up production to make it a viable substitute, all while minimizing emissions. This won’t be cheap. Savor has so far raised more than $33 million, some from Bill Gates, who holds many investments in alternative foods and agriculture. “I wouldn’t be able to tell you it wasn’t butter,” he gushes in a promotional video.
Michael Hansen, a senior food scientist at Consumer Reports, questions the opportunity cost of investing in such biotech experiments, which require entirely new supply chains, when the cash could be put to better use improving agricultural systems already in place—to promote practices such as agroforestry and crop diversification, for instance, that sequester carbon and build resilience to environmental disasters.
Juan García Martínez, a researcher for the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters, notes that the big system realignments Savor proposes merit a cautious approach. “There should be more research on the economic effects on agricultural workers,” he says.
Yet Savor’s journey to the grocery aisles is well underway. Last year, its butter cleared an expert safety panel, allowing it to be sold in the United States. Now it awaits approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Alexander hopes to compete directly with commodity butter on price and taste.
Consumers may be harder to sway, especially with growing skepticism about ultra-processed foods, which “have such a bad rap,” says Elaine Khosrova, author of Butter: A Rich History. “But given the various crises we face on this planet,” she says, “I think you have to keep an open mind.”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.