BIO World Congress Begins with Newsmakers

BIO’s 2011 World Congress got off to a strong start in Toronto, with news announcements from G2 BioChem and others throughout the morning.
The big news from BIO was the presentation of the George Washington Carver Award to Royal DSM CEO/Chairman Feike Sijbesma. Sijbesma discussed the evolution of DSM from a coal mining company to a chemical company and now to a global life sciences and materials company. For Sijbesma, this transformation mirrors the current Green Industrial Revolution.
Feike Sijbesma’s acceptance speech is available as written.

Download audio of speech: Royal DSM Chairman/CEO Feike Sijbesma Accepts the 2011 BIO George Washington Carver Award
As evidence of the Green Industrial Revolution, DSM announced plans to build a bio-succinic acid plant in partnership with Roquette. The plant would open in Italy in 2012 if all goes according to plan. BP announced investment in Verdezyne, a California company building a platform to produce adipic acid, which is a building block for nylon.
Genencor published the results of a new survey of consumer acceptance of biobased household products. In a survey of U.S. and Canadian consumers, from 30 to 40 percent of respondents indicated they have heard the term “biobased products.” More than two-thirds indicated they’d be willing to purchase them for their environmental sustainability, if they were comparable to non-biobased products on cost and effectiveness.

World Congress on Industrial Biotech Begins in Washington

On the opening day of BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Washington, DC, new announcements came from the Department of Energy, ZeaChem, Elevance and DSM.

The DOE’s Assistant Secretary Cathy Zoi, head of the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, announced funding of $24 million for three research groups addressing key hurdles in commercializaiton of algae. The money will be split among the Sustainable Algal Biofuels Consortium, the Consortium for Algal Biofuels Commercialization, and Cellana, LLC Consortium.

The DOE also released the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap.

Elevance announced a joint venture with Wilmar International to build a commercial-scale manufacturing facility in Surabaya, Indonesia with an initial capacity of approximately 400 million pounds of its renewable waxes and oils. The facility will be located within Wilmar’s new integrated manufacturing complex now under construction and is expected to come online in 2011.

DSM announced formation of a joint venture with Roquette Freres — to be called Reverdia V.o.f. and to be headquartered in the Netherlands. The venture will combine Roquette’s sugars with DSM’s fermentation technology to produce succinic acid, which is a building block chemical for nylon and other plastics. This follows another French succinic acid plant, Bio Amber.

ZeaChem announced achievement of milestones in scaling up their biorefinery process.

A session at the World Congress focused on commercialization of algae biofuels, with DOW, UOP Honeywell, Raytheon, and HR BioPetroleum presenting updates on the partnerships they’ve formed. The discussion turned to jet fuels and chemicals as way to ensure any algal process is sustainable — it can ensure economic viability and reuse of all byproducts.

Ways and Means Should Include Job Creation of Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts in Green Jobs Leg

On Wednesday, April 14 the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on Energy Tax Incentives Driving the Green Job Economy. The focus of the hearing is to examine the effectiveness of current energy tax policy and identify additional steps that the Committee can take to ensure continued job growth in this area while at the same time advancing national energy policy focus on a discussion of current and proposed energy tax incentives. Witnesses for this hearing have not been announced and we do not know how much of the hearing will focus on transportation fuels however, energy tax incentives for biofuels and biobased products should be a significant area of focus for this round of green jobs legislation. These technologies are ready to deploy and create near term job opportunities.

Industrial biotechnology is the key enabling technology for producing biofuels and biobased products like bioplastics and renewable chemicals to aid in reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also have the ability to crate jobs, jobs that are currently moving overseas due to their reliance on petroleum as a feedstock or more favorable economic or political environments.

