342
I'm not a scientist, but isn't EVERYTHING made of carbon?
Source: Joni Mitchell, Woodstock -
We are stardust, we are golden We are billion-year-old carbon
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
342 points (94.1% liked)
Technology
75140 readers
2193 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
"Made of" can mean "composed of" or "constructed from". This is the latter:
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.
The entire process releases zero greenhouse gases, uses no farmland to feed cows, and despite its industrial appearance, has a significantly smaller footprint.
"In addition to the carbon footprint being much lower for a process like this, right, the land footprint is, like, a thousand times lower than what you need in traditional agriculture,"
Good example of how choice of words can mislead, particularly when intentional.
Should be a nice change from that silicon based butter I usually get.
You had me in the first half
Bill is going to be serving this on all his jets and yachts
Why not just make a fuel that can power cars if you're gonna go this far.
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.
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....
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
@MuskyMelon @Gsus4 hydrogen probably.. just need further development, I think we are in a technologic race, battery is still winning but it can change..
load more comments
(1 replies)
but does it actually taste like the real thing? because I can already buy something that, supposedly, I should be unable to believe isn't real butter, but after doing so I remain suspicious
The first time I had "I can't believe it's not butter," I said "I can believe it's not butter."
I must be losing my mind because I thought I saw this post 2 days ago except it said beer.
Cyberpunk shit getting real
Butter backed by Bill Gates? Is that the same Bill Gates who became wealthy and famous for his commanding knowledge of butter?
Mmmmm. Nom nom!
I've heard that people made from carbon taste like the real thing too, you all should try it!
So when I poop the carbon butter out, how long does it take to decompose? Because unless we make one of those nuclear waste containment salt bunkers for all. the butter carbon poop this kinda seems like a dumb idea.
About as long as meat, since that is also made from carbon.
Or butter.
load more comments
(3 replies)