Renewable Fuels, Environmental Concerns Drive Rapid Advances in Biotechnology

Rapid advances in biofuel research and development are being driven by concerns about the environment and the need for renewable fuels, according to top industry and government officials from China, Canada, the United States and Hawaii attending the second annual Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bionergy.

The second annual Summit gathered 340 biotechnology and bioenergy business executives, scientists, academics, and government officials in Honolulu to review progress in developing the bioenergy industry. The conference was hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the American Chemical Society and the State of Hawaii.

“Building new business partnerships within the bioenergy industry, particularly along the Pacific Rim, was a primary objective of the Summit,” said Erickson. “As we heard from our plenary speakers, government policies that support development of the industry, which are being driven by concerns about the environment and future economic growth, have been vital in attracting the private investment needed to make this industry successful. Pacific Rim countries have been in the lead in implementing these policies.”

The Summit featured more than 100 presentations from researchers and scientists, discussing biotechnology applications in energy, marine biotechnology, fine chemicals, and biobased products. The Summit also facilitated more than 45 meetings between companies seeking partnerships for the commercialization of new bioenergy research and applications.

“The Pacific Rim Summit showcased the latest biotech advances in feedstocks, production processes and novel biobased products,” said Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO’s Industrial and Environmental Section. “Attendees learned about new areas being explored for bioenergy applications, including marine biotechnology, nanotechnology and synthetic genomics.”

Keynote speakers at the summit included Jiayang Li, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and James Spaeth, manager of biomass research at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), who outlined their respective governments’ programs to support development of the biofuel industry in the opening session, titled “The Status of Biofuels Development in the Pacific Rim.”

Plankton Recruiting to stop Global Warming

Could plankton save the planet? In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction — and some scholars think that is where it belongs.

But even though many questions remain unanswered, the first commercial project is scheduled to get under way this month when the WeatherBird II, a 115-foot research vessel, heads out from its dock in Florida to the Galápagos and the South Pacific.

The ship plans to dissolve tons of iron, an essential plankton nutrient, over a 10,000-square-kilometer patch. That’s equivalent to 2.47 million acres (3,861 square miles on land or 2,912 square nautical miles). When the trace iron prompts growth and reproduction of the tiny organism, scientists on the WeatherBird II plan to measure how much carbon dioxide the plankton ingests.

Their efforts underscore a growing effort to pull carbon from the atmosphere. Solutions include planting or restoring forests and — once many economic and technical obstacles are overcome — capturing tons of carbon from coal burning for electricity and oil refineries, piping it back underground or burying it under the ocean.

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