The United States has invested considerable amounts of taxpayer dollars to try to revive our economy. Too often, though, the resulting jobs are being created overseas, as other countries invest in green technology deployment. As a result, the opportunity to improve our economic competitiveness is lost. The United States is a leader in the research and development of green technologies, but to maintain that lead we must invest in the companies that are putting that green technology to work in our economy. These industries have shed hundreds of thousands of domestic jobs over the past two decades, as petroleum producing countries have attracted more capital investment. For example, U.S. chemical and plastics companies have increased capital investment outside the United States by 32 percent over the past decade, while increasing investment within U.S. borders by only 2 percent.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) enacted as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 sets the minimum level of renewable fuel that must be produced and blended into the US transportation fuel supply at 36 billion gallons by 2022. 21 billion gallons of that requirement must be cellulosic or advanced biofuels. Direct job creation from the advanced and cellulosic biofuels volumes in the RFS could reach 29,000 by 2010, rising to 190,000 by 2022. Total job creation could reach 123,000 in 2010 and 807,000 by 2022. Jobs will be across many sectors of the economy. Some projected job creation sectors are: labor/freight, mixing and blending machine operators, shopping/receiving/traffic clerks, truck drivers, chemical equipment/technicians, chemical plant/system operators/electrical, sales etc.

The Ways and Means Committee can aid in accelerating this job creation by incentivizing biorefinery construction here in the United States. In 2008 Congress enacted a cellulosic biofuels production tax credit and enhanced depreciation for advanced biofuels facilities as part of the 2008 Farm Bill, both of which are scheduled to expire on December 31, 2012. Due to an overall downturn in the worldwide economy, this tax credit has not yet been utilized by cellulosic biofuels producers. This credit needs to be extended now in order to signal to investors that a plant being constructed this year, will have certainty in the availability of that tax credit once the plant begins to produce the advanced biofuel. A tax credit that expires before or shortly after production begins, does not create economic security for a yet to be built advanced biofuel biorefinery looking for funding. Furthermore, capital costs for construction of next generation biorefineries, which utilize renewable biomass to produce next generation biofuels and biobased products, are a substantial barrier to commercialization. Congress should provide an investment tax credit to help accelerate construction of next generation biorefineries and speed deployment of next generation fuels, chemicals and products.

Historically, the U.S. chemicals and plastics industry was the envy of the world. At its peak in the 1950s, the industry was responsible for over 5 million domestic jobs and a $20 billion positive trade balance for the United States. Jobs associated with the industry were typically among the highest paid in U.S. manufacturing. However, the petro-chemicals and plastics industries are now hemorrhaging jobs overseas. Conversely, biobased products and chemicals production, like domestically produced biofuels, will stay in the U.S., in close proximity to their biomass feedstocks. Total US employment in the chemicals industry declined by over 20% in the last two decades and is projected to decrease further. The US is a world leader in industrial biotechnology with a wide range of companies pioneering new, renewable pathways to traditional petroleum-based chemicals and plastics.

The potential job creation from bio-products is immense. Consider that the nascent biobased products industry employed over 5,700 Americans at 159 facilities in 2007 and every new job in the chemical industry creates 5.5 additional jobs elsewhere in the economy. Currently the biobased products portion represents only about 4 percent of all sales for the industry. Congress should create targeted production tax credits that can help them to expand their share of the market and grow additional domestic jobs. With an industry with the potential to grow by over 50% per year, bio-products can form the basis for a strong employment growth engine for the US.

Clearly commercializing the advanced biofuels and biobased products industries is an integral solution to creating high caliber domestic green jobs in the United States that will catapult this country to be a leader in successful high tech, sustainable technologies. BIO will be urging the Ways and Means Committee through written comments to recognize that innovations such as these are some of the most promising sources of green jobs and economic growth for the future.

Where is BIO: Amy Ehlers, Advanced Biofuels Technology Trends and Policy Opportunities

Last week, Amy Ehlers, Policy Manager in BIO’s Industrial and Environmental Section, gave a presentation in the Sustainability and the Environment track at the 2010 DOE Biomass Conference in Washington, DC. The title of the panel was: A look at the effect of Federal climate change legislation on the bioenergy sector and the title of her presentation was: Advanced Biofuels Technology Trends and Policy Opportunities. The session was moderated by Liz Marshall, Resource Economist, Biofuels Production and Policy Project, World Resources Institute and other panelists included Brent Yacobucci, Specialist in Energy and Environmental Policy, Congressional Research Service, Nathanael Greene, Director of Renewable Energy Policy, Natural Resources Defense Council and Dr. Adam Liska, Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska.

