BIOTECH SOLUTIONSFOR CLIMATE REPORTE x am in i n g b i o te c h n o l og y' s
c on t ribu ti o n s to a dd r e s s in g th ec lim at e c r i si s

Ma tt Ca rr | Gre e n C ap i to l , L L C
Tristan Br o w n | S tate Uni ve rs i ty o f Ne w Yo r k , C o l l e g e o f
E nv ir o nmental S c i e nc e s and F o re s try
Co lin Murphy | Uni ve rs i ty o f C al i f o rni a, D a v i s , P o l i c y In s t i t u t e
fo r Ener gy, E nvi ro nm e nt, and the Ec o no m y4
INTRODUCTION

35
CLIMATE ANALYSIS

7
TECHNOLOGIES

37

9

PRODUCTSISSUES IN LCA FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY
GHG MITIGATION POTENTIONAL ON NATIONAL SCALEADVANCED BIOFUELSPRODUCING SUSTAINABLE BIOMASSFEEDSTOCKRENEWABLE CHEMICALS AND
BIOBASED PRODUCTS/MATERIALSEMPOWERING SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION

FOOD AND FEED INGREDIENTSDEVELOPING LOWER-CARBON PRODUCTS

24

AGRICULTURE INPUTS AND CLIMATESERVICESAGRICULTURAL BIOLOGICALSBIOLOGICAL CARBON CAPTURE, USE
AND STORAGE

ENHANCING CARBON SEQUESTRATION45

BARRIERS TO ADOPTION AND POLICYPROPOSALSFINANCING BARRIERS

47

REGULATORY BARRIERS

30

NEW BIOTECH TOOLS AND BIO-INDUSTIRAL MANUFACTURING49

POLICY PROPOSALSNEW BIOTECH TOOLSDECARBONIZING TRANSPORTATIONAPPLICATIONS OF BIO-MANUFACTURING IN TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIESDECARBONIZING INDUSTRYNEW MARKETS AND NOVEL APPLICATIONSDECARBONIZING AGRICULTURE
NEGATIVE-CARBON TECHECONOMY-WIDE CLIMATE PROGRAMS

33

PLANT AND ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGIESTAB L E OF
CONTENTS

PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENE
EDITINGANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGYRENEWABLE CHEMICALS AND
BIOBASED PRODUCTS/MATERIALSFOOD AND FEED INGREDIENTS

23.

"CLIMATECHANGE ISONE OF THE
GREATESTPUBLIC POLICYCHALLENGES
FACING THIS
GENERATION."

The rapid accumulation of anthropogenic carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere is already altering natural
climate1 and biological systems, resulting in abnormally
destructive wildfires, storms, rainfall patterns and the
spread of infectious disease. It is increasingly clearthat the historical, fossil fuel-based models of carbon,
energy and material cycling through the economy are
incompatible with maintaining a hospitable environment.
Humanity will need to bring every tool it has to bear on
this critical challenge. New approaches are required at
almost every level of the economy. Biotechnology has thepotential to be a transformative asset in this struggle.
Biotechnology is technology based on biology.
Biotechnology applications touch most aspects of modern
life, from agriculture to manufacturing to medicine. In thecontext of climate change, biotechnology offers solutions
in four key categories:••••

Producing sustainable biomass feedstock
Empowering sustainable production
Developing lower carbon products
Enhancing carbon sequestration

Biotechnology offers vital contributions to near-term greenhousegas (GHG) reductions and revolutionary tools to combat climatechange in the longer term. Policies supporting the development
and deployment of biotech climate solutions should be part ofany government effort to address climate change. This report
reviews the current contributions of biotechnology togreenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and identifies the
emerging biotech solutions with the greatest potential to
avert, and reverse, catastrophic climate change. We focus
on four main areas:

IN T RO D U C T I ON

Producing Sustainable Biomass Feedstock. For most of
human existence, our lives were based on the productsof renewable biomass – plants and other living material.
In the past 150 years, much of our economy has cometo depend on petroleum and other non-renewable
resources. The environmental consequences of thistransition from renewable resources to non-renewable
resources are well documented2. Biotechnology has
developed more sustainable, biobased alternatives formany products, including fuels, polymers, and otherchemicals. The U.S consumed over 7.5 billion barrels of
petroleum in 20193, some of which was turned into plastic;
as much as 35 million tons of plastic ended up in waste
streams annually in recent years.3,4 More sustainableoptions have been developed over recent decades, butultimately they still require a material input. Biobasedalternatives offer the potential for significantly reduced
carbon footprints and environmental benefits compared

INTRODUCTION5to the traditional systems they displace, and thesealternatives depend on broad availability of sustainablebiomass feedstock. At present, there are concerns that
not enough biomass will be sustainably available to meetgrowing demand. Biotechnology is rapidly reducing thecarbon footprint of feedstock production by enabling new,sustainable ways to produce usable biomass, improving
yields on existing crops, developing scalable, low-input
production systems, and finding new ways to utilize
biomass that would otherwise be waste.
Empowering Sustainable Production. Manufacturing
is a major greenhouse gas emitter, from industrial
boilers, chemical production, and the release of highwarming-potential gases like methane or fluorinatedhydrocarbons. Biotech empowers a variety of options
to reduce emissions from these processes, by reducing
the need for energy inputs, facilitating more efficientmaterial processing, or replacing high-warming-potential
gases. Biotechnology has also enabled renewable natural
gas systems that can displace the fossil-based methane
today, simply by switching the source of the gas. The U.S.
manufacturing sector is responsible for 22% of total GHG
emissions5, and while no single technology or solution
can single-handedly solve the problem, biotech enables
opportunities for lower-emission production across many
sectors.

reliable and cost-effective.

1 ht t p : / / www. i p c c . c h/ si t e / asse t s/ up l oad s/ 2018/ 02/ T A R-03. p d f
2 ht t p : / / www. p nas. or g/ c ont e nt / 116/ 15/ 7192
3 ht t p : / / www. e i a. gov / d nav / p e t / hi st / L e af H and l e r . ashx ?n=PET & s = M T T UPU S 1& f =A
4 ht t p s: / / www. st at i st a. c om / st at i st i c s/ 1097290/ us-p l ast i c -waste - g e n e r a t i on/
5 ht t p : / / c f p ub . e p a. gov / ghgd at a/ i nv e nt or y e xp l or e r /6 ht t p : / / www. c ar b ont r ust . c om / ne ws-and -e v e nt s/ ne ws/ r e se ar c h - r e v e a l s -c onsum e r -d e m and -f or -c l i m at e -c hange -l ab e l l i ng

Developing Lower-Carbon Products. As awareness ofthe climate crisis expands, consumers are increasingly
demanding lower-carbon options and more sustainablereplacements for existing products.6 This means finding
low-emission alternatives that provide the same levelof performance, durability and cost-effectiveness as
mature fossil-based systems. Biotechnology allows forthe production of low-carbon consumer products throughthe substitution of biomass or other recycled carbon
feedstocks and by enabling more efficient, biologically
based production, satisfying an increasingly important
market segment while reducing emissions at the sametime.
Enhancing Carbon Sequestration. While there is a lot of
uncertainty about what a sustainable future may look like,several features are common across all likely scenarios.
One of these is the deployment of massive amounts ofcarbon capture and sequestration (CCS), which converts
carbon to a form that does not contribute to climatechange or stores it underground. CCS cannot be the soleor even the primary solution to climate change, but it will
make a critical contribution. Biotechnology has a key rolein advancing CCS techniques, making it more scalable,

6

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

2TECH NO LO GIES

2.1 PRODUCTS
2.1.1 ADVAN CED B IOFUELSI N T H I S S E CTION , WE REV IEW
B I OT EC H NOLOGY AP P LICATION STO C L I M AT E MITIGATION IN FOURB ROAD C AT E GORIES : P ROD UCTS;AGR I CU LT UR AL IN P UTS AN D CLIMATES E RVI C E S ; NEW BIOTECH TOOLS AND
BI O-IN D US T R I A L MAN UFACTURIN G ;AN D PL ANT AN D AN IMALB I OT ECHN OLOGIES .

Liquid biofuels were one of the earliest biotechnology
products to be deployed at scale in the U.S. for the
purpose of achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) emission
reductions. In the early 21st century, production mostly
took the form of the 1st-generation biofuels ethanoland biodiesel, derived from feedstocks such as corn
and vegetable oils. Concerns about competition forthese feedstocks with the food and animal feed sectors
prompted the development of 2nd-generation liquidbiofuels that are produced from low-carbon-intensity (CI)feedstocks, such as lignocellulosic biomass.
Existing 1st-generation biofuels pathways rely
heavily on the fermentation of starch-rich feedstocks toethanol and, to a lesser but still substantial extent, thetransesterification or hydrotreating of vegetable oils tobiodiesel or renewable diesel, respectively. Fermentationis one of the oldest examples of biotechnology, having
been mastered by humans thousands of years ago forthe purpose of producing alcoholic beverages. Glucose iseasily fermented by the microorganism Saccharomyces
cerevisiae to yield a diluted form of ethanol known in
the industry as “beer”. Distillation of this intermediate
produces a high-proof ethanol that is then blended
with gasoline for use in motor vehicles. Most gasoline
in the U.S. today contains 10% ethanol, with 15% blends
increasingly available.7
Advances in biotechnology have enabled U.S. ethanol
producers to achieve substantial efficiency improvements
in recent decades that have enabled the volume of
1st-generation ethanol obtained from a bushel of corn
to increase by more than 10% between 1982 and 2014.8
Milling improvements based on improved knowledge ofcorn kernel composition increased conversion efficiency,
reducing the amount of corn required.9 Likewise, abetter understanding of yeast biology led to ethanol yield
optimization via temperature-controlled fermentation.10
And advanced fractionation techniques have allowed for
greater yield of co-products, such as distillers dry grains(DDGS), a key animal feed ingredient. Together theseadvances have improved the process economics andsustainability of the pathway by reducing costs and waste.
The EPA estimates them to have resulted in reductions
to ethanol’s carbon intensity in excess of 10%.11 A shift

