3 uses for Biomass no one ever saw coming

“I can tell you one thing,” Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson reflected with the Digest not too long ago. “When Harrison and I were first developing the idea for the company, it never occurred to either one of us that we would be driving product sales through a skin-care line we would sell on the Home Shopping Network.”

It’s a common tale in industrial biotech. The plan starts with a monster product opportunity – usually, biofuels. Then, practical considerations intervene – namely, the cost to bring the technology to sufficient scale and maturity to be competitive with fossil fuels. And what that means in terms of making other products along the way, during the journey to scale. In some cases, they are stopovers on a continuing journey.

…Full Text: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/biobased/2012/12/12/3-uses-for-biomass-no-one-ever-saw-coming/

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