Ms. Ehlers highlighted industrial biotechnology as the key enabling technology for producing biofuels and biobased products like bioplastics and renewable chemicals to aid in reducing our dependence on foreign sources of oil, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial biotechnology is the application of life sciences to improve traditional manufacturing and chemical synthesis manufacturing processes by using micro-organisms like bacteria and fungi as well as enzymes to improve manufacturing processes and make new “biobased” products and materials, including biofuels, from renewable feedstocks. Our member companies are using this technology to improve the yield, efficiency and energy inputs in first generation biofuels production, develop new feedstocks such as purpose-grown energy crops, broaden the use of algae technologies, make advancements in end molecule diversification for fuels and increase focus on renewable chemicals and bioproducts.

Currently there are over 40 planned or pilot production biorefineries all over the United States. The total job creation potential for the biofuels industry could reach 123,000 in 2012, 383,000 in 2016, and 807,000 by 2022 if the 36 billion gallon renewable fuel standard is met. In addition, industrial biotechnology can save the world up to 2.5 billion tons of CO2 per year. EPA’s analysis for the renewable fuel standards found that cellulosic biofuels reduce emissions by 110% compared to the gasoline baseline.

However, to realize the potential of this technology, there are serious issues that need to be addressed. For example: The issue of indirect land use change needs a conclusive policy approach; cap and trade legislation needs carbon accounting for advanced biofuels; financing policy needs programs that de-risk invest and tax incentives; and to advance the technology and product diversity we need a variety of feedstocks, conversion technologies, and products to achieve relevance and sustainability.

The benefits on all fronts reach far beyond ethanol, even beyond biofuels. The integrated biorefinery is the goal. Similar to a petroleum refinery, the integrated biorefinery has one feedstock going in, multiple products coming out. The benefits are numerous: an economic business model, energy efficient facilities, lowering dependence on foreign oil, lowering fuels, products and chemicals prices, boosting regional/rural economies, creating thousands of new permanent jobs and significantly reducing green house gas emissions compared to petroleum counterparts.

Finally Ms. Ehlers recommended that as the federal and several state governments contemplate and draft comprehensive climate change legislation and regulations, it’s important to keep in mind the benefits of industrial biotechnologies, biofuels and bioproducts and not inadvertently deter commercialization of some of the most promising greenhouse gas reduction technologies ready to be deployed. Specifically, biofuels should not be reregulated in a carbon regime as they are already regulated under the renewable fuel standard and biobased products need to be recognized and treated equally as these products provide green house gas emission reduction benefits by replacing petroleum use. Also, with regard to bio-power we need to consider how biomass feedstocks used for electricity be regulated in climate legislation, will biopower feedstocks be held responsible for indirect land use change like biofuels and how this could affect feedstock pricing for biofuels and biobased products. In closing, Ms. Ehlers reminded the audience that you can’t have a low carbon future without significant contributions from the biofuels and bioproducts industries.

Weekly Blog Round Up

Biofuels are big in Iowa. So big in fact, that according to domesticfuel.com

“Iowa State University will get $8 million of a $78 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to research and develop advanced biofuels.”

“These Iowa State research projects are paid for by stimulus bucks … the same money that is funding the $44 million to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Mo. (…..) and the $34 million (plus $8.4 million in non-federal, cost-share funding) that is going to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.”

Biofuels Digest is running a special update on biomass and algae. That is, they are showcasing meeting highlights, from the Pacific West Biomass Conference in Sacramento. One hot issue according to Biofuels Digest was the,

“conflicting definitions of biomass and what qualifies as a legitimate source or conversion process. The conflicts run across the standards for earning carbon credits and renewable energy credits, attaining the Renewables Portfolio Standard (for utilities), meeting AB32 carbon reduction goals, and meeting California Integrated Waste Management Board landfill diversion goals. These issues reach beyond California since the State’s standards strongly affect those of many other States.”