to more sustainable growing practices, driven by a desire
to capture the compliance value of low-carbon programs
such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS),is further reducing the carbon intensity of 1st-generation
fuels. And the prospect of deploying carbon capture
technology at ethanol plants, detailed in section 2.2.2,
could reduce the carbon footprint of 1st-generation
ethanol by an additional 40%.12
Biotechnology has also made a wide range of lowcarbon intensity feedstocks available for utilization by
biofuel producers. Glucose is a fundamental building
block of plants, and plants possess multiple defense
mechanisms to protect themselves from yeast and othermicroorganisms that consume glucose. Plants’ glucose
content takes the form of the polysaccharide cellulosethat is not digestible by most living things (one notable
exception being termites). Other simple sugars suchas arabinose and xylose comprise a second type ofmajor polysaccharide that plants contain, hemicellulose.
Plants are further protected by a third compound with
antimicrobial properties, lignin, that is cross-linked withcellulose and hemicellulose to protect them against attackby microorganisms. These traits allow plants to thrive inthe wild but have also posed a major hurdle to their use
as a 2nd-generation biofuel feedstock by inhibiting theirconversion to ethanol via fermentation.
Recent progress in the development of biocatalysts
and engineered microorganisms has made possible theproduction of ethanol from 2nd-generation feedstocks
such as grasses, shrubs, and other dedicated energy
crops. The enzymatic hydrolysis pathway employs
biocatalysts to break cellulose and hemicellulose down
to glucose and other constituent sugars. The glucose
is converted to fuel ethanol in the same manner as
corn glucose. Microorganisms that are naturally able toferment glucose have been engineered to make themcapable of also fermenting simple sugars derived fromhemicellulose to ethanol, improving both yields andefficiencies of lignocellulosic biofuel production.
An early commercial application of this pathway
utilizes the lignocellulose that is found in small quantities
in corn kernels to produce ethanol. Biotech companies
POET, Syngenta, and Enogen, among others, havebegun adding corn kernel fiber conversion units to
1st-generation ethanol plants, potentially increasing
ethanol yield per bushel of corn by nearly 10%.13
The full potential of cellulosic biofuel to mitigate
climate change will depend on broad deployment ofcellulosic technology to agricultural residues, municipal
solid waste (MSW), and dedicated energy crops. An
initial wave of cellulosic ethanol biorefinery construction
occurred following the 2009 implementation of the

TECHNOLOGIES

9

federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. Leading
1st-generation ethanol producers such as POET, LLC, havepartnered with leading biotech innovators to build firstof-a-kind cellulosic biofuel plants in the U.S., Europe, andSouth America, but low oil prices, policy obstacles, andtechnology challenges have limited global production
volumes.
Advances in biotechnology have expanded the
supply of feedstocks available to biodiesel and renewablediesel, two of the major success stories in sustainabletransportation. Biodiesel (BD) is produced via thetransesterification process in which lipid feedstocks
are reacted with methanol to yield a fatty acid methyl
ester (FAME) that can be blended into conventional
diesel, without needing any modification to the engine.
Renewable diesel (RD) is made by hydrotreating thesame kind of lipid feedstocks, in a process very similar
to parts of conventional oil refining; it has performance
characteristics like those of diesel fuel, passes the same
product specifications and can be used in any diesel
engine at any concentration. Historically most U.S. BD
and RD have been produced from soybean oil.14 The
need for new feedstocks has grown over the last decade,however, as production has expanded and policies
such as California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS)
have incentivized the use of 2nd-generation low-carbon
intensity feedstocks. Some of these newer feedstocks
are waste products that are not as easily converted tobiodiesel as 1st-generation feedstocks. Biocatalysts havebeen developed that improve the conversion efficiencies
and performance characteristics of biodiesel that isyielded from waste feedstocks,15 allowing for more ofthem to be converted to low-carbon transportation fuel.
Biotechnology has also enabled the production ofnovel low-carbon fuels that complement existing ethanoland biodiesel production. First-generation biofuels havea limited ability to widely displace existing fossil fuels
due to infrastructure compatibility hurdles. The U.S.
only allows ethanol blends of up to 15% by volume withgasoline in non-flex fuel vehicles16 and most diesel engine
warranties only cover biodiesel blends of up to 20% by
volume.17 Moreover, neither is capable of displacing
specialized fossil fuels such as aviation fuel. Technologicaladvances have yielded a new category of “drop-in
biofuels” -- so named for their ability to utilize the existingrefined fuels infrastructure -- that have an even greater
decarbonization potential.
Biobutanol (butanol derived from biomass)
was one of the first biofuels to gain attention for its
drop-in properties, as it chemically behaves more likea hydrocarbon than ethanol does. While actually anintermediate to renewable hydrocarbons (see below),

10

biobutanol’s high energy equivalence ratio compared toethanol and ability to be blended with gasoline at rates of
up to 16% by volume allow it to displace correspondingly
larger volumes of gasoline.18 Biobutanol is produced via
fermentation from the same simple sugars as in ethanol
production. Some biofuel producers have geneticallymodified ethanol yeast to instead produce isobutanol.
There are also pathways that utilize bacteria for theconversion rather than yeast. Biobutanol can also be
produced via engineered microorganisms from thecarbohydrates in some microalgae strains that remain
after lipids have been extracted, allowing for microalgae
to serve as a simultaneous feedstock for both biobutanol
and biomass-based diesel.19
More recently, biobutanol has attracted interest
as a key step towards production of the renewablehydrocarbon fuels isooctane and sustainable aviationfuel SAF). Unlike biobutanol, which is an alcohol,
biobased isooctane and SAF are hydrocarbons withperformance characteristics that are very similar to theirfossil counterparts (isooctane is an important blending
component in gasoline). They are true drop-in biofuels inthat they can be used in the same quantities as the fossil
fuels that they displace before encountering infrastructure
constraints.
Biotechnology has also enabled the production of SAF
directly from biomass via fermentation. Historically theconversion of biomass to hydrocarbons via fermentation
has been limited by the presence of oxygen in biomass
that has caused microorganisms to favor oxygencontaining products (e.g., ethanol, butanol). Metabolicengineering has been employed to improve the yield of
the specific hydrocarbon, kerosene, that comprises acommon form of aviation fuel by increasing the selectivityof fermenting microorganisms.20 The microorganisms areable to convert sugars derived from a variety of feedstock
types to SAF.21 Hydrocarbons have hydrophilic properties,
allowing those produced in this manner to avoid the needfor the energy-intensive distillation step that is required
when producing fuel alcohols.
Biofuels currently supply approximately 12%of U.S. on-road transportation fuel.22 Ethanol andbiodiesel currently comprise the large majority of U.S.
biofuels consumption. Production of 2nd-generation
biofuels is expected to increase rapidly during the early2020s, however, as the new feedstocks and pathways
made possible by biotechnology breakthroughs arecommercialized (see Figure 1).23 A combination of factors
is responsible for this development. First, the COVID19 pandemic has seriously disrupted demand for fossil
fuels in the U.S. transportation sector, in turn limiting
demand for biofuels such as ethanol that have restrictive

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

Figure 1: Estimated U.S. biofuel production volumes by type of fuel, 2010-2050. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

blend limits. Second, policies such as the federal revised
Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), the California Low
Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and the Oregon Clean Fuels
Program incentivize 2nd-generation biofuels, with theirlower carbon intensities, over 1st-generation biofuels (andboth over fossil fuels). Third, whereas the last decade’s
rapid growth in 1st-generation biofuels production
has slowed due to supply constraints, 2nd-generation
feedstocks remain underutilized.24
The carbon intensities of biofuels vary widely depending on feedstock(s), conversion processes, and the geographic length of the supply chain. California publishes
detailed carbon intensities of the biofuels that participate
in its LCFS for both broad biofuel categories as well as
individual producers. Ethanol, which has historically been
the primary source of biofuels under the LCFS by volume,
has achieved average GHG emission reductions compared to gasoline of between 32% and 41% in recent years.26
Ethanol from waste, or dedicated energy crop feedstocks,
have achieved GHG reductions of up to 80% with current
technology.27 Continued improvements in feedstock production, conversion efficiency, and co-products are expected to yield pathways with negative carbon scores.28
Similarly, biodiesel has achieved average GHG emission reductions compared to diesel fuel of between 69%
and 74% over the same period, although individual reduction values range from as low as 50% to over 90% depending on the feedstock used.29 In both cases, California
reports the lowest carbon intensities for those biofuelsthat are produced from waste feedstocks, illustrating thevalue that biotechnology has provided by helping to makesuch feedstocks usable by biofuels producers.

