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Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates

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  • Why not just make a fuel that can power cars if you're gonna go this far.

    @MuskyMelon @Gsus4 hydrogen probably.. just need further development, I think we are in a technologic race, battery is still winning but it can change..

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    You had me in the first half

  • cost 😕 and low energy conversion efficiency. Whereas expensive novelty edibles may have a high price, fuels, not so much.

    We focus too much on efficiency and cost sometimes. Sometimes efficiency is only a "nice to have" while being outweighed by practicality, convenience, safety, and any of the other factors we choose to make a priority.

    It is expensive and inefficient for an airplane to have two engines instead of just one. We do it anyway because it's required for safety and redundancy. We made that the priority, and that was an active choice. We need to start making more active choices about what the priority is when it comes to our energy futures. All priorities have tradeoffs. Cost and efficiency have their own tradeoffs. Question it when people tell you that things can't be done because of "cost" or "efficiency". When they do that they're presupposing what the priority is, but often it's billionaires trying to cut corners to make themselves richer at our expense, our safety, our futures. We can do inefficient things. Sometimes it's even the right choice.

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    I'd actually be willing to give it a try if it's vaguely price-competitive, but their website is all glam shots of butter and people doing things with butter and not only doesn't sell it but doesn't tell you where you can get it.

    Also, they did not do a good job of choosing that name. It looks like there's a very-similarly-named French Canadian manufacturer of butter, Savör, which apparently isn't too religious about using their umlaut:

    At Savor, we believe the best butter starts with the best environment. That’s why we source our grass-fed dairy butter from New Zealand, a country renowned for its pristine landscapes, sustainable farming, and exceptional dairy quality.

    I foresee a collision between those two.

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    All butter is made from CO2 it simply goes through a processing step known as cow.

  • @MuskyMelon @Gsus4 hydrogen probably.. just need further development, I think we are in a technologic race, battery is still winning but it can change..

    hydrogen probably.. just need further development

    You can get a hydrogen car today. Just that if you're outside a few places like Japan and California, finding a fueling station might be a bit difficult.

    Sales in Japan began on 15 December 2014 at ¥6.7 million (~US$57,400) at Toyota Store and Toyopet Store locations. The Japanese government plans to support the commercialization of fuel-cell vehicles with a subsidy of ¥2 million (~US$19,600).[12] Retail sales in the U.S. began in August 2015 at a price of US$57,500 before any government incentives. Deliveries to retail customers began in California in October 2015.[13] Toyota scheduled to release the Mirai in the Northeastern United States in the first half of 2016.[14] As of June 2016, the Mirai was available for retail sales in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, and Norway.[15] Pricing in Germany started at €60,000 (~US$75,140) plus VAT (€78,540).[16]

    2025 Mirai

    Starting MSRP $ 51,795

    They do fuel up a lot faster than BEVs do, but the fuel cost is considerably higher than for BEVs.

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    I don’t eat carbon-based foods. Exotic silicon lifeforms, fresh from Titan’s methane seas.

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    To put it in simple terms, Savor says they take carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heat them up, oxidize them and get a final result that looks like candle wax but is in fact fat molecules like those in beef, cheese or vegetable oils.

    So their process sounds like it creates synthetic lard, not butter. This can still be a good thing as the extra ingredients to make it "butter" aren't really the hard/impactful part of butter.

  • They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

    A reminder that "natural flavor" doesn't mean healthier or even something you might want over the artificially created flavors. It just means it comes from a natural source and is not lab created.

    Castoreum, sometimes used for vanilla and raspberry flavoring, comes from beaver anal secretions. That would be labelled under a "natural flavor" and you'd never be told more than that.

    I'll take the artificial stuff any day just on principle there.

    It would have cost you nothing to not write this.

  • It would have cost you nothing to not write this.

    Maybe he wouldn't have lost anything, but I wouldn't have been able to enjoy his comment.

  • We focus too much on efficiency and cost sometimes. Sometimes efficiency is only a "nice to have" while being outweighed by practicality, convenience, safety, and any of the other factors we choose to make a priority.

