{"id":151801,"date":"2024-10-10T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=151801"},"modified":"2024-10-04T14:02:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T12:02:38","slug":"lessons-from-the-kitchen-of-lanzatech-a-protein-shake-new-markets-and-scooby-doo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/lessons-from-the-kitchen-of-lanzatech-a-protein-shake-new-markets-and-scooby-doo\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the Kitchen: of LanzaTech, a protein shake, new markets, and Scooby-Doo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p><strong>LanzaTech<\/strong>\u00a0is back in the news with a budding venture based in manufacturing single-cell protein \u2014 usually a side product \u2014 as the main product for a new set of biorefineries they have in the pipeline. Plus, an ultra-low carbon footprint compared to business as usual. LanzaTech can reduce the carbon footprint of the food business \u2014 that\u2019s needed, and good.\u00a0It\u2019s not strictly a protein shake, but protein is giving LanzaTech a shake, in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"575\" height=\"138\" src=\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2024\/10\/BD-TS-100224-cover-sm-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-151804\" style=\"aspect-ratio:4.166666666666667;width:541px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2024\/10\/BD-TS-100224-cover-sm-1.png 575w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2024\/10\/BD-TS-100224-cover-sm-1-300x72.png 300w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2024\/10\/BD-TS-100224-cover-sm-1-150x36.png 150w, https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2024\/10\/BD-TS-100224-cover-sm-1-400x96.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>But, let\u2019s look a little deeper. If an idea no matter how impossible to sustain was a good one because it was sustainable in an environmental sense, we could just all stop eating. So, we need to look for sustinence as well as sustainability. As&nbsp;<strong>Fred Jones<\/strong>&nbsp;put it so often in&nbsp;<em>Scooby Doo<\/em>, \u201cLooks like we have another mystery on our hands. OK, gang, let\u2019s split up and look for clues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Myself, speaking of sustinence, I\u2019ll head for the kitchen. Not because I\u2019m with&nbsp;<strong>Shaggy<\/strong>, \u201cLet\u2019s do what we do best Scoob, eat.\u201d I think you\u2019ll find, as I have in observing this industry, you learn an awful lot about the bioeconomy at scale by looking around in a kitchen. Here are some kitchen rules as I have observed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Six Rules from the Kitchen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Rule One.<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Start with someone to eat the meal<\/strong>. Doesn\u2019t matter how tasty the pasta if there\u2019s no one at the table, hungry, wallet full, likes pasta, no gluten allergy. In industrial biotechnology, this means finding a willing customer with an unmet need.\u00a0In this LanzaTech instance, yes, the world is replete in protein. Low-carbon, almost none of it. Decarbonization is not quite up there with hunger or thirst as a driver, but it\u2019s in the ballpark if you have a Net Zero commit and no way to achieve it. So, this is customer-based innovation.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rule Two.<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>No matter how tasty a rabbit stew you might make,<\/strong>\u00a0first, you gotta catch your rabbit. In the bioeconomy, that means start with the feedstock. Has to be Sustainable, Affordable, Reliable, Available, Low-carbon, Efficiently Extracted. That\u2019s\u00a0<strong>SARA LEE<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Nobody Doesn\u2019t Like Sara Lee<\/strong>, as the old commercial said. So, what hasn\u2019t changed in this evolution of the LanzaTech story is the feedstock, CO2 may not be as big for them as CO \u2014 but, it\u2019s part of the everyday feedstock set. More importantly, it is the foundational basis of the company.\u00a0Yes, I heard the synbio Sirens sing it, too: biology\u2019s the answer, baby baby, AI is huge, don\u2019t mean maybe, fund my endeavor, Zymergen forever, it\u2019s Moore\u2019s Law, blah blah blah. Odysseus learned to avoid being lured to his death by Sirens, you can too, put wax in your ears, and repeat after me: LanzaTech is about the death of waste carbon and only the death of waste carbon, don\u2019t ever forget it. OK, I invented the second part of what Odysseus learned, but you get the idea.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rule Three. \u201cCookery is not chemistry, it is an art\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0So said Marcel Boulestin, the legendary cookbook author. You need a proper kitchen and a good chef, even more than you need a breakthrough recipe. If you can\u2019t manage your temperature, the meal\u2019s headed for disaster. If the person at the pan lacks savvy, it might end up looking like the picture in the cookbook but, as Phyllis Diller observed, \u201cit will taste like the pages\u201d.\u00a0In the LanzaTech example, you\u2019ll see buried in a quote from CEO Jennifer Holmgren the following: \u201cwith our\u00a0<strong>existing<\/strong>\u00a0bioreactor technology, and our years of operating\u00a0<strong>experience<\/strong>, we have developed a path to\u00a0<strong>mass produce<\/strong>\u00a0protein from CO2. For two years, we\u2019ve operated a pilot facility to\u00a0<strong>prepare<\/strong>\u00a0for commercialization.