Biobutanol from lignocellulosic biomass has yet toachieve commercial-scale production volumes and does
not have published LCFS carbon intensity values as aresult. Independent life cycle assessments estimate a GHG
emission reduction for the biofuel compared to gasolineof approximately 66%, which is comparable to ethanolfrom lignocellulosic biomass.30 Likewise, SAF from biobutanol is estimated to achieve GHG emission reductions
compared to petroleum aviation fuel of between 60% and
75% depending on the choice of feedstock and conversion
inputs.31
GHG emissions are not the only form of air pollution that the use of biofuels reduces. Emissions of criteria
pollutants such as carbon monoxide, particulate matter,and sulfur dioxide have a direct impact on human health,causing air pollution to be one of the main risk factors
causing non-communicable diseases globally.32 The combustion of commonly used biofuels in both blended andunblended forms has been found to reduce many, if notall, of the criteria pollutants that are emitted by the combustion of petroleum fuels.33,34
7 h ttp s : / / w w w . e i a . g o v / to d a y i n e n e r g y/det ail.ph p?id=40095
8 h ttp s : / / w w w . e i a . g o v / to d a y i n e n e r g y/det ail.ph p?id=21212
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full.pdf
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14 U n n as c h . S .an d D . P a rida (2 0 2 1 ) GHG Reductions from the R F S 2– A
2020U p d at e. Life Cyc le Associates Report LCA.LCA.6 1 4 5 .2 1 3 .2 0 21 Pr e p a r e d fo r Ren ew ab le Fu els Association. https://ethanolrfa.org/wp -c ont e n t / up lo ad s /2021/02/LCA_ - _ RFS2 - GHG- Update_ 2 0 2 0 .pdf
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s c i e n ced ir ec t .c o m /s c ien ce/article/pii/S0 0 1 6 2 3 6 1 2 0 3 2 0 4 8 220 S tr a a t h o f AJJ, Cu ella r MC. Microbial Hydrocarbon Formationf r o m Bio ma s s . Ad v Bio c hem Eng Biotechnol. 2 0 1 9 ;1 6 6 :4 1 1 - 4 2 5 . d oi :10. 1007/10_2016_62. P MID: 2 8 7 0 7 1 0 4 . http://pubmed.ncbi.nlm. ni h.
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G E VOCASE STU DY
Gevo is an advanced renewable fuel producer thatconverts renewable energy to energy-dense liquidhydrocarbons by transforming renewable energy
into low-carbon transportation fuels. This next
generation of renewable premium gasoline, jet
fuel and diesel fuel has the potential to achieve
net zero carbon emissions, addressing the market
need of reducing GHG emissions with sustainable
alternatives while continuing to utilize current
infrastructure and vehicles.
The company originally converted an existing
dry-mill corn ethanol facility to a commercialsized scaled up facility in Luverne, Minnesota. The
converted facility utilizes corn starch as feedstock.
While corn-based biofuels have not historically beencredited with large reductions to carbon intensity
relative to gasoline, Gevo employs an integrated
approach to carbon intensity reductions thatmaximizes the environmental and sustainability
potentials from agricultural systems, while creating
innovative solutions to convert the feedstocks into
energy-dense hydrocarbons.
In January 2021, Gevo announced a new project,planned for construction at Lake Preston, South
Dakota, to be named “Net-Zero 1.” Gevo expects
that Net-Zero 1 would have the capability to produce
liquid hydrocarbons that when burned have a
net-zero greenhouse gas footprint. 35 Net-Zero 1
is expected to have a capacity of 45million gallons
per year of hydrocarbons for gasoline and jet fueland will produce more than 350 million pounds per
year of high-protein feed products for use in thefood chain. In addition to feed and fuel, the facility
will produce enough renewable natural gas to be
self-sufficient for production process needs. The
facility will also generate renewable electricity witha combined heat and power system and integrate
additional renewable power production utilizing
wind energy.
Gevo’s integrated approach utilizes decarbonization
practices across the entire supply chain. It begins byworking with the farmers who employ best farming
practices that maximize soil carbon sequestrationand minimize GHG emissions during the planting,growing, and harvesting stages. 36 The partnershipwith farmers involves the active tracking andmonitoring of the feedstock suppliers to ensurethat best practices are encouraged and in the future
can be incentivized for the purpose of consistently
minimizing feedstock carbon intensity.
Gevo also conducts experimental trials to identify
additional feedstock decarbonization routes suchas the use of manure in place of nitrogen fertilizer

12

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application, enhanced soil carbon sequestration via
reduced soil tillage practices, and improved crop
yields via microbial soil solutions. The company
estimates that its corn feedstock has a carbon
intensity that is at least 50% lower than the U.S.
average. 37
Because of the low-carbon-footprint feedstocks, thesustainable agricultural practices used to produce
feedstock, and the use of renewable energy for the
production processes – much of which is expected
to be generated on site – the hydrocarbon fuelproducts produced at Net-Zero 1 have the potential
to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, asmeasured across the whole of the life cycle, basedon Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET model.
The GREET model takes into account emissions andimpacts “cradle to cradle” for renewable resource
based fuels, including inputs and generation of raw
materials, agriculture practices, chemicals usedin production processes of both feedstocks andproducts, energy sources used in production andtransportation, and end fate of products.
Gevo’s Luverne facility also makes extensive useof other sources of renewable energy to reducethe carbon intensity of its production process. The
production of biofuels such as isobutanol fromcorn uses process heat and electricity that havehistorically been obtained from fossil fuels, suchas coal and natural gas. And Gevo has installedwind turbines to generate renewable electricity.
Minnesota has abundant access to low-cost wind
power and Gevo pays “about the same” price forelectricity as it did prior to the installation of thewind capacity. 38 In 2019, Gevo announced its
intention to utilize renewable natural gas that is
produced from dairy manure in place of the fossil
natural gas it used to produce process heat in thepast. 39 In both cases, Gevo has been able to takeadvantage of local renewable energy resourcesthat are supplied directly to the Luverne facility via
transmission line and natural gas pipeline.

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2.1.2 R E NE WA B L E C H E MI C A LS
A N D BI OB A S ED P RO D U C TS /MAT E R I A L S
Fossil-derived chemicals and products are a key
future driver of petroleum consumption.40 The chemicals
sector (known as petrochemicals when derived fromfossil feedstocks) accounts for a wide variety of common
products, including plastics, synthetic rubber, solvents,
fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, additives, explosives, andadhesives.41 They differ from fossil fuels in that theirconsumption does not normally cause GHG emissions
via combustion. They are still produced from fossil fuels,
though, especially petroleum and natural gas, and theirproduction incurs both direct and indirect emissions. By
one estimate the petrochemicals sector generates 18%
of direct industrial GHG emissions, and its production
capacity is growing rapidly.42 The sector is also, due to
its reliance on fossil fuels, an important source of otherforms of pollution that have a detrimental impact onhuman health, especially in disadvantaged communities.43
Moreover, many fossil-derived products such as plastics
are resistant to degradation and end their useful lives
either in landfills or in natural environments as litter.
Biotechnology’s contributions to efforts to mitigate
the damage caused by fossil chemicals and products
generally fall into one of two broad categories: (1) the
replacement of these fossil-derived products by nonfossil products, and (2) the replacement of degradationresistant materials with biodegradable materials. A
substantial amount of overlap exists between thetwo categories due to the novel production pathways
and product types that have been developed by thebiotechnology industry. The ability of biomass to replace awide variety of fossil products has greatly benefited fromrecent biotechnology advances that have enabled the
manufacture of products from both categories.44
The petrochemical industry is expected to becomea primary driver of demand for fossil fuels by 2030.45
Many advances have been made in the production of
the same chemicals and products from biomass or
recycled feedstocks rather than fossil feedstocks. One
early biobased chemical was developed as an extensionof biofuels production, allowing it to utilize existingproduction capacity. Ethanol obtained from corn andsugarcane, but potentially from lignocellulosic biomass inthe future, is easily dehydrated to yield a biobased versionof the plastics precursor ethylene.46 Plastics comprise14

most of the fossil chemicals market,47 giving biobased
plastics an important role to play in its decarbonization.
Biotechnology companies have also developed
biobased versions of synthetic fibers that are used by the
textile industry. Polyester, which is widely employed in the
manufacture of textiles and bottles, is usually produced
from natural gas and/or petroleum feedstocks. Its building
blocks can instead be obtained either from ethanol, as in
the production of biobased plastics, or from hydrocarbons
that are directly converted from biomass feedstocks.48,49
In both pathways the resulting fibers are the same as
those that are currently produced from fossil feedstocks,
making them drop-in biobased products.
Growing concerns over the longevity of plastic waste
in the environment have also prompted the developmentof biodegradable plastics that are capable of decomposing
over short timeframes compared to those of traditional
plastics. The most common of these are polylactic acid
(PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). PLA is derived
from plant sugars that are naturally fermented by bacteria
to yield lactic acid. This lactic acid is then chemicallyconverted to PLA for use as a biobased plastic.50 PHA is
produced via the fermentation of plant sugars (although
vegetable oils and even wastewater can also be used) bya different type of bacteria under very specific conditions
that promote PHA synthesis.51 Biobased plastics madefrom both PLA and PHA are biodegradable under highertemperature conditions such as those found in industrial
composters.
Biotechnology breakthroughs have also been madein the replacement of lesser known but equally importantfossil products. Lubricants made from petroleum are incommon use throughout the industrial and transportation
sectors and, while they represent a small share of atypical refinery’s product mix, they are a critical input
for many applications (e.g., engine oil). Plant sugars
can be fermented by bacteria to yield a chemical thatis capable of conversion to biobased versions of thesynthetic lubricants that are normally obtained frompetroleum.52 In a similar application biodiesel, which hasa high lubricity, is blended with petroleum-derived ultralow sulfur diesel fuel to improve the latter’s low lubricity.53
Finally, novel medicines and medical treatments are being
developed through biotechnology, including those thatare personalized to individual patients.54
Renewable chemicals and materials provide climate
benefits through twin advantages. First, by leveraging
biological production platforms, biobased products
are frequently less energy-intensive to produce thantheir petrochemical counterparts. For example, BASF
Corporation has developed a biobased home insulation