    It is expensive and inefficient for an airplane to have two engines instead of just one. We do it anyway because it's required for safety and redundancy. We made that the priority, and that was an active choice. We need to start making more active choices about what the priority is when it comes to our energy futures. All priorities have tradeoffs. Cost and efficiency have their own tradeoffs. Question it when people tell you that things can't be done because of "cost" or "efficiency". When they do that they're presupposing what the priority is, but often it's billionaires trying to cut corners to make themselves richer at our expense, our safety, our futures. We can do inefficient things. Sometimes it's even the right choice.

    I think you're missing that there are better ways to produce fuels for cars than to chemically synthesize petroleum. It's all about cost and efficiency if you're just looking for portable energy. Or we could burn more coal so we can generate the energy needed for synthetic gasoline....

  • I'd actually be willing to give it a try if it's vaguely price-competitive, but their website is all glam shots of butter and people doing things with butter and not only doesn't sell it but doesn't tell you where you can get it.

    Also, they did not do a good job of choosing that name. It looks like there's a very-similarly-named French Canadian manufacturer of butter, Savör, which apparently isn't too religious about using their umlaut:

    At Savor, we believe the best butter starts with the best environment. That’s why we source our grass-fed dairy butter from New Zealand, a country renowned for its pristine landscapes, sustainable farming, and exceptional dairy quality.

    I foresee a collision between those two.

    Pretty sure I know the factory that this butter comes from. The Miraka plant; north of Taupō. Geothermally powered, restricts it to a relatively small region in NZ.

  • cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

    A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world's first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

    The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

    This is interesting...

    Lab grown meat have problem where they cannot create fat. So if this works, maybe this is the solution.

    "So you're using this gas right now to cook your food and we're proposing that we would like to first make your food with— with that gas," said Kathleen Alexander, co-founder and CEO of Savor.

    That doesn't sound appetizing... Lol.

  • While I think this is pretty amazing science stuff, the writing is terrible. Here is the progression of the story as written:

    They made butter from carbon...

    Well, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen...

    OK, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and methane...

    Well, no, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, and glycerol...

    Wait, hang on, it's actually made from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, methane, glycerol, natural flavor, and lecithin...

    Now, the source of glycerol is in question, because they say this butter is both animal and plant-free. Glycerol can be made synthetically, but it's WAY more expensive to do it. Also, I'm not seeing any way to create lecithin without plants. They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

    They add just a little butter for that real butter flavor

  • Pretty sure I know the factory that this butter comes from. The Miraka plant; north of Taupō. Geothermally powered, restricts it to a relatively small region in NZ.

    Maybe the manufacturer is in New Zealand and the French-Canadian people are the guys who package and sell it or something. Dunno, just did a quick skim of their site.

  • You had me in the first half

    Bill is going to be serving this on all his jets and yachts

  • I think you're missing that there are better ways to produce fuels for cars than to chemically synthesize petroleum. It's all about cost and efficiency if you're just looking for portable energy. Or we could burn more coal so we can generate the energy needed for synthetic gasoline....

    Or we could burn more coal so we can generate the energy needed for synthetic gasoline…

    The problem is, people can, do, and will use that exact same argument to say we don't need any more solar panels or wind turbines, because we don't need and can't use or store the excess power for anything and that's why we need to keep thermal plants as backup for base load generation. Look, when we produce too much electricity, the electricity cost goes to zero and negative! It's "wasteful and inefficient"! But these two problems can solve each other. Synthetic fuels (doesn't have to be gasoline, hydrogen is step 1, methane/LNG is a bit more manageable as a chemical fuel. As long as the carbon source is atmospheric, then it and other synthetic hydrocarbons are carbon neutral to burn) provide an on-demand energy sink/storage method that can support and drive more electrification and renewable power, it just has to be part of a consistent and systemic approach with strict regulation and a clear view of the big picture (something sorely lacking these days).

  • Also, poop has natural flavour. Natural flavour also doesn't mean it tastes good.

    Spoken like someone who’s never ate shit.

  • They never say what the "natural flavor" is.

    A reminder that "natural flavor" doesn't mean healthier or even something you might want over the artificially created flavors. It just means it comes from a natural source and is not lab created.

