Next Generation Energy is managed and written entirely by Seed editors and expert guest bloggers. Read more about them Biofuels—like cellulose-based ethanol—may be frontrunners in the race to replace fossil fuels, but as a recent Economist article points out, plant-based technology has the potential to take over in other industries as well. Agricultural raw materials were once used to make paint, plastic, rubber, even cars- but the wide availability of petroleum and its versatility in manufacturing led to its quick ascendancy over soy and cellulose after World War II. Now that petroleum is undeniably on the way out, agriculture-based industrial technology may have a second chance. And it has a name: Chemurgy.
It may sound like a specialized branch of alchemy or the science-for-English-majors course you took in college, but chemurgy was all the rage in the 1930s. Its most famous practitioner, George Washington Carver, developed over 300 products using peanuts alone (though he ultimately patented only three of them). He and close friend Henry Ford also experimented with sweet potatoes, soybeans, cowpeas and pecans. A National Farm Chemurgic Council was formed in 1935 and lasted until 1977; the science enjoyed a particular swell during the second World War when corn, hemp, milkweed and other plants were used to supplement rationed materials.
Now, industrial biotech companies are coming back with a vengeance as part of an overall expansion of biotechnology. Genetic engineering can fix many of the problems chemurgy faced in the past, and the products emerging now are more refined than their earlier prototypes, better able to compete in the petroleum-dominated market. As the article states, they must be "clearly superior (and not just greener)" to what's already available. Some companies are confident they've already achieved this; DuPont thinks its new biofiber, called Sorona, will be "the next nylon," and Dow is investing heavily in bioethylene made from Brazilian sugarcane. Ethylene is the most widely produced organic compound in the world. A successful plant-based version could have far-reaching effects in industry.
While competition from existing products is certainly the biggest obstacle facing industrial biotechnology right now, manufacturers also fear that current interest may subside if oil prices drop. For now, they're not letting it stop them; over 20,000 patents were granted in the industry last year, a figure to make George Washington Carver proud. Many products have been in development for years and will soon be available for commercial use; whether these forerunners sink or swim may indicate whether the market is ready for them. What do you think? Is chemurgy back? Are these products really more sustainable?
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I don't think that's the biggest obstacle. In my view it's the growing scarcity of food as arable land is switched from growing foodstuffs to plants used for biofuel and other chemurgy applications. Already we see a huge spike in corn prices as production targets are shifted from human/animal feed to ethanol. Farmers will always, lacking regulations to the contrary, chase that which will bring the highest return on their investment.
This is particularly applicable to corn as it is a staple that wends its way throughout the human food chain in so many forms. A scarcity in corn causes a rise in the cost, both to produce and buy,in a very large number of products. One of, if not the major, sources of industrial use Dextrose, Hydrolyzed Protein, Maltose, Maltodextrin, and Modified Food Starch (too name but a few) is corn.
The recent food riots in the middle east and elsewhere are indicative of the retasking of corn in the US to biofuel production.
Posted by: Doug Alder | July 12, 2008 8:57 PM
"I don't think that's the biggest obstacle. In my view it's the growing scarcity of food..."
Higher prices for farm products can't be all bad, I'd think. There are a lot of poor farmers in the world. In fact, one of the big problems with policies keeping food prices artificially low (common in many countries) is that it mires the local farmers in poverty.
And when prices rise, more crops are planted. That's the way it should be. Of course, that can also damage the environment and stress other species. Let's face it, we've just got too many people on this planet. Over-population is the root cause of almost every environmental problem. If we solved that, we'd be well on our way to solving many, many problems.
Posted by: WCG | July 13, 2008 7:47 AM
The volume of nonfuel uses of oil is a lot smaller than for fuel. There should still be enough oil production even a century from now to supply chemical feedstocks, assuming we no longer use oil for fuel. So the urgency for this doesn't seem to be there. That doesn't mean that some of these products won't be better than, or cheaper than their oil based alternatives.
Posted by: bigTom | July 13, 2008 2:18 PM
I agree. Thing is, even with strong program to lower the population over time, it will take centuries to make a significant reduction. So we have to look at how to configure the global economy to safely support 8 to 9 million people.
Posted by: Trinifar | July 13, 2008 3:11 PM
Well, centuries to lower population over time in a way that's not horribly disruptive or psychotically evil. Germ warfare could do the job fairly quickly.
Posted by: Anthony | July 13, 2008 6:51 PM
http://trinifar.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/high-carbon-economy/ has a picture that shows the relative amount of oil that goes to non-fuel use in the United States.
Posted by: Trinifar | July 13, 2008 7:37 PM
Interesting that ideas from the 1930's are reappearing given all the problems around the world, economic, political and social, that existed back then and in the previous decade.