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

product that results in 66% fewer GHG emissions than its
fossil-based alternative.55 But, perhaps most significantly,
whether produced from biomass or waste gases,
biobased products are built from carbon that would
otherwise reside in the atmosphere, and thus serve as avital pathway for atmospheric carbon removal.
The direct recycling of GHG emissions, both biogenic
and fossil in origin, to create chemicals and fuels has
emerged as a notable pathway over the last decade.
Landfills and animal waste lagoons are sources ofbiogenic emissions of the potent GHG methane. Methane
is the primary component of natural gas, however, making
biogenic methane when captured a potential biobased
chemicals feedstock. Biogas captured from landfills andagricultural anaerobic digesters is also directly utilized asfuel for natural gas-powered vehicles.56 The use of biogas
in both applications has especially large climate benefits
because it eliminates a source of methane emissions
while simultaneously displacing demand for a fossil
feedstock (biogas combustion converts methane to thecomparatively weaker GHG carbon dioxide).
Finally, biotechnology advances have also enabled
fossil GHG emissions to be captured and recycled via apathway known as carbon capture and utilization (CCU),
thereby reducing demand for fossil fuels and the resulting
emissions without requiring biomass (see Section 2.2.2).
One novel process developed by carbon recycling pioneer
LanzaTech utilizes engineered microorganisms to ferment
emissions captured from industrial facilities such as steel
mills to either fuels or chemicals, depending on the choiceof microorganism.57 While the resulting products are notof biological origin, their climate benefits are substantial
and comparable to those of biobased products in thatboth partially eliminate the need for fossil fuel extraction
and serve as sinks for carbon that would otherwise be
emitted to the atmosphere.
Like biofuels, the market for biobased chemicals
has been constrained by persistent low natural gas andpetroleum prices for much of the last decade. The lackof mandates or other policy mechanisms in the U.S.
that internalize biotechnology products’ climate benefits
have made it still more difficult for biobased pathways
to compete with fossil pathways. That said, a growinginterest by many manufacturers and their consumers in
reducing their climate impacts in service of ESG goals has
supported an expansion of the U.S. biobased products
industry despite these hurdles. One recent analysis
estimated the industry’s size to be $459 billion in termsof valued added to the U.S. economy in 2016, up from$393 billion in 2014 and $353 billion in 2012.58 Thesebioproducts were estimated to displace 9.4 million barrelsof petroleum equivalents in 2016. While still smaller than

the fossil products sector – the U.S. chemicals industry
alone achieved $765 billion in sales in 201759 - the U.S.
biobased products industry is expected to grow rapidly
as state governments and corporations increasingly act
to minimize plastic waste, methane emissions, and otherforms of pollution.60
Biodegradable biobased products have the potential
to substantially contribute to climate change mitigation
efforts due to their ability to achieve net carbon
sequestration under certain production conditions. A
life cycle analysis of the biodegradable bioplastic PHB
calculated negative GHG emissions for the product when
produced from either corn or biogas, with the greatest
amount of carbon sequestration occurring when the
PHB is produced from existing PHB that has degradedto biogas.61 A separate analysis of PHA production
determined that the bioplastic has a carbon intensitythat is 80% lower than that of fossil-derived plastics even
before taking into account the PHA’s ability to be recycled
following biodegradation.62 Biobased PLA for use in waterbottles has likewise been found to have a substantiallylower carbon intensity than fossil-derived plastic.63 Finally,a comparison of multiple chemicals and fuels pathways
determined that products derived from recycled carbon
dioxide achieved carbon intensity reductions compared
to conventional fossil products despite ultimately being
derived from fossil feedstocks.64
Biobased products such as renewable chemicals
historically have not received as much attention frompolicymakers as biofuels, due to the lack of directemissions resulting from their use. That is changing,
however, as policymakers in states such as California and
New York have implemented economywide restrictions
on GHG emissions. In addition to disincentivizing the useof fossil feedstocks in energy-intensive manufacturing
processes, such policies also encourage entities suchas steel mills and refineries to develop new revenue
streams via the implementation of CCU technologies.65
Biotechnology provides a wide range of options for
reducing the carbon intensities of many of the biobased
chemicals and products upon which the U.S. economy
relies.
4 0 h ttp : / / w w w . n y ti me s . c o m/ 2 0 1 8 / 1 0 /04/clim at e/clim at e-ch an ge-plast ics.
h tml
4 1 h ttp : / / w w w . s c i e n c e d i r e c t. c o m/ b o ok/9780128001585/project -fin an ce- f o r - th e - i n te r n a ti o n a l - p e tr o l e u m- i n d u st ry
4 2 T a y e b , B . Gh g e mi s s i o n s f r o m n e w pet roch em ical plan t s: backgrou n d
i n f o r ma ti o n p a p e r f o r th e e l a b o r a ti o n of t ech n ical n ot es an d gu idelin e s f o r I D B p r o j e c ts . I D B T e c h n i c a l Not e; In t er-Am erican Developm en t
B a n k , 2 0 1 3 . h ttp : / / p u b l i c a ti o n s . i a d b . o rg/pu blicat ion s/en glish /docu m en t /Gr e e n h o u s e - Ga s - E mi s s i o n s - f r o m- N e w-Pet roch em ical-Plan t s-B ackgrou n d- I n f o r ma ti o n - P a p e r - f o r - th e - E l a b o r a ti o n -of-Tech n ical-N ot es-an d-G u idelin e s - f o r - I D B- P r o j e c ts . p d f
4 3 h ttp : / / w w w . b u s i n e s s i n s i d e r . c o m/ l ou isian a-can cer-alley -ph ot os-oil-ref i n e r i e s - c h e mi c a l s - p o l l u ti o n - 2 0 1 9 - 1 1

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44 I s i k g o r , FH ., Bec er , CR. Lignocellulosic biomass: a sustainabl e p l at f o r m fo r t h e p r o d u c t io n of bio- based chemicals and polymers. DO I :10. 1039/C5P Y00263J ( Rev iew Article) Polym. Chem., 2 0 1 5 , 6 , 4 497-4559.
h tt p : / / p u b s .r s c .o r g / ko / c ontent/articlehtml/2 0 1 5 /py/c5 py0 0 2 6 3 j
45 I E A ( 2018) , T h e Fu t u r e of Petrochemicals, IEA, Paris. http://www. i e a.
o r g / r ep o r t s /t h e-fu t u r e-of - petrochemicals.
46 h tt p ://www.ic is .c o m /explore/resources/news/2 0 1 9 /1 1 /0 8 /1 0 441869/b r a z i l -b r a s kem -mu lls -n ew- renewable- ethylene- pe- capacity
47 h tt p ://www.u s it c .g o v/ publications/3 3 2 /working_ papers/using_ wast e _ c a rb o n _feed s t o c ks _t o _ produce_ chemicals_ 0 .pdf
48 h tt p ://www.n c fap .o r g /documents/biof uels_ aviation/Huber% 20G e or g e %20Bio fu els %20Review.pdf
49 M a s u o , S ., Zh o u , S ., Kaneko, T. et al. Bacterial fermentation p l at f or m
f o r p ro d u c in g ar t ific ial a romatic amines. Sci Rep 6 , 2 5 7 6 4 (2 0 1 6). ht t p : / /d oi . or g /10.1038/s r ep 2576 4 . http://www.nature.com/articles/srep 25764
50 R a jeev Meh t a, V in eet Kumar, Haripada Bhunia & S. N. Upadhy ay(2 005) S yn t h es is o f P o ly( Lactic Acid): A Review, Journal of Macrom ol e c u l a r S c ien c e, P a r t C, 45: 4 , 3 2 5 - 3 4 9 , DOI: 1 0 .1 0 8 0 /1 5 3 2 1 7 9 0 5 0 0 304148.
h tt p : / / www.t an d fo n lin e.com/doi/abs/1 0 .1 0 8 0 /1 5 3 2 1 7 9 0 5 0 0 3 0 4 148
51 J i n g n a n Lu , Rya n C. T appel & Christopher T. Nomura (2 0 0 9 ) M i ni -Re v i e w : Bio s yn t h es is o f P o l y(hydroxyalkanoates), Polymer Review s, 49: 3,
226-248, D OI: 10.1080/155 8 3 7 2 0 9 0 3 0 4 8 2 4 3 . http://www.tandf onl i ne .
c o m / d o i/a b s /10.1080/155 8 3 7 2 0 9 0 3 0 4 8 2 4 3 ?journalCode= lmsc2 0
52 B a la kr is h n an , M. et al. Pathways f or fuels and lubricants from b i om a s s . P r o c eed in g s o f t h e National Academy of Sciences Jun 2 0 1 5, 112(2 5) 7645-7649; D OI: 10.1 0 7 3 /pnas.1 5 0 8 2 7 4 1 1 2 . http://www.pn as. or g/
c o n ten t /112/ 25/7645.s h ort.
53 h M.A. H azr at , M.G . Rasul, M.M.K. Khan, Lubricity Improveme nt of t he
U l tr a - lo w S u lfu r D ies el Fuel with the Biodiesel, Energy Procedia, V ol um e75, 2015, P a g es 111-117, ISSN 1 8 7 6 - 6 1 0 2 , http://doi.org/1 0 .1 0 16/ j .
e g y p r o .2015.07.619. h t t p://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti c l e / p i i /S 1 876610215013879
54 h tt p ://www.m c kin s ey.com/industries/pharmaceuticals- and- m e d i c al -p r od uc t s /o u r -in s ig h t s /t he- bio- revolution- innovations- transf orm i ng-e c on om i es -s o c iet ies -a n d -o u r- lives
55 h tt p ://www.b as f.c o m /ca/en/who- we- are/sustainability/we- pr od uc e -s a f e ly-an d -effic ien t ly/energy- and- climate- protection/our- clima t e -p r ot e c ti on -s o lu t io n s .h t m l ( S ee Neopor® BMB).
56 h tt p ://www.g r een c a r congress.com/2 0 1 9 /1 2 /2 0 1 9 1 2 2 9 - lcf s.h t m l
57 h tt p ://www.u s it c .g o v/ publications/3 3 2 /working_ papers/using_ wast e _ c a rb o n _feed s t o c ks _t o _ produce_ chemicals_ 0 .pdf
58 h tt p ://www.b io p r efer red.gov/BPResources/f iles/BiobasedProd uc t sEc o n omic An a lys is 2018.p d f
59 h tt p ://www.s elec t u s a.gov/chemical- industry- united- states
60 h tt p ://www.u s d a.g o v/ sites/def ault/files/documents/usda- bio i nd i c at o r s -j an -2020.p d f
61 E n vir o n . S c i. T ec h n o l. 2 0 1 2 , 4 6 , 1 8 , 9 8 2 2 –9 8 2 9 , July 9 , 2 0 1 2 . ht t p : / /p u b s . ac s .o r g / d o i/fu ll/10.1 0 2 1 /es2 0 4 5 4 1 w
62 E n vir o n . S c i. T ec h n o l. 2 0 0 8 , 4 2 , 1 8 , 6 9 6 1 –6 9 6 6 . August 1 6 , 2008.
h tt p : / / p u b s .a c s .o r g / d o i/abs/1 0 .1 0 2 1 /es7 0 3 2 2 3 5 .
63 P a po n g , S . et al. Co mparative assessment of the environmen t al p r of i l e o f P LA an d P ET d r in king water bottles from a life cycle persp e c t i v e ,J o u r n a l o f Clean er P r o d u ction, 6 5 , 2 0 1 4 , 5 3 9 - 5 5 0 , ISSN 0 9 5 9 - 6 5 26, ht t p : / /w w w . s c ien c ed ir ec t .c o m /science/article/abs/pii/S0 9 5 9 6 5 2 6 1 3 0 0 6331.
64 h tt p ://www.iea.o r g / r e ports/putting- co2 - to- use
65 h tt p ://www.c d p .n et /en/articles/media/steel- sector- faces- sig ni f i c ant -l os s es -fr o m-fu t u r e-c lim ate- regulation