    Castoreum, sometimes used for vanilla and raspberry flavoring, comes from beaver anal secretions. That would be labelled under a "natural flavor" and you'd never be told more than that.

    I'll take the artificial stuff any day just on principle there.

  • I don’t eat carbon-based foods. Exotic silicon lifeforms, fresh from Titan’s methane seas.

    Oh look; AI has gotten so advanced that computers now have haut-quisine.

  • 100R — working offgrid efficiently

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    Love 100 rabbits! They have some very interesting projects and articles.
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    Fair enough. Unfortunately, that only covers around 5% of Android users in the US.
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    Also Servo is now under the Linux Foundation. Both this and Ladybird are very exciting.
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    This is interesting to me as I like to say the llms are basically another abstraction of search. Initially it was links with no real weight that had to be gone through and then various algorithms weighted the return, then the results started giving a small blurb so one did not have to follow every link, and now your basically getting a report which should have references to the sources. I would like to see this looking at how folks engage with an llm. Basically my guess is if one treats the llm as a helper and collaborates to create the product that they will remember more than if they treat it as a servant and just instructs them to do it and takes the output as is.
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    Yup, and people seem to frequently underestimate how ridiculously expensive running a fleet of humanoid robots would be (and don’t seem to realize how comparatively low the manual labor it’d replace is paid.)
  • Why doesn't Nvidia have more competition?

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    It’s funny how the article asks the question, but completely fails to answer it. About 15 years ago, Nvidia discovered there was a demand for compute in datacenters that could be met with powerful GPU’s, and they were quick to respond to it, and they had the resources to focus on it strongly, because of their huge success and high profitability in the GPU market. AMD also saw the market, and wanted to pursue it, but just over a decade ago where it began to clearly show the high potential for profitability, AMD was near bankrupt, and was very hard pressed to finance developments on GPU and compute in datacenters. AMD really tried the best they could, and was moderately successful from a technology perspective, but Nvidia already had a head start, and the proprietary development system CUDA was already an established standard that was very hard to penetrate. Intel simply fumbled the ball from start to finish. After a decade of trying to push ARM down from having the mobile crown by far, investing billions or actually the equivalent of ARM’s total revenue. They never managed to catch up to ARM despite they had the better production process at the time. This was the main focus of Intel, and Intel believed that GPU would never be more than a niche product. So when intel tried to compete on compute for datacenters, they tried to do it with X86 chips, One of their most bold efforts was to build a monstrosity of a cluster of Celeron chips, which of course performed laughably bad compared to Nvidia! Because as it turns out, the way forward at least for now, is indeed the massively parralel compute capability of a GPU, which Nvidia has refined for decades, only with (inferior) competition from AMD. But despite the lack of competition, Nvidia did not slow down, in fact with increased profits, they only grew bolder in their efforts. Making it even harder to catch up. Now AMD has had more money to compete for a while, and they do have some decent compute units, but Nvidia remains ahead and the CUDA problem is still there, so for AMD to really compete with Nvidia, they have to be better to attract customers. That’s a very tall order against Nvidia that simply seems to never stop progressing. So the only other option for AMD is to sell a bit cheaper. Which I suppose they have to. AMD and Intel were the obvious competitors, everybody else is coming from even further behind. But if I had to make a bet, it would be on Huawei. Huawei has some crazy good developers, and Trump is basically forcing them to figure it out themselves, because he is blocking Huawei and China in general from using both AMD and Nvidia AI chips. And the chips will probably be made by Chinese SMIC, because they are also prevented from using advanced production in the west, most notably TSMC. China will prevail, because it’s become a national project, of both prestige and necessity, and they have a massive talent mass and resources, so nothing can stop it now. IMO USA would clearly have been better off allowing China to use American chips. Now China will soon compete directly on both production and design too.
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    yeah it keeps happening and the "parents" keep behaving worse than the child
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    Sure, he wasn't an engineer, so no, Jobs never personally "invented" anything. But Jobs at least knew what was good and what was shit when he saw it. Under Tim Cook, Apple just keeps putting out shitty unimaginative products, Cook is allowing Apple to stagnate, a dangerous thing to do when they have under 10% market share.