In France, Global Bioenergies\u00a0 and LanzaTech signed a new collaboration agreement to broaden the feedstock flexibility of Global Bioenergies\u2019 Isobutene process and the product-portfolio of LanzaTech\u2019s carbon capture technology.\u00a0 The news illustrates a new trend in the story of synthetic biology: the migration from the old \u201chardware\u201d oil and grain refinery model to a model based on apps. In this case, proven, trained-up microbes that can each produce a target molecule from waste carbon.<\/p>\n
Shifts in worldwide demand? Pull out the old bug, swap in the new.<\/p>\n
As LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren remarks, \u201cSince it is biology and the reactor doesn\u2019t change, the production of new chemicals can be done with a flick of a bug\u2026\u00a0 produce ethanol today, butadiene pricing goes up, no need to put more steel in the ground, flick the butadiene bug in for a campaign and produce butadiene while the price is still high.\u00a0 So you aren\u2019t 2 years behind a cycle.\u00a0 I think of it as hardware, software.\u00a0 You\u2019ve installed the hardware now just add a new version of the software or a different app.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond traded commodities
\nBut there\u2019s more. In the petroleum and sugar markets, these are traded commodities, subject to wild swings in pricing that are the hallmark of the fossil market.\u00a0How to get beyond that? Use feedstocks that only a handful of companies can unlock the value of, like waste carbon. In LanzaTech\u2019s case, captured from steel mill off-gases \u2014 not a commodity available on the Chicago Board of Trade, for sure.<\/p>\n
Permanent carbon sequestration without the expense of trapping CO2 in a cavern somewhere
\nIn the end, the most sensible way to sequester carbon is to convert it to a durable product. \u201cIf we can do that, convert waste carbon rich gases to a chemicals like butadiene which can then be converted to rubber or nylon,\u201d says Holmgren, \u201cwe will be effectively sequestering the carbon in a durable good vs geologically.\u00a0 How neat is that!\u00a0 What a way to reduce our carbon footprint. Not only recycling carbon and giving it another life but doing it in a way which permanently locks carbon into a product.\u00a0 This is without doubt, the way to a low-carbon future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond a foolish \u201call eggs, one basket\u201d approach
\nThe automobile was going to power everything, so Los Angeles tore up its extensive streetcar network in the 1920s. The atomic reactor was going to power everything, so no one worried much about the potential for import petroleum dependency in the 1950s and 1960s. The Synthetic Fuel Corporation was going to cure everything, until it didn\u2019t. Single-cell protein would save the Soviet Union, until it didn\u2019t. Ethanol was going to save the world from addiction of oil, until it didn\u2019t. Fracking was going to save the world, until the rig counts began to crash.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s renewable electricity, basically solar, that is going to save us all. Only it won\u2019t, and probably nothing will \u201csave us\u201d until we embrace the joys of portfolios, and technologies that get on base instead of technologies that hit home runs. It\u2019s the principle of Moneyball, and a principle of diversification that successfully powers modern investment theory.<\/p>\n
So, fuels have a big place in the low-carbon society. And those that advocate them are those who believe in portfolio theory.<\/p>\n
Holmgren agrees. \u201cWe have to globally take singles and doubles to get to the end result of changing the world\u2019s carbon footprint.\u00a0 We cannot always try for home runs or hail Marys, continuing the football analogy, we cannot afford to fall so far behind in the global carbon game. We have to change how we think and how we behave about how we are going to have a future low-carbon economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, sequestration diversification, energy diversification, product diversification and feedstock diversification.\u00a0 The key word here begins with D and ends with iversification.<\/p>\n
E Pluribus Unum
\nBut there\u2019s an easier way to think of it, and a convenient place to find it. From many technologies and inputs comes, all rolled up, one big solution.\u00a0 Put more plainly, out of many, one. To put it in Latin, e pluribus unum. You can find it on any US coin, and it\u2019s no mistake to associate that philosophy with money. Those who practice the philosophy have the money. Those who don\u2019t, watch the money slip through their fingers and spend the rest of eternity explaining the 16,000 reasons they should be forgiven for not foreseeing the unforeseeable.<\/p>\n
Of course, the future is always unforeseeable, as any reader of business plans will confirm to you that there are never any unfavorable macroeconomic events in forecasts. No 9\/11, no Great Recession, No Global Oil Meltdown. All we know is that tomorrow will bring unforeseen terrors and opportunities, and for the same reason that the golfer carrying 14 clubs always defeats the golfer carrying one, diversification wins.<\/p>\n
Global Bioenergies has developed a process in which a microorganism can produce isobutene from renewable feedstock. Whereas the company\u2019s primary focus has historically been to use industrial-grade or waste-derived sugars as feedstocks, the technological maturity of the process now allows us to envision a broader range of feedstocks, including non-biomass-derived sources of carbon.<\/p>\n
LanzaTech\u2019s carbon recycling technology enables the bio-based transformation of industrial wastes, such as carbon monoxide and\/or carbon dioxide and hydrogen, into valuable commodities. Waste gases from the chemistry of steel making, for example, can be captured and recycled into biofuels or chemicals such as acetone and others. LanzaTech is currently building its first commercial facilities, which will produce ethanol from waste steel mill gases. These ethanol facilities will be able to change production to chemicals if desired through application of LanzaTech\u2019s novel microorganisms.<\/p>\n
The collaboration backstory
\nThe two companies entered into a collaboration agreement in 2011, with the goal to synergize their technologies, and build microbial strains capable of converting non-sugar feedstock into isobutene. Based on the results obtained during these four years, the two companies have now entered a new collaboration agreement in order to both intensify this cooperation and to develop, an integrated process.<\/p>\n
Reaction from the stakeholders
\nMarc Delcourt, CEO at Global Bioenergies, states: \u201cThe diversification of feedstocks will leverage the technology of Global Bioenergies, and will be an important asset for the massive deployment of our technology on the mid-term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, states: \u201cThe expansion of our synthetic biology portfolio has shown gas fermenting microbes to have the same capabilities as sugar fermenting organisms. We are now able to produce a variety of chemicals from a broad array of gas feedstocks, driving both economic and environmental benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In France, Global Bioenergies\u00a0 and LanzaTech signed a new collaboration agreement to broaden the feedstock flexibility of Global Bioenergies\u2019 Isobutene process and the product-portfolio of LanzaTech\u2019s carbon capture technology.\u00a0 The news illustrates a new trend in the story of synthetic biology: the migration from the old \u201chardware\u201d oil and grain refinery model to a model […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5796],"supplier":[1534,2392],"class_list":["post-31578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biotechnology","supplier-global-bioenergies","supplier-lanzatech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31578","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=31578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31578"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=31578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}