DANIM E R SC I ENT I FI C
CAS E S T UDY
Biobased PHA is Danimer Scientific’s primary
bioplastics product. The company manufactures
the polyester at a commercial facility in
Winchester, Kentucky, by feeding a bacteriumwith inexpensive vegetable oil feedstock derived
from agricultural oilseed crops such as canola,and soy. In addition to directly displacing
the fossil fuels used in the manufacture ofconventional plastics, Danimer Scientific’s
production pathway also provides indirectenvironmental benefits.
Danimer Scientific obtains vegetable oils via
the crushing of oilseeds. The crushing process
yields protein-rich byproducts that are employed
as a natural fertilizer and livestock feed. The
vegetable oils are consumed by soil bacteria thatbiosynthesize the PHA in a bioreactor. The PHA
is then separated from the bioreactor medium,
purified, and dried in preparation for conversion
to various plastic resins, blending with otherbiopolymers such as PLA, or bonding withmaterials such as paper. 66
Danimer Scientific’s biobased PHA possesses
performance parameters that are comparable tothose of many fossil plastics and are capable ofuse in many of the same applications, including
food preservation and storage and conversion
to multiple types of finished resins. Unlike fossil
plastics, however, PHA utilizes only renewable
feedstocks and is biodegradable. This lattercharacteristic is an important advantage overfossil plastics at a time of growing concern overlandfilling and the widespread presence of nonbiodegradable plastic waste in many ecosystems.
6 6 h ttp : / / d a n i me r scien t ific.com /ph a-begin n in g-of-life/

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2.1.3 FOOD AN D FEEDIN GREDIEN TS

GE NOM AT I C A
CASE S T U DY
Genomatica has commercialized a moresustainable, biobased technology to make a key
ingredient used in apparel, spandex, footwear,
and plastics used in electronics and automotive
parts. Millions of tons per year of this ingredient,
1,4-butanediol (BDO), are currently produced
from fossil-derived feedstocks, resulting inmany millions of tons per year of greenhousegas emissions. By contrast, Genomatica’s GENO
BDOTM process uses renewable feedstocks – thesugars that come from locally-grown crops suchas corn and sugarcane – along with engineered
microorganisms and fermentation. The products
made with Genomatica’s ingredient have 56%
lower carbon intensity 67, and their renewable
content is traceable – meaning customers knowthat the carbon actually came from plants.
Genomatica’s technology also avoids the use of
toxic compounds like formaldehyde, common tofossil processes.
Genomatica’s technology has been proven atindustrial scale since 2012. Italy-based plastics
manufacturer Novamont started productionof biobased BDO at a 30,000 ton per year
capacity plant in 2016, built with Genomatica’s
licensed technology. Novamont’s BDO has beenused in compostable produce bags, mulch film
and coffee capsules. BASF has also licensed
Genomatica’s BDO technology. The Novamont
plant is the world’s first commercial scale plant
to make a widely-used intermediate chemical
biologically. Genomatica has received repeatedrecognition for its innovations, including three
EPA Green Chemistry awards, the Kirkpatrick
award and ICIS Innovation awards.

67 h tt p :/ /www.b r o n t id ebg.com/wp- content/uploads/2 0 2 0 /1 0 /Ge nom at i c a - S u s t a in ab ilit y-an d -S o cial- Responsibility- 2 0 1 9 .pdf

According to the 2019 U.N. IPCC Special Reporton Climate Change and Land, the global food system– including the land and resources to raise animals
and grow crops, plus processing, packaging, andtransportation – is responsible for up to 19.1 GtCO2eq
annually, or 37% of total net GHG emissions.68 The reportfinds that changes in both production and consumption
are needed to meet global emissions reduction objectives.
Biotechnology offers the potential for substantial
emissions reductions at every stage of the food system,
including potentially transformative solutions in food andfeed ingredients.
Animal products account for the largest segment offood sector emissions. According to the FAO, livestock
production accounts for approximately 7.1 GtCO2eq
annually, or 15% of global GHG emissions, and consumes
roughly one quarter of available land worldwide, withmeat production expected to increase 19%, and dairy
production 33%, from 2017 levels by 2030.69 Solutions
that reduce dependence on animals offer the greatest
potential for emissions reductions from the food sector.
But, given the growing global demand for meat and otheranimal products, sustainable near-term solutions are alsoneeded for animal agriculture. Biotechnology is playing aleading role in the development of both new low-carbon
product choices and technologies to reduce the carbon
footprint of animal agriculture.
Plant-Based Proteins and Food Products
A recent analysis found that if Americans opted for
nutritionally equivalent plant-based products for theirmeat (beef, chicken and pork) consumption choices, U.S.
GHG emissions would be reduced by 280 million metrictons annually – roughly equivalent to the total emissionsof the state of Ohio.70 Consumer concerns with thecarbon footprint of animal agriculture – along with healthand animal welfare considerations – are driving strong
growth in plant-based proteins and food product choices.
Many of the leading options leverage biotechnology.
Impossible Foods, the fourth fastest growing brandin the U.S. in 2019,71 uses engineered yeast to addheme, an iron-containing molecule found in blood, toits plant-based products to produce a meaty flavor. As
of September 2020, Impossible Foods burgers were in
11,000 supermarkets and on the menu of a growing listof national and regional restaurant chains.72 A 2019

lifecycle analysis of Impossible Foods’ burger found a 89%
reduction in carbon footprint and 96% reduction in land
use versus traditional beef burgers.73
Perfect Day Foods is bringing a similar approach tomilk, cheese and ice cream, using genetically engineered
microbes to produce animal-free dairy products.74 Given
the high carbon intensity of dairy products (nearly 12
kilograms of carbon dioxide are produced for every
kilogram of butter, for example)75 plant-based dairy has
the potential to have an outsized impact.
Motif FoodWorks, a spinoff of biotech leader Ginkgo
Bioworks, is employing synthetic biology to develop
fermentation-based ingredients to enhance the taste
and texture of plant-based meat and dairy options. Motifis expected to launch its first commercial product — an
ingredient to improve the flavor of beef substitutes – in
2021.76
One of the more novel applications of biotechnology
is cultured meat products. New Age Meats is oneof several companies working to produce cultured
meat, an engineered tissue produced in laboratories
by microorganisms that induce and feed the growthof animal muscle cells in a bioreactor. Unlike plantbased approaches, cultured meat is a drop-in option for
applications in which specific meat attributes are desired.
Cultured meat production is an energy-intensive processthat requires more energy than poultry production andalmost as much energy as pork production (albeit lessthan sheep or cattle production). But cultured meat’s lackof methane production and ability to utilize low-carbon
energy sources is projected to reduce GHG emissions up
to 96% compared to traditional meat products.77 Cultured
meat production also utilizes a small fraction of the land
required by livestock production, potentially resulting
in lower indirect GHG emissions from land-use change.
Cultured meat’s consumer acceptance is currently limited
by its high production costs and novelty, although thisis expected to change as the product moves towardcommercialization.78
Feed and Feed Ingredients
Roughly half of animal agriculture emissions result
from land use, production and processing of animal
feed.79 Biotechnology is being harnessed to address
feed-related emissions from multiple angles, fromdevelopment of new, low-carbon feed options and lowercarbon approaches to feed production to ingredients that
reduce feed waste.
In addition to developing biotech options for animal
products, biotech innovation is also being deployed todevelop new, low-carbon animal feeds. NouriTech, a joint
venture between biotech start-up Calysta and Cargill, is

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among a growing list of companies using microorganisms
to convert methane and other heat-trapping waste
gases into single-cell proteins or other ingredients foranimal feed. In addition to recycling GHGs that would
otherwise be emitted directly to the atmosphere, thisprocess, known as gas fermentation, does not require theuse of arable land, avoiding the largest source of GHG
emissions associated with feed production. A lifecycle
analysis of NouriTech’s FeedKind fish feed protein foundGHG emissions up to 30 percent lower than conventionalfish meal, depending on the source of methane used.80
Several biotech businesses are also developing feed
ingredients using algae. Similar benefits are anticipated.
Reducing Emissions from Animals
Another leading source of GHGs from agriculture are
emissions from the animals themselves. Roughly 40% of
all animal agriculture emissions is attributable to methanefrom enteric fermentation in the digestive system ofruminant animals, for example.81 Biotech solutions arebeing developed to address emissions from cattle, swine,
poultry, and other animals.
Cattle are the leading source of animal emissions,due to the large numbers of cattle grown globally andtheir high levels of enteric methane production. Microbial
feed additives have the potential to dramatically reduce
enteric methane emissions from ruminant livestock by
disrupting the methane production process. One ester
additive suppresses the enzyme that causes methane
production in the digestive tracts of cattle, reducing
methane emissions by 30% or more.82 A study in peer
review of microbial feed additives developed by biotech
start-up Locus Fermentation Solutions found reduction inmethane levels of up to 78%.83 And recent studies havefound methane reductions of up to 99% using certain
species of algae.84,85 Feed additives based on extractsof garlic and citrus have also produced strong results.86
All three additives are being developed for the market.
Finally, two other feed additives that are already on themarket, one a yeast culture87 and the other a blend of
essential oils,88 reduce dairy cow methane emissions
indirectly by increasing the efficiency of milk production,
thereby reducing the number of methane-emitting dairy
cows needed to produce a certain volume of milk.
Biotech enzymes from Novozymes and others havealso been introduced into pig and chicken feed to improve
nutrient uptake, reduce waste, and substantially reducecarbon footprint.89
Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide frommanure is another significant source of GHGs, accountingfor 10 percent of emissions from animal agriculture.90 As