Certain political and social philosophies that were in vogue at the time - eugenics for one example - might well have contained world population levels to a degree that would have meant we would not be having this exchange of ideas.
Similarly there were some remarkable advances in technology around that time that were refined in the 1940's and became mainstream from the 1950's onwards. Many of these moved things the other way by improving human health and survival rates whilst also opening up many future development options for personal freedoms and life quality enhancement. Some of these benefits revolved around 'synthetic' products from a number of different sources. For example Germany was rather good at developing technologies to create substitute products for supplies it could not readily obtain during the second world war.
I wonder whether the ultimate lack of development of products from G. W. Carver like sources since his time might in part be because of their connotations with the ideas and concepts of the 1930's that recent generations may have simply felt uncomfortable with? Or were they just not economically viable? Or perhaps in the end they were just not good enough products?
Anthony (above) make and interesting observation about the problems of reducing population, though as I understand it some economic scenarios from the past have predicted quite sudden and rapid changes around the middle of this century so perhaps things will sort themselves out come what may. I hope I never have any grandchildren who may be caught up in such changes, though I guess my children will be there anyway.
It seems be have a couple of options to deal with the population problem that would, by reduction, make the ersatz products, sourced from agriculture, viable.
The least pleasant option would be some sort of euthanasia. It would probably need to be selective in some way whilst still allowing for a balanced societal strata for the final outcome.
Perhaps better, but not without some difficulties, might be the Chinese policy of restricting families to one child. (which many developed economies seem to have tended towards anyway be having only one or two children as the 'norm')
Applied throughout the world one might expect to halve the population of the planet by the end of the century or shortly after providing there are no medical advances that dramatically increase average live expectancy.
The benefit of selective population reduction, compared to random losses through some sort of catastrophe, would be to allow the authorities to ensure that knowledge and technology required for Chemurgy and the many sustainable developments that may come about in the next decade or two could be preserved and employed responsibly by the continuing population.
Of course there is a downside to such a development.
Halving the world population would, presumably, distinctly reduce demand for energy as intended and therefore change the economic model in a way that might just lead to the concepts never really hitting the economic production level required. The apparent urgency of moving from fossil fuels may also fade on that basis that existing known reserves would last longer.
Frankly I can't see most of the world population being enthusiastic about this sort of population reduction management approach based on the Chinese model. However I see no harm on following the Chinese lead and seeing what results since I guess that either way the global population would end up smaller.
Posted by: Grant | July 13, 2008 9:06 PM
Grant, to give you an idea of time frames, http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pm-8H1c0qUrgod1HWwkfdIg shows what future world population might look like at various rates of change. We don't have any experience with negative growth, let alone rates as high as -1% annually. So it's just a guess as to how it might all play out. Negative growth means fewer young people driving an economy with more old people.
Posted by: Trinifar | July 14, 2008 3:46 AM
Trinifar,
Thanks for the numbers, interesting in a couple of ways.
The result is rather similar to the graphs I have seen relating to population change based on the scenarios proposed in 'Limits to Growth'. Absent the catastrophic forcing variants of course.
In economic terms one might attempt to re-define 'old' and delay 'retirement' in order to reduce or by-pass the effects of an ageing population. However this would likely increase consumption, notable of energy, so is not really desirable. The equivalent in those countries where life expectancy does not reach the sort of age range that the developed countries expect to achieve before becoming non-productive would be to extend life expectancy. Such an extension would probably be the result of an increased consumption of resources in the first place. Whilst that may ultimately result in the sort of population stability (absent immigration) that developed countries seem to experience in time the initial surge in population as longevity increases in the old at the same time as survival rates in the young could present severe challenges locally and would not assist the early stages of any population reduction strategy.
Providing survival rates are not dramatically improved, low life expectancy countries would be subject to a relatively short term economic problem - 2 or 3 decades perhaps - which may not be much noticed given their typical economic turmoil.
Developed countries will probably need to force the issue somewhat thought the effects of 'bulge' baby boomer groups moving through their life cycles may have destabilising effects.
In the developed countries we already see signs of retirement concepts - notably pension planning - collapsing and causing hardships for both the pensioners and the companies attempting to provide the pensions. Similar observations could be made regarding healthcare.
One method for rebalancing both would be the cut back on the long tail of lifespan. Indeed it may be the only way.
But given the apparent fears and concerns about health and life expectancy, promoted to developed populations through both private companies and public bodies, I cannot see how any argument for lifespan reduction on a voluntary basis could meet with general acceptance on a large enough scale to produce results. Likewise dangling the carrots of possible solutions, such as Chemurgy, seems also to be suggesting that current economic consumption concepts are OK but may need to be re-engineered.
The disconnect in the advisory messages seems self evident.
