Bio-Power Is Cool

When Henry Ford's Model T rolled off the line in 1908, it was a flex-fuel vehicle that could run on ethanol, kerosene or gasoline. But cheap, abundant oil and Prohibition's ban on ethyl alcohol pushed biofuels into the background—and created the 20th century's oil economy.

No one would have dreamed then of the consequences of burning fossil fuels. By 2007, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) had risen to 37 percent above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Resources Institute. Most climatological experts conclude that the current climate crisis demands 90 percent cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within the next 40 years—with substantial cuts within the next five—if we are to limit potentially harmful effects on civilization and the environment.

Most strategies focus on shrinking the global carbon footprint, or GHG emissions from all human activities, says Stefan Henningsson, director of the climate change program at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Sweden. But, he notes, increasing efficiency and adopting renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, won't meet needed GHG cuts. Real innovation is essential. WWF estimates that switching from fossil fuels to a bio-based economy could lower CO2 emissions by one billion to 2.5 billion metric tons per year within two decades (about 5 percent of 2007 global emissions).

Last fall, WWF issued a report on a topic that normally would fall outside the realm of wildlife and ecosystem conservation. "Industrial Biotechnology, More Than Green Fuel In a Dirty Economy?" detailed the technology's vast potential to help mitigate climate change. Dubbed biotech's "third wave" (following agriculture and healthcare), industrial biotechnology uses microbes or enzymes to manufacture biomaterials or biofuels, requiring less petroleum input. The report estimates that "the capacity of [industrial biotech] products to enable other economic actors to reduce their emissions outweigh the emissions they create by between 20 and 30 times."

Basics Of Industrial Biotech

Although it's unfamiliar to many, industrial biotech permeates daily life, and has for thousands of years. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians used yeast to brew beer, and cheese—made with the stomach enzyme rennet, which digests milk—may date back to Central Asia's Turkic tribes. "This technology is basically about copying the solutions of nature, using enzymes that evolved over millions of years," said Claus Stig Pedersen, head of sustainable development at Novozymes, an enzyme and microorganism producer that partnered with WWF on their report.

Most enzymes used in industrial biotech today are mass-produced by billions of optimized "production
organisms" grown in closed fermenter systems. They are often soildwelling bacteria with genes added
to spike their output of enzymes that can catalyze specific chemical reactions in industry. Current research is creating an explosion of applications for industrial biotech across the manufacturing landscape, according to Brent Erickson, executive vice president at the Washington, D.C.–based Biotechnology Industry Organization.

As long as regulations are respected, genetically modi ed organisms are not released into the environment from this process, says Luuk A.M. van der Wielen, a professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. "Microorganisms are grown in well-contained, closed industrial systems that must satisfy strict standards for this industry," he says, adding that "in any case, it would be very difficult for them to survive outside of [that] system."

Four Climate Benefits

Using enzymes in the factory or incorporating them in products can greatly increase efficiency—which is
one of four ways that bio-based innovations can impact climate change, notes Pedersen. One example comes from the textile  industry, where replacing petrochemicals with enzymes that bleach or soften fabric eliminates whole steps in the production process and uses less energy.


On the product side, laundry detergents with added enzymes produced by Proctor & Gamble and others
can clean clothes at 30 degrees Celsius rather than the norm of 60 degrees Celsius. Novozymes's "I do
30" movement, advertised on Facebook and YouTube, urges Europeans to lower washing temps—claiming that if every European household did it for a year, it would "wash away the amount of CO2 produced by three million cars."

One of biotech's biggest opportunities for GHG cuts could potentially come from biofuels. However, the WWF report cautions that speedy development of second-generation biofuels (so-called cellulosic biomass that can be processed sustainably from inedible parts of plants) is crucial. Over 500 billion pounds of waste from corn elds, paper mills and other sources are generate each year in the U.S. that could serve as feedstock. Cellulose-digesting enzymes would therefore be crucial to converting that waste into fuel.

Lower oil prices, coupled with the global credit crisis during the past two years, have slowed the "biofuel boom" to a snail's pace. Nevertheless, this year, Novozymes will  be the  rst to market enzymes to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply, bringing the price below $2.00 per gallon for commercial plants that are scheduled to open next year. Substituting just 20 percent of fuel use  with improved biofuels would cut one billion metric tons of GHG emissions by 2030. And down the road, Pederson says, "some think there may be the potential for a nearly carbon-neutral process if the way [the biofuel is] produced makes both ethanol and generates heat and/or electricity."

Swapping bio-based feedstocks for petroleum inputs not only lowers carbon emissions and non-renewable energy use, but also boosts a company's "eco-profile," says Steve Davies, a spokesman for the Minnesota-based NatureWorks. His company makes compostable polylactic acid (PLA) plastic from corn-based dextrose. It's used in everything from Canon copiers, Frito-Lay Sunchips bags and Gattinoni couture fashions to NEC computers, ANA cold cups and Tandus carpeting. PLA manufacture emits one fourth the CO2 of today's more commonly used polyethylene terephthalate plastic. Manufacturing plant-based plastic brings the process full circle: the  rst man-made plastic, announced publicly in 1862, was made of cellulose.

Closing the "waste loop" is a fourth industrial biotech emissions mitigation pathway. Landfills' anaerobic
environment produces methane. Biotech solutions both in testing and on the market can effectively harvest this biogas for energy use. Moreover, bio-based raw materials can be recycled, creating a growing pool of renewable carbon for permanent storage and reuse. WWF estimates that an efficient closed-loop system could  sequester almost three billion tons of carbon over the next 30 years.

"The solutions we already know from sustainable biotech should be implemented as soon as possible while respecting necessary limits to land use," Henningsson says. If done right, he continues, such measures "can offer an additional solution for how nine billion people can share this planet by 2050 in a way that avoids the worst climate change consequences."