Goodyear Tire is working with Genecor to produce high quality synthetic rubber largely from renewable raw materials that would replace the seven gallons of crude oil required to produce a single passenger tire. They hope to have the tires on the commercial market in the next year, and David Benko, Goodyear’s Director, Materials Research & Development, said that while performance is still the top criteria for consumers, that the environmentally-friendly factor comes right after that as a huge selling point.
Robert Sturtz, Director of Strategic Sourcing for United Airlines, shared some staggering statistics on the airline industry’s fuel use related to cost. The industry uses 17.5 billion gallons of fuel in a given year and just a one-cent increase per gallon in the price of fuel can drive their costs up by $175 million. Speaking in terms of barrels of oil, a $1 increase per barrel increases costs by $420 million per year. While not all of these costs are passed on to the consumer, customers could certainly benefit just as the airlines could from a decreased dependence on the volatile petroleum market.
Scott Vitters, Coca Cola’s General Manager of their PlantBottle Packaging Platform talked about their PlantBottle technology, which is a packaging approach that replaces up to 30 percent of the PET in bottles with plant-based materials. The goal is to eventually create a bottle from 100 percent plant materials, and Coca Cola plans to replace its entire line of plastic bottles with PlantBottles by 2020.
Drivers behind this decision for Coca Cola are cost, trust and product differentiation. They hope to achieve a cost advantage by lessening their dependence on volatile fluctuations in petroleum prices, enhance customer trust with increased environmental performances and set themselves apart from other brands with this technology.
Vitters said they’ve had a terrific reception from customers so far including customers like Walmart and McDonalds where they’ve seen the conversation shift away from cost back to quality. End-use consumers have responded very positively as well. Heinz ketchup, who has partnered with them in using this packaging, placed a QR code on their bottles for more information on PlantBottle technology that received more than a million hits in its first month. He said that it’s important to create awareness of what they’re doing to really connect with consumers and differentiate their brand.
At BIO’s 9th Annual World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology & Bioprocessing, BIO awarded Steen Riisgaard, Novozymes President and CEO, with its 2012 George Washington Carver Award honoring the vision of Carver, an originator of the “chemurgy” movement who, more than a century ago, achieved world renown by combining agriculture and science to produce everyday biobased products, changing the nature of farm economics and sustainability. Industrial biotechnology is the modern-day equivalent, combining biotech innovations with renewable biomass to create solutions that can revitalize manufacturing and energy.
Steen’s innovation and commitment to research in renewable chemicals has revolutionized industrial biotechnology today, said Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO’s Industrial & Environmental Section. He added that Steen demonstrated a tireless dedication to finding new enzymes that reduced cost and increased effectiveness advancing the industry as he was extremely committed to sustainability and an ardent believer in promoting innovation.
Riisgaard accepted the award saying it wasn’t just him, but all of his employees at Novozymes that should share in this honor. He said the world is just beginning to realize how much it needs industrial biotech with an ever-increasing population adding pressure for people of the world to enjoy clean water, safe housing, food and energy as resources dwindle. He sees industrial biotech as the solution, and believes in five to 10 years, this industry can transform world society with its technology the same way that ag biotech transformed farming.
Renewable chemicals continued to be a focus of the conference in an afternoon breakout sessioncalled “Building Blocks to Consumer Products.” Moderated by Steve Tuttle of the Dow Chemical Company, panelists included representatives from Gevo, Coca-Cola Company, EcoSynthetix, and XLTerra, a subsidiary of Reluceo.
Gevo’s Bob Bernacki highlighted the end markets of their isobutanol production including solvents, coatings, materials, plastics and fibers. Isobutanol is naturally occurring and has applications as a drop-in product that should allow customers to replace petroleum-derived raw materials with isobutanol-derived raw materials without modification to their equipment or production processes. Coca Cola showcased their PlantBottle technology, which is a packaging approach that replaces up to 30 percent of the PET in bottles with plant-based materials. The goal is to eventually create a bottle from 100 percent plant materials, and Coca Cola plans to replace its entire line of plastic bottles with PlantBottles by 2020.
Ecosynthetix specializes in using renewable chemicals to produce a broad range of biobased end products including adhesives, paints, coatings, ink resins and surfactants. They have used their EcoStix technology to develop adhesives and labels, including an ecostamp, that offer total biodegradability. XL Terrais developing high performance renewable engineering bioplastic (PXLK). PXLK plastics will have exceptional performance, be devoid of toxins and be sustainably produced.