20

mentioned previously, biotechnology has a key role in
reducing these emissions as well. The use of anaerobic
digestion in animal agriculture has the potential to reduce
U.S. GHG emissions by 151 MTCO2 eq. annually by 2050
using current technology.91 Considerable research anddevelopment is also underway to utilize biotechnology
to improve the efficiency of anaerobic digestion throughoptimization of the microbes and microbial communities
used.92
Open manure lagoons are capable of both reducing
existing methane emissions and displacing fossil fuels
when converted to enclosed anaerobic digesters. Thesesystems capture the lagoons’ methane emissions in theform of biogas that can be used to displace fossil fuelssuch as natural gas as a source of heat and/or electricity.
The combustion of the biogas converts the methane
into the less-potent GHG carbon dioxide. (One ton of
methane has 84 times the global warming potential over
20 years of a ton of carbon dioxide.)93 This capability,
when combined with fossil fuel displacement, can resultin carbon intensity values for biogas that are very negative
despite not involving net carbon sequestration. Biogasthat is produced from dairy manure and injected into
natural gas pipelines for use as transportation fuel incompressed natural gas vehicles under California’s LCFS
has received certified carbon intensities that are almost
4 times lower than that of gasoline, for example.94 One
estimate calculated that up to 3% of total U.S. electricity
consumption could be met by biogas produced in manurelagoons and captured for use with microturbines.95
Increased demand for animal protein will cause thelivestock sector’s contribution to global GHG emissions toincrease in the years ahead. The use of biotechnology tolimit the climate change impacts of livestock production
is at a comparatively early stage of development due toa lack of low-carbon incentivizes, such as those that haveexisted in the U.S. power and transportation sectors since
the turn of the century. Biotechnology has the potential
to drive both near-term and long-term GHG emission
reductions in the livestock sector, however. Feed additives
and the use of enclosed anaerobic digesters can reducenear-term emissions.
Food and Feed Waste
Waste from food and feed production and delivery
is also a significant source of GHG emissions. Nearly athird of all food produced is wasted annually. This foodwaste had a carbon footprint of 3.3 GtCO2eq in 2007,
representing 7 percent of total global GHG emissions,according to the FAO.96 Biotech solutions are available
or under development to reduce food waste at multiple

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

stages of the food and feed system.
The use of enzymes in bread and other baked
goods has significantly enhanced product shelf life andreduced waste.97 Organic acids and other products ofindustrial biotechnology have been developed by BASF
and others to reduce spoilage of animal feeds.98 Other
biotech innovators are developing biobased antimicrobial
coatings to reduce spoilage and inhibit pathogens in fruits
and vegetables.99 Others still are focusing on the use ofbiosensors to optimize produce ripeness to minimize
spoilage. 100,101
Food Ingredients
Biotechnology is also reducing the carbon footprint ofa variety of food ingredients. The plant-based sweetener,
B IOT ECHNOL OGYA PPL ICA T IONS IN FOOD A ND
FEED WA ST E

O R G A NI C A CI DSR E DU CE SPO I LA G E I N A NI MA L
FE E DSB I O B A SE D CO A T I NG SR E DU CE SPO I LA G E A ND I NHI B I T PA T HO G E NS I N FR U I T S
A ND VE G E T A B LE S

B I O SE NSO R S

O PT I MI Z E R I PE NE SS T O MI NI MI Z E SPO I LA G E

PLA NT G E NE T I C
E NG I NE E R I NG

DE VE LO P FO O D VA R I E T I E S
WI T H LE SS SPO I LA G E

A NI MA L G E NE T I C
E NG I NE E R I NG

DE VE LO P FA R ME D A NI MA LS
T HA T R E Q U I R E LE SS FO O D

stevia, for example has shown an 82% reduction incarbon footprint compared with beet sugar and a 64%
reduction compared with cane sugar.102 But the mostdesirable compounds of the stevia leaf are present in very
low concentrations, limiting its market. Biotech leaders
Evolva and DSM have developed pathways to produce
those key stevia compounds through fermentation.
Both have formed partnerships with Cargill and began
production of fermentation-based stevia at commercial
scale in 2019. Cargill’s initial lifecycle assessment suggests
the fermentation-based stevia has an even lower carbon
footprint than the plant-based extract.103 Nearly 200
million tons of sugar are produced globally each year.104
With a carbon footprint of 241 kg CO2e per ton of sugar,105
the sugar sector accounts for roughly 48 MTCO2 annually.
As another example, vanillin, one of the mostwidely used synthetic food ingredients, was traditionallyproduced through a carbon- and energy-intensive processusing coal tar. New biotech routes now allow for purer

production without reliance on extraction or processing offossil fuels.106
Food Processing
Biotech enzymes are also being used to dramaticallylower the carbon footprint of food processing. The
most significant example is the use of enzymes in meat
processing. By eliminating energy-intensive traditional
processing steps, industry-wide integration of enzymatic
processes for meat processing would result in over
100 MTCO2e annually, according to the World Wildlife
Fund. Smaller, but significant, reductions would result
from adoption of enzymatic processing in fish anddairy processing, and beer and wine production. WWF
estimated the total potential reductions from enzyme
applications in the food sector at 114 to 166 MTCO2eannually.107

Figure 2. Potential GHG reductions from applications of biotechnology in the foodindustry. Source: Figure 5, https://wwfeu.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/wwf_biotech_technical_report.pdf

6 8 h ttp : / / w w w . i p c c . c h / s r c c l / c h a p te r / s u m m ary -for-policy m akers/
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7 0 E s h e l , G. , S ta i n i e r , P . , S h e p o n , A . et al. En viron m en t ally Opt im al, N u tr i ti o n a l l y S o u n d , P r o te i n a n d E n e r g y Con servin g Plan t B ased Alt ern at iv e s to U. S . M e a t. S c i R e p 9 , 1 0 3 4 5 ( 2 0 19). h t t p://doi.org/10.1038/s415980 1 9 - 4 6 5 9 0 - 1 . h ttp s : / / w w w . n a tu r e . c o m /art icles/s41598-019-46590-1
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7 2 h ttp : / / i mp o s s i b l e f o o d s . c o m/ me d i a/n ew s-releases/2020/09/im possib l e - f o o d s - q u i c k l y - e x p a n d s - to - c a n a d a s-favorit e-rest au ran t -ch ain s
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TECHNOLOGIES21

c i a l - p ro d u c t io n -fo r -it s -first- ingredient- improving- the- f lavor- of -b e e f -s u b s t it u t es /77 E n vir o n . S c i. T ec h n o l. 2 0 1 1 , 4 5 , 1 4 , 6 1 1 7 –6 1 2 3 , June 1 7 , 2 0 11. ht t p : / /p u b s . ac s .o r g / d o i/fu ll/10.1 0 2 1 /es2 0 0 1 3 0 u
78 C h r is t o p h er Br yan t , Julie Barnett, Consumer acceptance of cul t ur e d
m e a t: A s ys t ema t ic r eview, Meat Science, 1 4 3 ,2 0 1 8 , Pages 8 - 1 7, I S S N
0309-1740, h t t p s ://d o i.o rg/1 0 .1 0 1 6 /j.meatsci.2 0 1 8 .0 4 .0 0 8 . http : / / www.
s c i e n ced ir ec t .c o m /s c ien ce/article/abs/pii/S0 3 0 9 1 7 4 0 1 7 3 1 4 6 0 2
79 h tt p ://www.fao .o r g /a g/againf o/resources/en/publications/ta c k l i ng_
c l i m a t e_c h a n g e/in d ex.h t m
80 h tt p ://www.c ar b o n t r ust.com/resources/assessment- of- environm e nt a l -f o o t p r in t -o f-feed kin d- protein
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c o n ten t /112/ 34/10663
83 h tt p ://lo c u s fs .c o m /leading- calif ornia- university- finds- 7 8 - per c e nt -r e d u c t i on -in -lives t o c k-m et hane- emissions- with- direct- fed- microbi al s-f r om -l oc u s-fer men t at io n -s o lutions/
84 h tt p ://www.b io r xiv.o r g/content/1 0 .1 1 0 1 /2 0 2 0 .0 7 .1 5 .2 0 4 9 5 8 v 1. ab stract
85 h tt p ://www.s c ien c ed irect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S 0 959652619321559
86 h tt p ://www.n c b i.n lm .nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7 2 0 0 5 1 4 /87 h tt p :/ /www.s c ien c ed irect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S 1 08074461530139X
88 h tt p :/ /www.m d p i.c o m /2 0 7 6 - 2 6 1 5 /1 0 /4 /6 2 0
89 h tt p :/ /b io s o lu t io n s .n ovozymes.com/animal- health- nutrition/e n/ i nsi g h t s / wh it ep ap er /m a kin g -f eed- more- sustainable
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c l i m a t e_c h an g e/in d ex.h t m
91 h tt p :/ /www.n c b i.n lm .nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3 1 5 5 2 7 9 /92 h tt p :/ /www.n c b i.n lm .nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7 1 9 8 1 8 3 /93 h tt p ://www.ep a .g o v/ g hgemissions/understanding- global- war m i ng-p ot e n t i als
94 h tt p ://ww2.ar b .c a .g o v /resources/documents/lcfs- pathway- cer t i f i e d -c a r b o n -in t en s it ies
95 h tt p ://io p s c ien c e.io p .org/article/1 0 .1 0 8 8 /1 7 4 8 - 9 3 2 6 /3 /3 /0 3 4002/ m e t a
96 h tt p ://www.fao .o r g /3/i3 3 4 7 e/i3 3 4 7 e.pdf
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99 h tt p s :/ /www.fo o d n avigator.com/Article/2 0 1 9 /1 0 /2 1 /A- new- to ol -i n-t h e -f ig h t -ag a in s t -fo o d -waste- Milekons- is- highly- eff ective- environm e nt a l l y -fr ien d ly-a n d -ver s at i le
100 Neet h ir aja n S , R a g a van V, Weng X , Chand R. Biosensors f or S ust ai n a b l e Fo o d E n g in eer in g : Challenges and Perspectives. Biosensor s. 2018;
8(1 ): 2 3. h t t p s ://d o i.o r g / 1 0 .3 3 9 0 /bios8 0 1 0 0 2 3
1 01 h tt p s ://p en n t o d ay.u penn.edu/news/strella- biotechnologys-b i ose ns or s -m in imize-fo o d -wa s t e- one- apple- time
1 02 h tt p s ://jo u r n als .lw w . com/nutritiontodayonline/Fulltext/2 0 15/ 05000/
S t e v i a,_Na t u r e_s _Zer o _Calorie_ Sustainable.7 .aspx
1 03 h tt p s ://www.c ar g ill.com/food- beverage/na/eversweet- faqs
1 04 h tt p s ://a p p s .fa s .u s d a.gov/psdonline/circulars/sugar.pdf
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B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

