WIRED
ADAM ROGERS
A carbon-negative vodka company makes its beverage literally out of thin air...
In 2017, Stafford Sheehan was a chemist working on artificial photosynthesis, coming up with metal-based catalysts that’d mimic the way living things acquire energy from the Sun. He did not expect to create a martini that could save the planet.
Sheehan had an invention, a box that could electrolyze a burst of carbon dioxide and a dose of water. Run all that over a metal catalyst to goose a biochemical reaction, and, presto: renewable fuel made from air. One of the fuels he was making was ethanol, C2H6O, a molecule you might also recognize as the thing that makes you drunk...
“We have a power purchase agreement where we’re powered by renewable energy, and we have solar panels on top of the distillery too,” Sheehan says. That’s what runs the electric boilers that heat the bottom of the still. Air has partnered with a gas provider to deliver CO2, and according to that company’s life cycle analysis it only takes 200 kg of CO2 to deliver a metric ton of same. The company factored in a 10-year lifespan for the mostly steel still, and even bought offsets for the label printing.
ADAM ROGERS
A carbon-negative vodka company makes its beverage literally out of thin air...
In 2017, Stafford Sheehan was a chemist working on artificial photosynthesis, coming up with metal-based catalysts that’d mimic the way living things acquire energy from the Sun. He did not expect to create a martini that could save the planet.
Sheehan had an invention, a box that could electrolyze a burst of carbon dioxide and a dose of water. Run all that over a metal catalyst to goose a biochemical reaction, and, presto: renewable fuel made from air. One of the fuels he was making was ethanol, C2H6O, a molecule you might also recognize as the thing that makes you drunk...
“We have a power purchase agreement where we’re powered by renewable energy, and we have solar panels on top of the distillery too,” Sheehan says. That’s what runs the electric boilers that heat the bottom of the still. Air has partnered with a gas provider to deliver CO2, and according to that company’s life cycle analysis it only takes 200 kg of CO2 to deliver a metric ton of same. The company factored in a 10-year lifespan for the mostly steel still, and even bought offsets for the label printing.
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| LIPS THAT TOUCH CO2 SHALL NEVER TOUCH MINE |
By Air’s math, the process of making a kilogram of ethanol actually removes 1.47 kg of CO2 from the atmosphere. Since the 750 ml bottle you might buy (for $65) has 0.236 kg of ethanol in it, that’s about ¾ of a pound.
