美國一家初創企業成功地以水和空氣為原料制造出了黃油替代品，而且該企業的贊助人比爾·蓋茨品嘗后表示，這種人造黃油味道很不錯。

Savor, a California-based startup backed by legendary businessman Bill Gates, has come up with a method of producing butter-like fat out of just carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
傳奇企業家比爾·蓋茨贊助的美國加州初創企業Savor開發了一種僅用二氧化碳和氫氣就能造出黃油狀脂肪的技術。

Starting from the idea that all fats are composed of chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms, Savor patented a thermochemical process to build fat molecules and then produce dairy-free alternatives to products like milk, butter, cheese, and ice cream that not only have the same texture as the real thing but also taste the same. This process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does, so this synthesized fat has a much lower carbon footprint than real animal fat. So far, taste tests have shown that Savor’s alternative to butter has an almost indistinguishable flavor from the real thing, but the company still has a lot of challenges to overcome before bringing it to market.
Savor公司的這一專利技術基于所有脂肪都是由碳原子鏈和氫原子鏈組成的原理，通過熱化學過程構建出脂肪分子，從而生產出牛奶、黃油、奶酪、冰淇淋等產品的無乳替代品，這種新產品不僅質地和真正的乳制品相似，而且味道也相差無幾。整個過程不釋放任何溫室氣體，無需農田耕作，所消耗的水也不到傳統農業生產過程的千分之一，因此這種人工合成脂肪的碳足跡遠低于真正的動物脂肪。迄今為止的品嘗測試均顯示，Savor公司的黃油替代品口感和真黃油幾乎難以分辨，不過該公司還需要克服許多挑戰才能將其推向市場。

"We are currently pre-commercial and working through regulatory approval to be able to sell our butter,” Kathleen Alexander, CEO of Savor, said. “We are not expecting to be able to move forward with any kind of sales until at least 2025.”
Savor公司的首席執行官凱思琳·亞歷山大表示：“我們目前還處于商業化前的階段，需要經過監管機構審批才能銷售我們的黃油。我們預計至少要等到2025年才可能上市。”

In a recent blog post, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates explained that Savor has a real shot of coming up with a successful butter alternative, because their version “tastes really good – like the real thing, because chemically it is.”
微軟創始人兼慈善家比爾·蓋茨在最近的一篇博客文章中解釋道，Savor公司生產的這種黃油替代品很可能會取得成功，因為該產品“味道真的很不錯，就和真黃油一樣，因為化學成分也一樣。”

Gates wrote: “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.”
蓋茨寫道：“他們最終開發出一套生產流程：從空氣中提取二氧化碳，從水中提取氫氣，將其加熱，使其氧化，以觸發脂肪酸的分離，然后就形成了脂肪。”

The tech billionaire also highlighted the importance of animal food alternatives like Savor’s version of butter in reducing our carbon footprint. The livestock industry contributes 14.5 percent of global greenhouse emissions, and with human population on the rise, emissions are also expected to go up, unless we do something about it.
這位科技億萬富翁還強調了Savor黃油這樣的動物性食品替代品對于減少人類碳足跡的重要性。畜牧業的溫室氣體排放量占據了全球總排放量的14.5%，隨著全球人口增加，溫室氣體排放量也會增加，除非我們采取對策。

"The big challenge is to drive down the price so that products like Savor’s become affordable to the masses – either the same cost as animal fats or less,” Gates wrote.
蓋茨寫道：“壓低價格是一大挑戰，Savor公司的產品定價必須能夠為大眾所接受，要么與動物脂肪產品價格持平，要么更低。”

CO2 and hydrogen-synthesized butter is apparently just the beginning. Savor has plans to make milk, cheese, and ice cream, among others, in the not-so-distant future.
顯然，用二氧化碳和氫氣合成黃油只是開始。Savor公司計劃在不久的將來制造出人工合成的牛奶、奶酪和冰淇淋等產品。

英文來源：Oddity Central

編譯：丹妮

審校：萬月英、齊磊