VERA M A RI SCAS E S T UDY
Fish are among the lowest carbon intensity
sources of meat. 108 As global demand for animal
products continues to grow, and with most of theworld’s wild fish stocks at, or beyond, sustainable
harvest levels, 109 aquaculture – farmed fish andother seafood – will play a key role in mitigating
the impact of meat consumption on the climate.
Salmon aquaculture is the fastest-growing foodproduction system in the world. 110 Salmon’s
popularity and relatively low carbon intensity
make it an attractive option to displace some ofthe projected growth in the consumption of beef
and other higher carbon intensity meats. The
growth of salmon aquaculture is currently limitedby the availability of the marine omega-3 oils
EPA and DHA, key components of salmon diets.
Marine omega-3 oils have, until recently, been
derived almost exclusively from wild-caught oily
fish, such as anchovy and menhaden, whose wild
stocks are limited and increasingly threatened byclimate change. 111
Veramaris, a joint venture between biotech leaders DSM and Evonik Industries, has eliminatedthis supply chain and sustainability barrier bydeveloping a biotech approach to marine omega-3 oil production. Veramaris identified marine
algae that produce EPA and DHA naturally, andrecently began commercial production of algae-based omega-3 oils at a $200 million facility
in Blair, Nebraska. 112 The facility can produce
omega-3 oils equivalent to 1.2 million tons ofwild-caught fish, enough to supply 15 percent
of salmon farming industry demand, 113 and hasbrought jobs and economic development to a region hit hard by low commodity prices and recent
trade disputes.
By sourcing omega-3 oils from locally grownalgae, Veramaris also dramatically shortens thefeed supply chain, reducing emissions associatedwith the harvesting, processing, and transport offish oil.

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2 .2 AGR I CULT UR E
INP U TS A N D CL I M ATE
SE RVI C E S
2.2.1 AG R I C U LTU R A L
BIO LOG I C A L
Modern agriculture is an energy-intensive process.
In addition to the need to fuel heavy machinery, many
farming practices release carbon dioxide from bothbiogenic and fossil sources that would otherwise remain
stably sequestered. Intensive tilling practices expose soil
carbon to the atmosphere, allowing it to react with oxygento form carbon dioxide. Nitrogen fertilizers increase thesequestration potential and minimize the land footprintof crops, but they are derived from fossil fuels such as
natural gas and generate the potent GHG nitrous oxide.
Advances in crop science and technology can mitigate
some of these unwanted environmental effects. No-till
agriculture using herbicide-resistant crops limits soil
disruption and reduces the amount of soil carbon thatis released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The
development of crop varieties with added or improved
nitrogen-fixing capabilities allows for more efficient useof nitrogen fertilizer when combined with crop rotation
practices.114 And the engineering of commonly used crops
to give them resistance to environmental threats such as
drought and pests enhances their carbon sequestration
potential while minimizing indirect GHG emissions fromdeforestation.
One of the fastest growing, and most promising,applications of biotechnology is in agricultural biologicals.
Soil microorganisms play a key role in plant growth,enabling efficient access to nutrients and protecting
against pests and diseases. Ag biologicals leverages
biotechnology to improve soil microbes and enhancethese natural processes. A major area of focus for ag
biologicals companies is increasing plant uptake ofnitrogen to allow for more efficient use of synthetic
nitrogen fertilizer. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is asignificant source of climate-warming gases. It is energy
intensive to produce, and a substantial fraction of thenitrogen in fertilizer becomes nitrous oxide (N2O) agreenhouse gas 298 times more potent than carbon

24

dioxide. Joyn Bio, a joint venture between the synthetic
biology company, Ginkgo Bioworks, and Bayer, isengineering microbes to enable cereal crops like corn,
wheat, and rice to convert nitrogen from the air into aform they can use to grow, allowing for more efficientuse of synthetic fertilizers for many of the world’s leading
crops.
Other biotech researchers and businesses aredeveloping nitrogen- and carbon-fixing bacteria oralgae to build soil carbon and enhance the absorptionof atmospheric nitrogen by soils.115,116 And biotech
innovators such as Vestaron are developing safer, moresustainable crop protection tools, such as biological
peptides, to provide crops with greater resiliency to plantstress induced by climate change.117
114 ht t p : / / ne ws. wi sc . e d u/ c or n-t hat -ac q ui r e s-i t s-own-ni t r oge n - i d e n ti f i e d -r e d uc i ng-ne e d -f or -f e r t i l i z e r /115 ht t p : / / www. f r ont i e r si n. or g/ ar t i c l e s/ 10. 3389/ f m i c b . 2019. 01 1 4 6 / f u l l
116 ht t p : / / use a. or g/ si t e s/ d e f aul t / f i l e s/ e v e nt -/ U S EA % 20T e c h% 2 0 B r i e f i n g _Mat t % 20C ar r _ A l gae % 20f or % 20C ar b on% 20C ap t ur e % 20& % 20U se _ M a r c h_ 2018. p d f
117 I r i t i M, V i t al i ni S . S ust ai nab l e C r op Pr ot e c t i on, G l ob al C l i ma te
C hange , F ood S e c ur i t y and S af e t y — Pl ant I m m uni t y at t he C r os s r o a d s .
V ac c i ne s. 2020; 8(1): 42. ht t p : / / d oi . or g/ 10. 3390/ v ac c i ne s801004 2 . h ttp s : / /www. m d p i . c om / 2076-393X / 8/ 1/ 42

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RTJOYN BI O
CAS E S T UDY
Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for plant growth,
but the abundant nitrogen in the atmosphereis not in a form that plants can use. Soybeans,peanuts, and other legumes have developed
a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing
microorganisms in the soil that convert nitrogenfrom the air into a form they can absorb throughtheir roots. But cereal crops like corn, wheat,and rice don’t have this ability, and require theaddition of fertilizers to maximize growth.
Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers have revolutionizedfarming, but are a potent source of agricultural
greenhouse gas emissions. They are energy
intensive to produce, and a substantial fractionof the nitrogen in fertilizer becomes nitrous
oxide (N2O) a greenhouse gas up to 298 times
more potent than carbon dioxide. 118 Joyn Bio,a joint venture between the synthetic biology
company, Ginkgo Bioworks, and Bayer, is using
biotechnology to reduce agricultural GHG
emissions by designing nitrogen-fixing soil
microbes that work with corn and other cereal
crops, allowing for more efficient use of synthetic
fertilizers for many of the world’s leading crops.

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2.2.2 BI OLO G I C A L C A R B O N
CA P T UR E , US E A N D S TO R AG E
Biomass is one of America’s major, albeit transitory,
carbon sinks. All forms of biomass that employ
photosynthesis capture atmospheric carbon dioxide
and convert it to carbon-based compounds such as
sugars, starch, and lignocellulose. The carbon content
of this biomass remains sequestered until the biomass
is either consumed or decomposes, at which time muchof it is oxidized and released back to the atmosphereas carbon dioxide. Some of the carbon content, such asthat contained in a plant’s roots, is sequestered for much
longer time periods in the form of below-ground biomass.
It is for this reason that the afforestation/reforestation of
marginal land can result in the formation of new carbon
sinks and the long-term removal of carbon dioxide fromthe atmosphere.
Carbon that is sequestered as below-ground biomass
can remain in that state so long as the surrounding soil is
not disrupted. The length of time that biomass’s aboveground carbon content remains sequestered depends on
how the biomass is utilized. The combustion of biomass,whether in its natural form or following conversion to
biofuel, results in the oxidation and release of its carbon
content as carbon dioxide. While carbon-neutral in
the sense that the released biogenic carbon had been
captured from the atmosphere during the growing
season, traditional combustion prevents the carbon
from being either sequestered or reused prior to thecompletion of another growing season.
A variety of biotechnologies have been developedthat either capture and sequester or recycle atmosphericcarbon dioxide. Many of these processes are closely
related to the biobased products covered in Section 2.1
because of the ability of biomass to capture atmosphericcarbon dioxide before being converted to different
fuels and products. The technologies in question impact
every stage of the biomass supply chain, from growth/
production to conversion and ultimately end-of-life
disposal.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies
enable carbon dioxide emissions from fossil power
plants or industrial facilities, such as cement or steel, tobe captured at the facility and stored underground. A
variety of approaches have been developed to absorb
carbon dioxide from flue gases, or to remove carbon prior
to combustion.119 CCS can also be deployed at facilities
utilizing biomass as feedstock. The process is largely thesame as that employed at some fossil fuel facilities but,26