\u201d Existing, experience, scale, preparation, those are my four takeaways from that.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rule Four.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c<strong>The chief thing to remember is that all these soups<\/strong>\u00a0\u2026\u00a0<strong>must be made with plain water.<\/strong>\u201d That\u2019s Boulestin, again \u2014 he railed against the use of pricey meat stocks, costing the soup a fresh pleasant taste and damning the economics. Looking at LanzaTech, let\u2019s emphasize the use, again, of the two cheapest feedstocks there are or ever will be, water and CO2.\u00a0Starting from anything but waste, and aiming for \u201caffordable, scalable, sustainable\u201d, you will get two of the three and no more, and you will be singing \u201c<em>Off, off, off to Washington we go, give me mandate, President Joe<\/em>\u201d. Speaking of songs that the Sirens sing. If you are affordable and scalable but not sustainable, you\u2019re the problem and not the solution. If you are scalable and sustainable but not affordable, you\u2019ll never find a customer. If you are affordable and sustainable but not scalable, you will never move the needle on carbon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rule Five.\u00a0The sharpness of a knife<\/strong>\u00a0is about concentrating force,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/arnobernard.com\/blogs\/to-the-point\/the-science-behind-sharpness\">says here, more or less<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0So, let\u2019s consider the problems of diversification, or dispersing force. Powerful biotech platforms get lots of interesting and tempting phone calls. A hundred CRADAs later, the companies often crater.\u00a0 What went wrong? It\u2019s not diversification per se, it is diversifcation that disables a company\u2019s ability to concentrate force. Gordon Ramsey used to always hector folk on\u00a0<em>Ramsey\u2019s Kitchen Nightmare<\/em>:\u00a0<strong>simplify the menu<\/strong>! But it was less about menu length than the bizarre, bewildering complexity that comes with it, the loss of ability to deliver a consistent experience and to communicate clarity of purpose to customers and team. We have to build confidence in everyone around us, never freak out the team under any circumstances, especially those with checkbooks. Yes, there\u2019s no I in TEAM, as we have heard, but as\u00a0<strong>Scooby-Doo<\/strong>\u00a0might have put it,\u00a0<strong>there\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>no RUH-ROH in TEAM either<\/strong>.\u00a0In the case of LanzaTech, we are scaling a product which was a by-product, anyway. Turns out, some customers want the by-product, protein, and don\u2019t have a use for the primary product, the fuel or chemical. It\u2019s a diversifcation that does not disperse force \u2014 instead, the scientific team is seeking out a modification to the organism to do something it can do, but needs to do more of. The force of the scientific effort is still concentrated, scientific teams are always, always working on yield, anyways. The knife remains sharp, and will cut well.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rule Six.<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>Move carefully<\/strong>&nbsp;when taking hot food out of the oven,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/lpi.oregonstate.edu\/sites\/lpi.oregonstate.edu\/files\/pdf\/hyp\/lessons-manuals\/1-keeping_the_kitchen_safe.pdf\">says here<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Spinning like a breakdancer when moving hot pans, that\u2019s the path to pain and suffering.&nbsp;&nbsp;So, let\u2019s consider the problem of how to pivot, safely. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve seen. The usual&nbsp;<em>Papa Was A Rollin\u2019 Stone<\/em>&nbsp;synbio pivot \u2014 the fuels company that migrates to chemicals, or beauty products, or vegan foods, to fossil methane as a feedstock, to name a few classics, is too often taken too late in the cycle. Exhausted investors, skeptical customers, smaller markets, entrenched competitors. All the factors that led the company\u2019s founders to not pursue that line of business in the first place, still there.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What has changed is not&nbsp;<strong>the road to hell,<\/strong>&nbsp;but management\u2019s tolerance for walking it. The usual temptations apply: chasing fads, hyping the biology story, ignoring formulators, downplaying barriers, pie in the sky forecasting, taking on debt like the&nbsp;<em>Titanic<\/em>&nbsp;taking on seawater, and so forth.&nbsp;<strong>Confucius<\/strong>&nbsp;put it best, long ago: \u201cWherever you go, there you are\u201d. When the problem is management, there\u2019s nowhere to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back to LanzaTech, the scientific pathway&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/WO2016187494A1\/en\">for this new market entry was laid down some eight years ago<\/a>, it was on a bench, like a chef designing a new plating before the customer rush starts, set aside for the right time, failure costs you little. You can breakdance a little on a bench in the cool of the morning, there\u2019s no one to burn. One can do it the right way, turns out.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So,&nbsp;<strong>Six Rules from the Kitchen<\/strong>, a place we all recognize, and perhaps we see some valid comparisons between what we learn there, and how it works in industrial biotechnology.