Why biotech is vital to help us reach #NetZero
We face a paradox. Modern British society depends on industrial production to keep us comfortable, healthy, fed and entertained.
But at the same time, UK industry is responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change that threatens our way of life.
In a world that must move beyond fossil fuels we face critical questions, like: how do we make the things we use to clean? how do we make clothes? how do we package our fruit and vegetables?
Dr Colin Miles, Head of Renewable Resources and Clean Growth at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council says: “If we want to build an economy that truly sustains our civilisation now, and in the future, we must find ways to maintain production whilst cutting emissions to net zero, and biotech is key to that.”
Biotech? What’s that?
Industrial biotech is the use of plants, algae and bacteria to produce and process at scale the materials and chemicals we need. It often uses materials that we would consider to be wastes, and uses them to make things we would previously have needed fossil fuels for.
Aberystwyth University and Terravesta are exploring ways to scale up and improve the use of British-grown elephant grass, or miscanthus, as a carbon negative power station fuel and a feedstock for chemicals manufacture.
Engineers from the University of Nottingham have demonstrated that genetically engineered bacteria can transform waste CO2 from steel plants into industrial chemicals, including acetone and isopropanol, meaning we can reuse emission rather than dragging new petrochemicals out of the ground.
Biodegradable plastics are being made from biomass by companies like Biome Bioplastics, in collaboration with several UK universities, using natural resources without the need for fossil chemicals.
A better future with biotechnology
The potential of science and engineering to address global issues at scale and with great speed has been demonstrated by the race for vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now biotech must rise together to the challenge of creating a net zero economy — and Colin Miles believes this is absolutely achievable.
He says: “ Community building can help make this happen.The funding we provide, the networks we facilitate, together enable people to connect with everyone in their supply chain.
“It’s not easy as business or a researcher to work out how to take your input to an output. But by working together we can do amazing things — and make the theoretical possible.”
Originally published at https://www.ukri.org on May 10, 2021.
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And if you want to know about biomass as a replacement for petrochemicals, watch our webinar here.
