Bioeconomy and net-zero carbon by 2050

In the immortal words of Roger Kilburn:

“In chemistry the feedstocks are concentrated, the reactions fast and the products are concentrated. In biology the feedstocks are dilute, the reactions slow and the products are dilute”.

I always say that I can trace many of the policy issues in biotechnology back to this rather effective analysis. Titre is a key technical issue that impacts the uptake of biotechnologies in governments and industry. Right now I am working on the need for both public and private investments to make biomanufacturing a reality. I tackle biomanufacturing as the combination of synthetic or engineering biology (for design) and industrial biotechnology (for manufacture). This separation, even geographically, is a paradigm of modern engineering. The policy context has never been more relevant - this from the Biden Administration Executive Order on biomanufacturing, September 12, 2022:

“Through Executive Order 14081, the Federal Government will deliver reports to the President on how biotechnology and biomanufacturing can further societal goals related to health, climate change and energy, food and agricultural innovation, resilient supply chains, and cross-cutting scientific advances.”[1]

When biomanufacturing is tied to net-zero carbon by 2050, we now see the imperative for speed. For me, this means that the vast quantities of public and private investment money required must offer the maximum chances of success. Ploughing taxpayers’ money into worthy projects cannot simply be based on scientific excellence. Applications for government funding will also have to be accompanied by environmental benefits and techno-economic analysis and energy balance at the least. For large ticket items such as biorefineries, it would be useful to make mandatory a demonstration of a complete value chain, from feedstocks to customers. 2050 is actually not far away, effectively two innovation cycles in the chemicals industry. To get all the technologies we need for net-zero carbon by then we have to minimise failures. The taxpayers of 2050 will demand it .

For a future based on biomanufacturing, design and manufacture are intimately linked although spatially separated, but the investment needs may be quite different, and this may not be apparent to investors. Hence the investment instruments and organisation types could be radically different – public sector biofoundries are gaining importance, but the level of investment is orders of magnitude lower than for a full-scale biomanufacturing plant or biorefinery.

[1] United States Federal Register (2022). Request for Information; National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/12/20/2022-27600/request-for-information-national-biotechnology-and-biomanufacturing-initiative#:~:text=Background%3A%20Through%20Executive%20Order%2014081,and%20cross%2Dcutting%20scientific%20advances.