Buried within the woody tissue of every plant is a vast, untapped reservoir of chemical potential — lignin, long dismissed as industrial waste, now stands closer to redemption. Researchers have engineered a dual single-atom catalyst pairing cobalt and zinc that unlocks lignin's aromatic building blocks with a precision and efficiency that precious metal systems have never achieved. In doing so, they have shifted an old question — can we extract value from what we burn? — into a new one: how soon can we begin?