As we begin the long process of decarbonization it is quickly becoming apparent just how much of our technological society is built on a foundation of petroleum. It, directly or indirectly, powers our cars, heats our homes, fertilizes our fields, and clothes our bodies. For some sectors, such as transportation or energy, decarbonization has a straightforward technological roadmap. We know how to build comprehensive, electrified rail and bus systems, the primary barriers are political and financial.
For other sectors, however, it is less clear how we can fulfill societal needs without fossil fuels. Large swaths of the materials, chemical, and industrial sectors are highly bound up in processes built upon fossil fuels, such as chemical feedstocks or plastics. Identifying and scaling alternatives to these processes and product classes is a crucial step in pursuing a fossil-free future.
In the past, I’ve written about how the life sciences are critical to fulfilling these societal needs. Achieving a circular society powered by solar energy is dependent on the adoption of technologies that lend themselves to circularity. Biological systems are optimized for circular production systems because they follow the template of ecosystems, where spare nutrients are scavenged and waste is utilized by decomposers. Building technology from these systems allows us to model industries based on ecosystems, in lieu of the linear models pursued today, allowing us to unlock true sustainability.
An example of this process is the production of resins, which are currently manufactured via petroleum-derived polymers. However, one review assessed an array of potential alternative processes that utilize vegetable oils or lignin (the structural component of many plant tissues) to produce various alternative resins. As peak oil approaches, there is a massive opportunity to rapidly scale up this and other novel technologies and build out new and improved industries based on the life sciences. A bioeconomy for the future.
Unfortunately, there has been little movement in bringing these discoveries to market. These innovations tend to sit between journal pages or in proof of concepts. No one is taking the time to properly scale them up and overthrow oil incumbents in these markets. There is, of course, a multifaceted explanation for this, but part of the issue is that there is a fractured innovation ecosystem for bio-based technologies. The researchers and entrepreneurs focused on this work are isolated and lack any infrastructure to scale and commercialize these technologies. What we need is to develop systems that can bring innovators together with the structures needed to bring their inventions to market.
The Bay Area in the 1960s was not particularly well known for technology. It was a finance and insurance center with a backbone of manufacturing and distribution. Computer and computer chip companies such as HP and Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation began to set up shop, and eventually, the employees and contacts of those firms began to found their own companies like Apple or Intel. Soon if you wanted a piece of the tech pie, as either engineer, founder, or investor, you had to move to San Francisco.
Economists call this an agglomeration effect, where the concentration of talent in specific regions spurs innovation. This is due to existing infrastructure already in place to drive innovation further such as universities, labs, funders, and industry-specific services. Additionally, social effects from the continual interaction of driven, intelligent people all in the same city, attending the same parties and meetings, networking, sharing ideas, and introducing people to each other spur collaboration. An ecosystem like this is what the biomaterials and biochemical industries need.
To achieve this first requires identifying a series of cities that already have the beginnings of an agglomeration. A life science Silicon Valley circa 1960, with a smattering of researchers, startups, or other innovators already working on these issues. Once these regions are identified, making investments in building the physical and social infrastructure necessary to drive innovation forward and build a critical mass of talent can be attempted.
This is a great opportunity for states, municipalities, and firms to get a bite of the pie before decarbonization seriously gets underway. Governments can focus on incentives to attract companies and build the early stages of a cluster, such as constructing research parks to provide laboratory space and equipment for startups. Identifying niches specific to one region to double down on and build out agglomeration effects is an important component of this strategy.
Say your city has an existing company developing and marketing mushroom-based proteins. Putting city funds into the local university to spur research in additional fungal food and industrial applications would be a great way of leveraging an existing advantage to build out a proper industry for the region. The company already has talent in the region, many of whom likely have their own ideas that could spin off into startups. Additionally, entrepreneurs may be attracted to the region, seeking a labor pool with experience with fungi. The role of these planners should be to identify these types of opportunities.
The Colorado hemp industry is a place where this model could be applied. Currently, much of the hemp produced in the state is grown for CBD, but there is a huge opportunity to use the existing supply chain to spin up additional sectors. Hemp has a huge potential for use in insulation and concrete products. With the existing supply chain and industry expertise, sprinkling some incentives to spur innovation in these alternatives would be a great way to generate new industries and provide alternatives to petroleum products.
For entrepreneurs, identifying regions where there is a critical mass of research and commercialization activity should be a core component of developing and scaling a startup. This will provide access to talent and the potential for access to facilities.
For regional planners seeking to form a cluster, systematically mapping the innovation space of the local area and identifying strengths should be the first step. Once a target sector has been chosen, working with stakeholders to draw in talent, capital, and innovators will be a must. Partnership with universities to forge partnerships and provide facilities is a core component of this strategy.
For investors, seek to bring together founders and portfolio companies into the same region. This will drive further innovation and create more opportunities for product lines and investible companies.
Bioeconomy clusters will require a lot of coordination between private and public players. Utilizing industrial policy strategies to create the technological foundation for decarbonization will not only bring these technologies to market more quickly, but it will also bring great wealth to the cities that can attract the right combination of skill and vision and provide them the resources to thrive.
There is an old saying, “oil and water don’t mix.” There are two economies on planet Earth. One is water-based life using energy from the sun to create more life. The other uses the dead energy of fossil fuels to destroy life. No amount of technology is going to resolve the inherent contradiction between these two, fundamentally incompatible, energy systems.
