Harnessing Biology, and Avoiding Oil, for Chemical Goods

[depakid]

It's not just biofuels that'll be cutting into world food supplies....



THE next time you stop at a gas station, wincing at the $3.50-a-gallon price and bemoaning society’s dependence on petroleum, take a step back and look inside your car.

Much of what you see in there comes from petroleum, too: the plastic dashboard, the foam in the seats. More than a tenth of the world’s oil is spent not on powering engines but as a feedstock for making chemicals that enrich many goods — from cosmetics to cleaners and fabric to automobile parts.

In recent years, this unsettling fact has motivated academic researchers and corporations to find ways to make bulk chemicals from renewable sources like corn and switchgrass. The effort to tap biomass for chemicals runs parallel to the higher-stakes research aimed at developing biofuels. Researchers hope that the two will come together soon to help replace petroleum refineries with biorefineries.

“As petroleum prices go up and climate change becomes a serious concern, the economy will have no choice but to switch to a chemical base derived from plant materials,” said Dr. Richard Gross, director of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing of Macromolecules at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.

The chemical industry is beginning to make that transition, at least for a few products. One success story is a method developed by DuPont, with Genencor, to ferment corn sugar into a substance called propanediol. Using propanediol as a starting point, DuPont has created a new polymer it calls Cerenol, which it substitutes for petroleum-sourced ingredients in products like auto paints.

Similarly, the biotech giant Cargill has begun manufacturing a polymer from vegetable oils that is used in polyurethane foams, which is found in beddings, furniture and car-seat headrests. Cargill says that using the polymer does more than save crude oil and reduce carbon emissions: the foam it produces has a more uniform density and load-bearing capacity.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/technology/techspecial/09chem.html

[DCKit]

1. "...the biotech giant Cargill has begun manufacturing a polymer from vegetable oils..."

I'd like to say good on Cargill, but we need to eat. Making plastics out of food-grade vegetable oils is nothing new, but there hasn't been this much pressure on the food supply at any point in history.

However, the speculators are also making a killing and driving prices on both oil and food products through the roof. It's become hard to tell whether it's demand or pure speculation that's driving prices through the roof.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Consumption of petroleum for materials is a tiny fraction of fuel consumption.

Framing this as something that could "cut into food supplies" is misleading.

Much of the impetus for development of bio-based materials has actually been that they are often biodegradable, so less of a litter/pollution problem (Google "Pacific Gyre"). Concerns about increasing oil costs and GHG production actually entered the picture later.

Of course, Cargill et al see a way of capturing a market that presently belongs to the petrochemical companies. Good business decision for them.

[izquierdista]

3. The day will come

There will come a time when there is no petroleum, there is no coal tar, and geologic sources of natural gas are more expensive than putting a lid on some rotting shit. In that future era, ALL chemical production will use biomass for raw feedstock; from cultivated plants, gas from rotting garbage for synthesis, with multiple cycles of product recycling. Better to start developing the technology now, including picking up old technologies which have fallen into oblivion, like fermentation to produce butanol as a gasoline substitute.

[NNadir]

4. Wow. Futurististic.

Cellophane - remember that stuff - derives its name from its source, cellulose. It is one of the oldest plastics known, and it was derived from wood.

The original safety glass in automobiles was made using nitrocellulose, also made from wood.

The Quaker Oats process for furfural and its derivatives, furan, tetrahydrofuran, and butanediol - an intermediate for the production of certain nylon type products is now more than 50 years old. It used oat hulls and corn cobs as feedstock.

In the 1980's the process was abandoned in favor of butanediol made from natural gas.

The New York Times is notable for its credulity.

There is basically nothing new about this.

Where does the New York Times think rubber orignally came from by the way?