Clearly some philosophical changes are required before any real progress can be made.
Posted by: Grant | July 14, 2008 5:54 AM
Growing things to replace oil-based products is a good idea, but industrial agriculture needs fertilizer. Isn't most fertilizer largely from petroleum sources?
Population growth tends to sort itself out to zero or so without draconian measures when women are given equality and everyone has easy access to contraceptives without silly religious prohibitions against their use.
Posted by: EKP | July 14, 2008 5:27 PM
Fertilizer tends to be from fossil sources, but that's because the Haber Process needs hydrogen, and the cheapest source of hydrogen is natural gas. Given rising prices for natural gas, organic nitrogen fixing (legumes, cyanobacteria, etc) becomes increasingly tempting (you can produce hydrogen via electrolysis, but I suspect that the organic method will be cheaper).
Posted by: Anthony | July 14, 2008 6:42 PM
There was an article years ago in the Economist describing the three broad categories of biotech.
Red biotech = medical... progressing well and generally accepted publicly.
Green biotech = agricultural food production... great strides have been made, but (mostly irrational) public resistance is a real problem.
White biotech = industrial and materials processes... There is great potential, and public acceptance/demand is actually driving it to some extent (though it gets diluted into the generally 'green'/'natural' thing).
IMO, White biotech is potentially the most transformative of the three, until we get transhumans running around at least ;)
A bumper sticker I saw in a small mining town was really profound:
If it isn't Grown or Drilled, it is MINED
Sustainability wise, and more and more frequently cost wise, shifting the emphasis to "Grown" makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Posted by: travc | July 16, 2008 5:33 PM
The concerns about displacing food crops are somewhat valid, but overblown with respect to most promising industrial biotech applications. Bioreactors are a much more generally useful approach than field crops. Bioreactors can be run at higher temps and pressures with highly specific organisms and inputs to produce specific outputs. In fact, just breeding organisms (in a bioreactor) to produce specific catalysts is a pretty useful approach which may end up being downright transformative.
Posted by: travc | July 16, 2008 5:39 PM
As founder of the Chemurgy Institution a few years ago I committed to promotinf the concept or al least discussions aroung it. I found a historian buying up books on Kettering. One of the other founders of the Chemurgy concept. Kettering university or college forming in Michigan may embrace this concept. The rebirth of Agrarian models are aimed at self sufficency. Knowing that the search for knowledge results in info that is out there revealing new avenues of opportunities. Like how much oil is in Tobacco, Hemp, and Meat renderings, or other non food sources. Internationally do we see the same concerns of food for fuel? As we look at paints, is it a coincidence that Davinci's research coincides with biodiesl research chemistry? What about the Physic nut, ie castor bean that was made illegal to grow in the US in early 70's due to its Ricin Gas derivative. The Physic nut is one of the highest yielding bio-d terrestrial crops, of high quality fuel out of India. Currently under research at Florida Ag Univeresityas potential crop for fuel. Ironically it is the Crucificiae (brassica) classification of plants that are used for bio-d, not to say the answer is biblical, but that science has displayed it that way,
Posted by: Alf | July 16, 2008 10:20 PM
The german's new fuel Sunfuel from VW is said to be biomass, gassified and recondensed to a low sulphur fuel called Sunfuel. Is this biodiesel or biomass diesel. Is this the evolution of the Bioreactors that travc mentioned above. The keyword here might be fugacity, as oil can even be gassified into a gas for combustion, using water, heat pressure variables. Fugacity. My chemurgy word for the day.
Posted by: Alf | July 16, 2008 10:29 PM
Alf, not quite a bioreactor application (as far as I know), but sounds like a good idea none the less.
A bioreactor is very simply a vessel in which organisms accomplish some chemical process. Think of a fermentation tank, but applied to a wider variety of chemical transformations. The system which filters smokestack gasses through tubes growing algae is a bioreactor system, but most potential applications are much more behind the scenes sorts of things.
I bring it up because bioreactor processes are a likely to be a much more typical application of chemurgy than anything involving field crops.
Posted by: travc | July 17, 2008 4:31 AM
So your saying breeding the "bio" reaction. If that is so then as energy "smokestack" is made recovery transformed it, it is magnified into a variety of energy potentials which can be traced into different levels of recovery and "Youtillization" for a combined synergistic output in energy potential due to the solar input from the sun breeding the Algae. Sounds like putting photosynthetic algae to work for me , just feed them good ("smokestack")gas, Ha Ha.
Waste Grease
White grease refined to biodiesel
Sorry
yellow Waste grease refined to biodiesel
removing the "glycerin"
burning the "Fatty Acids"
for boilers Could glycerin feed a bioreactor too?
Posted by: Scott ALF | February 22, 2009 12:14 AM