Other topics discussed were amplifying feedstocks, biomass investment, learning from one another, and diversity of the biomass industry cluster.

Green Inc. a New York Times blog writes about increased funding for biofuels. They have this to say,

“The United States Department of Energy announced last week more than $80 million in financing from the economic stimulus package for a new national program dedicated to biofuels research.
The goal is not only to develop high energy, dense fuels, but also to figure out how to use existing infrastructure as much as possible to save costs, said John Holladay, head of biomass research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, one of the groups leading the program.”

And that is why biotech innovation brings us hope for a better future.

This Week in Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology

Can you make fuel out of tobacco? Apparently you can if they’re genetically engineered tobacco plants.

According to Alternative Energy,

“Researchers from the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University have developed a new method to increase the quantity of oil in tobacco leaves. So that oil in tobacco leaves can be utilized as biofuels in future. Their paper was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal which is an online journal.”

Alternative Energy goes on to write,

“According to Dr. Andrianov, “Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production. We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves.””

That’s another feedstock to add to the list.

Xconomy in Seattle has come up with the top five innovations to watch in the coming decade. They are:

1. The Return of Nanotechnology
2. Industrial Applications of Synthetic Biology
3. P4 Medicine. A term coined by Leroy Hood to embody Personalized, Predictive, Preventive, and Participatory medicine.
4. Merger of the ‘Cloud’ Computing and Mobile Devices.
5. In-Vivo Cell Potentiation

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Read more about these at Xconmony.

And now, the fifty hottest companies in bioenergy announced by Biofuels Digest for 2009-2010. Well it’s a long list so we won’t tell you who all fifty are, but you can find that list on the Biofuels Digest web site. The first five are:

1. Solazyme
2. Poet
3. Amyris
4. BP Biofuels
5. Sapphire Energy

Congratulations and best wishes for 2010.

Industrial and Environmental Biotech Weekly Blog Roundup

In industrial biotechnology this week the Wall Street Cheat Sheet says algae is the next great thing.

“Algae could be the most promising candidate yet for the future of the biofuels industry.

Although algae-based fuels won’t be commercially available for several years, algae offers several advantages over other first-generation renewable fuels, such as corn and soybeans. For example, algae grows faster, requires less resources, can be used as jet fuel, can use existing distribution systems, and absorbs carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.”

The post closes with,

“All of this syncs up neatly with a White House concerned with climate change and looking to develop “green energy” technologies with long economic coattails.

While it may be too early to call algae the clear winner in the biofuels race, at least for now, the future of algae-based biofuels looks bright.”

The Biofuels Digest

writes about BIO’s recent Pacific Rim Summit,

“In Hawaii, at the BIO Pacific Rim Summit, Joule Biotechnologies announced that it has achieved direct microbial conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons via engineered organisms, powered by solar energy.

Joule’s Helioculture process mixes sunlight and CO2 with highly engineered photo synthetic organisms, which are designed to secrete ethanol, diesel or other products.

However, unlike algae and other current biomass-derived fuels, the Helioculture process does not produce biomass, requires no agricultural feedstock and minimizes land and water use. It is also direct-to-product, so there is no lengthy extraction and/or refinement process.”

Sounds interesting, guess we’ll have to stay tuned.

Yesterday the DOE and the USDA announced,

“projects selected for more than $24 million in grants to research and develop technologies to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products. Of the $24.4 million announced today, DOE plans to invest up to $4.9 million with USDA contributing up to $19.5 million. Advanced biofuels produced through this funding are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent compared to fossil fuels.”

Pacific Rim Summit: Renewable Chemicals

Two companies commercializing different techniques to produce chemicals from renewable resources gave presentations this morning at BIO’s Pacific Rim Summit.