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, let\u2019s cross over to the fine details of this move forward. As earlier mentioned. LanzaTech is expanding its biorefining platform to produce LanzaTech Nutritional Protein as the primary product. What\u2019s that? LNP is a microbial protein that is a nutrient-rich alternative to plant and animal-based proteins. Good news from the Department of Footprints, LNP is said to use \u201ca fraction of the land and water resources that traditional protein sources require\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The scale-up&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>LanzaTech is evaluating potential sites, in collaboration with several Partners Without a Name, for the 0.5 to 1.0 MT of LNP per day, due as soon as 2026. Commercial facilities are in the design shop to scale 100X, to more than 30,000 metric tons per annum, by 2028. That\u2019s enough protein to feed 800 thousand people. So think, one San Francisco per facility.&nbsp;&nbsp;My, my.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Trials and partners<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The company is in the process of completing trials and testing in animal feed and pet food, and is underway with completing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u2019s Generally Recognized as Safe certification process for human nutrition formulations. To date, the Center for Aquaculture Technologies has successfully tested LNP for fish feed applications, and&nbsp;&nbsp;and human food and beverage innovation firm Mattson completed thorough protein characterization and food prototyping for dish concepts such as smoothies, dairy-free cheese, and bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LanzaTech has also partnered with the U.S. Navy Research Lab on a joint research and contract development project jointly funded by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, the Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to evaluate the viability of creating nutritional proteins on military platforms. We\u2019ll see what cattle ranchers have to say about that, one of these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thoughts about the economics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This isn\u2019t LanzaTech so approach with care, but we have some 3rd party evidence from our friends in the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant comunity, they prepared this article: Single-Cell Protein Production from Industrial Off-Gas through Acetate: Techno-Economic Analysis for a Coupled Fermentation Approach, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2311-5637\/9\/8\/771\">and it\u2019s here, caveat emptor,\u00a0<\/a>or rather caveat lector ( let the reader beware).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reaction from the stakeholders<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech: \u201cBuilding on the expertise of our commercially operating core gas fermentation process, LNP represents a natural expansion of our business,\u201d said . \u201cBy coupling a new microbial production strain with our existing bioreactor technology, and our years of operating experience, we have developed a path to mass produce protein from CO2. For two years, we\u2019ve operated a pilot facility to prepare for commercialization, and in the process, we\u2019ve partnered with leading brands and food testing organizations for rigorous analysis and prototyping of nutrition applications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Matthew Yates, Research Biologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. \u201cWe are excited to collaborate with LanzaTech on this groundbreaking extension of their carbon recycling platform. Together we are exploring the biomanufacturing potential of a nutritional protein product made from CO2 extracted from seawater. Integrating LanzaTech\u2019s gas fermentation technology with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory\u2019s Seawater Carbon Capture Process presents a valuable opportunity to develop a unique capability to meet the nutritional needs of soldiers and sailors across the Joint Forces while simultaneously enhancing the resilience of military operations in an evolving geopolitical landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ir.lanzatech.com\/news-releases\/news-release-details\/lanzatech-expands-biorefining-platform-capabilities-include\">More on the story here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LanzaTech\u00a0is back in the news with a budding venture based in manufacturing single-cell protein \u2014 usually a side product \u2014 as the main product for a new set of biorefineries they have in the pipeline. Plus, an ultra-low carbon footprint compared to business as usual. LanzaTech can reduce the carbon footprint of the food business [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":151803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"The LanzaTech story is the feedstock, CO2, but, it\u2019s part of the everyday feedstock set and the foundational basis of the company","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[5838,12420,12584,5796,23598,12518,12575,12417,10743],"supplier":[2392,1939,2713,24919],"class_list":["post-151801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-bioreactor","tag-biorefineries","tag-biotechnology","tag-co2waste","tag-feedstocks","tag-nutrition","tag-proteins","tag-useco2","supplier-lanzatech","supplier-office-of-naval-research-onr","supplier-us-food-and-drug-administration-fda","supplier-us-navy-research-lab-nrl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151801"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=151801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}