I hear what you are saying about the benefits of accumulating human capital in specific industry sectors – but I wonder how much the internet has mitigated some of this? Sure – when discussing how to create spin-off industries from the waste products of a specific product like hemp – nothing beats local stimulus to get things going and cut costs and scale up to bring total costs down.
Yet online communication of techniques and ideas has never been easier. For example – have you listened to this podcast with data scientist Hannah Ritchie interviewing people?
Solar Foods is finally launching their first commercial factory for Precision Fermentation (PF). I know Chris Smaje has written against it – and run various numbers on the energy costs.
A few comments:
1. Chris's numbers depend on certain readings of certain hard to come by studies – and more studies are being done in this area to clarify the actual situation.
2. Solar's learning curve is 20% cheaper for every global doubling of capacity – and it's doubling every three years now. This ever cheaper solar trend cannot continue for ever – but Professor Andrew Blakers (who won the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering for designing the PERC solar cell back in the day says he at LEAST expects solar to halve in cost by 2030! So any extra energy costs Chris may have found can be at least offset in price as this trend continues. Solar is 4 times more efficient than photosynthesis at collecting sunlight – and unlike regular soy beans – does not require arable land. The hydrogen is fed directly to the hygenotrophes with the end result being maybe 10 times more efficient on a protein per land use than even soy beans! (Including the solar panels – which I do not because they can be in deserts, on rooftops, and even float on waterways.)
3. Australian company Hysata has invented a new alkaline electrolyser which is 20% more efficient. Imagine being able to take 20% off your electricity budget when making hydrogen? They’re going to DOMINATE the global market in a few short years. I'm hoping that other companies are inspired to do some R&D and discover this secret for themselves so it spreads around the world faster. https://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-electrolyser-start-up-gets-huge-global-backing-in-countrys-biggest-ever-clean-tech-fund-raising/
Energy is about half the total costs of Solein (a brand of PF.) The cheaper the solar and hydrogen – the cheaper the PF protein.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2024/10/20/protein-from-air-has-a-complex-path-to-eu-approval/
Tony Seba calculated some rough economies of scale and learning rates back in 2014 – and pretty much guessed today's costs for wind, solar and EV prices. As you point out – it's all about economies of scale and learning rates. I hope he's right – but biological systems function differently to industrial ones. But he basically predicts livestock grazing will become uneconomic due to the rise of PF over the next decade. That's 30% of the land on earth we might return to nature as livestock protein is displaced to this 'electric food'.
Finally – just as you mentioned about industrial agglomerations having their own unique efficiencies -did you ever read this article about how cities have an almost "Moore's Law" as they grow? (Not that I'm into population growth – I see this more as an interesting historical quirk and yet another data point against suburbia.)
Cities enjoy an efficiency bonus. The basic rule of thumb? Every time you double a city’s population you get an extra 30% GDP for free. To illustrate, say you have 5,000 people in one town and 5,000 people in another separate town. The total GDP would be the GDP of 10,000 people. But if all these people lived together in one single town of 10,000 people, they would get the GDP of 13,000 people. That’s the work of an extra 3000 people – for free. Just because living together shares resources and gets things done more efficiently. They're not even sure when this bonus stops – it might be as high as a city of 40 million. https://news.mit.edu/2013/why-innovation-thrives-in-cities-0604
I think many of these claims are highly dubious. Using mycelium to create things that substitute for plastic but don't require petroleum and break down in a backyard compost pile at end of life is useful. Creating artificial food, not so much, even if you were right about the energy cost. And quoting Seba–someone sent me his book full of technooptimist predictions some years back. Yeah he was prescient, all right–he said we'd inevitably all be driving electric cars, most of them self-driven, by 2020.
Creating 'artificial food' from solar power – at 10 times the land efficiency of soy BUT totally removed from requiring arable land – would be the single most fantastic and sustainable invention since renewable energy! How can you not get this? If it indeed replaces livestock farming for protein – which is on this metric 10's of THOUSANDS of times less efficient – we can return 30% of the land on earth to nature! 30%! Oh – and if we include the 4% of the earth we use to grow soy beans that we feed to cattle – that rises to 34% of the non-ice land on earth.
If ALL of our grazing land returned to nature we might store “332–547 Gt CO2”! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4
"Yeah he was prescient, all right–he said we'd inevitably all be driving electric cars, most of them self-driven, by 2020."
Which book was that?
Hi again M Wildfire,
I appreciate your scepticism about accelerated self-driving car projections. About a decade ago I got really caught up in all the Ai self-driving car stuff – and it looks like Seba did as well. The reality is though we have never played with this kind of large-language-model training run before – and so the futurists have nothing to measure it against. I have more of a Social Sciences background – and am just trying to comprehend what it is the technologists say – let alone pretending I am any authority in my own regard. But where I'll give it to Seba is that he saw the future of wind and solar and EV prices (not the automation) – where back then I was pro-nuclear because of all the traditional peaknik concerns with intermittency. I never once imagined wind and solar could scale so much the cost to overbuild them would come down to the point where they were cheaper than coal – WITH Overbuild and Super-grids for 'geographic smoothing' built in! Seba saw that.
But again – Precision Fermentation is a biological system – not an industrial one. I'm not sure that bacteria and other microorganisms can scale as smoothly and cheaply as the technological systems he predicts. Mind you – he has studied the history of insulin production – so I'll have to take another look at that.
As to Ai – I think full self-driving cars will be far slower than many futurists today are saying. But IF (I'm not certain it will) Ai finally matures into AGI – I think the potential benefits to humankind AND the environment could be far, far more profound than any here dare visualise. It might rain on their 'back to the land' manifesto.