Christophe Schilling, CEO of Genomatica in San Diego, outlined the company’s strategy for making butanediol (BDO) directly from sugars. BDO is a polymer used in things such as spandex, betadine, and car parts including tires. Genomatica says its process uses 30 percent less energy, reduces CO2 and GHG emissions, and produces a 40-60 percent saving in capital expenditures. Plus, there is a $3 billion existing market.

Sam McConnell of Myriant described his company’s strategy for making succinic acid, which is a chemical intermediate that can be converted into many other products. Myriant is partnering with the University of Florida and Buckeye Technologies on a plant in Perry, Fla., which they project to be completed in 2010. The output of the plant is already 80 percent sold, according to McConnell.

A recording of the session is available from bio.org.

BIO Pacific Rim Summit: Biofuels from Coal and Sunlight

On day two of BIO’s Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy, attendees heard some fascinating presentations at the plenary lunch session, appropriately titled “Novel Applications of Industrial Biotechnology.”

Phil Hendry from CSIRO in Australia spoke about the opportunities for carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas benefits offered by coal bed methane production (coal seam gas, CBM, CSG). Coal bed methane is a type of natural gas extracted from coal beds through a natural biological process. There are great advantages to its use, according to Mr. Hendry, because coal bed methane produces around 50 percent less carbon dioxide emissions compared to coal-fired power. Coal bed methane also has great potential to contribute significantly to the supply of natural gas.

There are several international organizations involved in the production of coal bed methane, aside from CSIRO. Luca Technologies, Alberta Research Council, and the Western Research Institute are some examples. Mr. Hendry also cited the ability of CBM to stimulate under saturated coal seams, exhausted wells, and even to be injected into micronutrients.

Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President of the Industrial and Environmental Section at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), sits on the board of the Western Research Institute. When asked about the potential for coal bed methane, he made the following statement: “Biogenic coal bed methane generation is an elegant solution requiring the marriage of fossil fuel technology and advanced biotechnology. The potential of this energy generating process has yet to be fully realized. And when it is, it will allow us to tap into a clean, natural gas resource from deep coal beds that has been heretofore difficult to obtain.”

Also presenting at the lunch session was David Berry, a co-founder of Joule Biotechnologies. Joule announced yesterday that their Helioculture technology has achieved a breakthrough in converting CO2 and sunlight into diesel. Joule had previously announced production of ethanol.

Berry described the SolarConverter Joule is developing — a modular system of panels housing photosynthetic microorganisms. Audio of the presentation is available for download from bio.org.

Stephanie Batchelor of BIO contributed to this report.

BIO Pacific Rim Summit: Status of Cellulosic Ethanol Commercialization

Qteros, ZeaChem and Verenium presented updates on their efforts to bring three unique cellulosic ethanol processes to commercial status.

Qteros CTO Kevin Gray described how the company’s Q Microbe™ (Clostridium phytofermentans) enables a single step (consolidated bioprocessing) conversion and fermentation process for fuels. This approach can save as much as 40 percent in production costs. Qteros is currently scaling its technology up for a 100 liter laboratory bioreactor.

ZeaChem President and CEO Jim Imbler outlined the challenges facing the industry, which include the need for coherent government policy to help the industry make it through the “Valley of Death,” which he described as the stage between proving that a technology works and attracting enough investment to make it a reality. Raising capital for a first-of-its-kind project is particularly difficult, Imbler noted. Traditional project finance is not available; but companies could move forward with a combination of strategic investors and short-term government support.

Zeachem uses a Clostridium thermoaceticum found in the gut of termites to produce acetic acid, which is then converted to ethyl acetate and ethanol. They are constructing a demonstration-scale plant expected to be online in 2010.

Bill Baum of Verenium then described the status of the company’s joint venture with BP, Vercipia Biofuels, which is building a commercial scale cellulosic biofuel plant in Highlands County, Fla. and seeking a site for a second facility.

An audio recording of the webinar can be downloaded from BIO.org.