Bernacki summed up the benefits of renewable chemicals and industrial biotech processes well saying, “To get environmentally cleaner products, you start with a cleaner process.”
The Woodrow Wilson Synthetic Biology Project has released a public survey soliciting opinions on synthetic biology. It is a follow up to a recent paper on synthetic biology released in Nature, and it is filled with biased questions that revive some of the oldest misconceptions about the biotechnology industry. The results of the survey are expected to be released in May 2012.
BIO is encouraging members of the industry to participate in the survey and use the opportunity to address some of the biases and misconceptions.
Some of the loaded questions survey takers are asked to rate the relative importance of include:
Ensure that the negative consequences of synthetic biology applications with long-term effects, such as changing the human microbiome or the production of synbio-based fuel, are benign (or limited).
Ban certain applications that pose a significant threat (deadly viruses, re-engineered human stem cells).
Tag or label products to indicate that synthetic biology was used in their manufacture
Identify intellectual property-related (IP) issues specific to synthetic biology and consider changes to the current patent and copyright systems.
Engage communities most likely to be disproportionately affected by increased use of the synthetic biology.
Among these questions, ironically, is an admission that there currently is no widely agreed upon definition of “synthetic biotechnology”:
Develop a clear definition of what synthetic biology is, including how it differs from past and ongoing genetic engineering.
As members of the biotechnology industry, this survey presents an opportunity to get engaged and help fight misconceptions that have existed since the start of the biotech industry. Broad industry participation in filling out this survey and encouraging others to do so can help ensure the results, which will be released in May, will present a balanced view of synthetic biology and the biotechnology industry. We would hope the results rank developing a clear definition of synthetic biology as a higher priority than banning or labeling it.
You can also vote against a moratorium on synthetic biology in this poll in a Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News article that looks at how fear has influenced public perception of most novel scientific endeavors like synthetic biology.
As we celebrate Black History Month, we should take time to recognize the contributions made by George Washington Carver and understand their relevance to today’s development of the bioeconomy. Carver was one of the founding fathers of the “chemurgy” movement, the branch of applied chemistry that derives industrial products from agricultural raw materials and the predecessor of modern industrial biotechnology.
BIO’s George Washington Carver Award
Carver, born into slavery in Missouri in 1861, left home at about 10 years old to pursue an education. From an early age, Carver pursued an interest in plants and ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science and a graduate degree from Iowa State University. Carver spent most of his career teaching and researching at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, devoting his time to teaching sustainable farming, which for him included developing new uses of agricultural products that could boost farm profits.
To encourage and aid farmers in adopting sustainable practices, Carver and his students developed more than 300 industrial uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes and other crops that could be grown in rotation with cotton and corn. Carver helped educate Southern farmers on the need to conserve soil productivity through crop rotation. Carver’s inventions included everything from plastics, glue, soaps and paints to dyes for cloth and leather, medicines and cosmetic ingredients made from peanuts, sweet potatoes, or other crops and agricultural residues.
Industrial biotechnology developed in ways that Carver might never have imagined, but it remains true to the goal of a sustainable bio-economy that includes production of useful everyday products. Continuing his legacy, industrial biotechnology companies today are developing new methods to use renewable agricultural resources to manufacture fuels, plastics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food ingredients.
In 2008, BIO created the George Washington Carver Award given annually at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing. It is given to innovators in academia, the private sector or government whose work has tapped industrial biotechnology to develop sustainable biobased processes or products. A scholarship, given in the name of the recipient, accompanies the award.
BIO presented the first annual George Washington Carver Award to Dr. Patrick Gruber, CEO, Gevo, Inc., celebrating his accomplishments in creating and commercializing a new plastic made from annually renewable resources. In 2009, BIO awarded DuPont Chairman of the Board Charles O. Holliday, Jr., recognizing his commitment to industrial biotechnology as a tool for sustainable business growth. In 2010, the award went to Dr. Greg Stephanopoulos of MIT who is currently Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. His work now focuses on engineering a microbe for cost-effective production of oil and biodiesel. Last year’s award was given to Feike Sijbesma of Royal DSM NV for leading his company’s efforts to promote bio-based products over those relying on fossil-fuel resources.
The 2012 Carver Award winner will be announced at the 9th Annual World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Orlando, Fla., April 29 – May 2 at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center.