whereas fossil energy carbon capture and sequestration(FECCS) processes reduce the GHG emissions of fossil
fuels, biomass energy carbon capture and sequestration(BECCS) processes actually reverse past emissions. The
biomass captures atmospheric carbon dioxide during
its growth phase and is then combusted, yielding both
energy and carbon dioxide. The bioenergy displaces fossil
energy and the carbon dioxide is either sequesteredin underground caverns as a gas or converted to adegradation-resistant solid such as biochar. BECCS is
therefore a carbon-negative process in that it results inmore carbon dioxide being sequestered than emitted.
Biotechnology advances that increase the growth rate,
growth potential, and harvest efficiency of biomass that isused as BECCS feedstock all enhance the process’s carbon
sequestration capability.
BECCS technology can also be deployed to achieve
negative carbon results at any industrial facility using
biomass as a feedstock. Perhaps the most intriguing
application of BECCS is its potential use at ethanol plants
and other biorefineries. One third of the carbon in thebiomass feedstock used to produce ethanol is releasedin the form of carbon dioxide during the fermentation
process. Using BECCS to capture this CO2 reduces the
carbon intensity of ethanol by 40%.120 Biorefineries
represent an extremely attractive option for deploying
BECCS because the product of fermentation is a nearlypure (99%) stream of CO2, requiring little or no separationfrom other gases. As a result, biorefinery BECCS is among
the lowest-cost carbon capture opportunities available, atan estimated cost of under $30 per ton of CO2 compared
to $60-$120 per ton at fossil power plants or traditional
industrial facilities.121 The world’s first ethanol BECCS
project is now in operation in Decatur, Illinois, capturing
and storing 1 MTCO2eq per year that would otherwise
have been emitted to the atmosphere.122
In addition to its role in providing biomass feedstocks
for BECCS, biotechnology is increasingly seen as a key
enabling technology for carbon capture itself. The
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has invested over$150 million since 2015 in the development of algae
and other microbial systems for carbon capture as analternative – or complimentary – approach to chemistrybased approaches to CO2 extraction from flue gases.123
Microbial systems have several significant advantage
over thermochemical approaches to carbon capture.
Typical thermochemical CCS systems are highly energy
intensive. Roughly 30% of captured carbon is offset by theadditional fossil fuel combustion required to separate,compress, and transport the captured carbon.124 Microbial
systems can dramatically reduce this “parasitic load.”
Algae and other microbes extract CO2 or other target

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

gases biologically, via photosynthesis or other naturalenergy pathways, eliminating the energy inputs required
for separation. Microbial systems can even operate
efficiently at the relatively low CO2 concentrations
found in flue gases from natural gas or coal-fired power
plants, and can be deployed economically at relatively
small scale to address emissions from smaller power
plants and industrial facilities that cannot support
traditional CCS systems. Microbial systems also convert
the captured carbon into a usable solid or liquid form
directly, eliminating the substantial energy inputs required
to compress captured CO2 for transport, or for use inenhanced oil recovery. As such, microbial carbon capturesystems applied to biomass energy or other biorefinery systems
offer one of the most carbon-negative climate solutions
available.
DOE in its 2016 Billion Ton Report found thatsuitable land and other infrastructure exists to deploy algaebased carbon capture systems at more than 500 power plants
and ethanol facilities in the U.S. These systems would have apotential to capture more than 200 MT CO2 annually.125
Biomass and carbon capture can then be combinedwith the carbon dioxide recycling technologies discussed
in Section 2.1 to produce negative-carbon products from
captured biogenic carbon. The biomass energy carbon
capture and utilization (BECCU) process displaces bothfossil energy consumption and fossil fuel emissions. As
with BECCS, BECCU uses biogenic carbon to generateenergy via combustion, displacing fossil fuels in theprocess. The resulting carbon dioxide is captured but,instead of being sequestered, is converted into yet
another fuel or product that displaces additional fossil
fuels. BECCU can still be carbon-negative, either because
it displaces more carbon dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels than it emits when the utilization takes the formof conversion to biofuels or biodegradable products, or
because the utilization takes the form of conversion to
non-biodegradable products.126 In the latter case, carbon
sequestration still occurs, but in a long-lifetime product,
rather than geologic storage.
BECCS and BECCU are not widely employed in
the U.S. at present due to a relative lack of economic
or policy incentives for the capture of carbon dioxide.
Those CCS projects that do exist in North America
involve fossil rather than biogenic sources of carbon.127
That said, climate scientists increasingly believe thatthe two technologies will need to be widely utilized if
catastrophic climate change is to be avoided. The UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
has concluded that keeping the atmospheric carbon
dioxide level below 450 ppm by 2100, as is necessary if
catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, will require

the “availability and widespread deployment of BECCS
and afforestation.”128 The primary hurdle facing BECCS/
BECCU commercialization is one of economics rather thantechnology: carbon capture is economically unattractiveat a time when the cost of emissions is lower than thecost of capture.129 The technical feasibility of captureand sequestration is especially well-established for thosetechnologies that rely upon natural processes such as
the building of soil carbon via afforestation/reforestationor the planting of certain dedicated energy crops. BECCU
also offers an advantage over BECCS in the absence ofa high emissions cost due to its production of highervalue products such as fuels or chemicals; BECCS, bycontrast, produces lower-value products such as heat andelectricity.130
The ability of BECCS to achieve net-negative
carbon emissions and their magnitude depend on
several different factors involving the different stagesof the supply chain. A comparison of multiple biomass
feedstocks combusted in a power plant equipped with
CCS technology determined that while growth of the three
feedstocks considered (Miscanthus, switchgrass, andwillow) all have the potential to achieve net sequestration,
the actual amount of sequestration that occurs isdetermined by biomass transportation distances, carbon
capture rates, and especially land-use change (e.g., what
type of land that the biomass feedstock is grown on).131
The analysis calculated that the amount of carbon dioxide
ultimately sequestered on average while generating one
megawatt hour of electricity via BECCS with Miscanthus
and switchgrass is equal to the average amount emitted
by U.S. power plants to generate an equal amount ofelectricity.
BECCU has also been found to achieve low-tonegative carbon intensities. A life cycle assessment thatcompared the carbon intensities of ethanol produced
from steel mill waste gases found its carbon footprint to
be at least 60% lower than that of gasoline.132 Dedicatedenergy crops such as Miscanthus and willow grown forthe purpose of electricity generation have been found toachieve net-negative emissions of carbon dioxide due tothe combined effects of soil carbon sequestration andthe displacement of fossil fuels.133 A different analysis
found emissions via afforestation/reforestation to also
be negative even if the forest is harvested and utilized aswood products such as sawtimber, as these constitute a
different form of BECCU.134
The carbon dioxide reduction and sequestration
potential of BECCS/BECCU technologies is very sensitive
to land-use change. For example, the largest amount of
sequestration occurs when dedicated energy crop growthor afforestation/reforestation occurs on abandoned or

TECHNOLOGIES

27

marginal croplands that have previously had their soil
carbon depleted. On the other hand, the conversion ofgrassland to these uses results in a reduced sequestration
potential, while the conversion of productive cropland
can have the lowest sequestration potential of all if theresulting decrease in the supply of the crop causes theconversion of land such as forest to cropland somewhere
else. Biotechnology provides several methods for
mitigating these unintended consequences throughadvances in plant and crop science that are described in
more detail in Section 2.4.1.
119 h tt p :/ /www.c 2es .o r g /content/carbon- capture/
1 20 h tt p :/ /www.p n a s .o r g/content/pnas/early/2 0 1 8 /0 4 /1 8 /1 7 1 9 695115.
f u l l . p df
1 21 h tt p :/ /www.p n a s .o r g/content/pnas/early/2 0 1 8 /0 4 /1 8 /1 7 1 9 695115.
f u l l . p df
1 22 h tt p :/ /www.en er g y.gov/f e/articles/doe- announces- major- m i l e st one - r e a c h ed -illin o is -in d u s t r i al- ccs- project
1 23 h tt p :/ /a lg a eb io ma s s .org/blog/1 0 6 5 5 /2 0 2 0 - will- see- record- fe d e r al - f u n d i n g -alg a e-r d /1 24 h tt p :/ /www.r eu t er s .com/article/us- carboncapture- economi c s - k e mp /c ar b o n -c ap t u r es- energy- penalty- problem- kemp- idUSK C N 0H W0T Z20141007
1 25 h tt p :/ /a lg a eb io ma s s .org/blog/9 5 4 1 /doe- 2 0 1 6 - billion- ton- re p or t -am p l e -r es o u r c es -fo r -alg a e-production- in- the- u- s/
1 26 h tt p :/ /www.s lid es h are.net/UKCCSRC/richard- murphy- cardiff b ase p 14
127 h tt p ://fas .o r g /s g p /c rs/misc/R4 4 9 0 2 .pdf
128 h tt p ://www.ip c c .c h / site/assets/uploads/2 0 1 8 /0 2 /ipcc_ wg3 _ar 5_
s u m m a r y-fo r -p o lic yma kers.pdf
129 h tt p ://www.s c ien c edirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S 0 959652614009536
130 h tt p ://www.s c ien c edirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
S 1 36403211730014X
131 h tt p ://p u b s .r s c .o r g / en/content/articlelanding/ee/2 0 1 7 /c7 ee 00465f
132 h tt p ://p u b s .a c s .o r g / doi/abs/1 0 .1 0 2 1 /acs.iecr.5 b0 3 2 1 5133 h tt p ://www.s c ien c edirect.com/science/article/pii/
S 0 961953409002402
134 h tt p ://lin k.s p r in g er .com/article/1 0 .1 0 0 7 /s1 1 3 6 7 - 0 1 3 - 0 6 2 9 - 6

LANZATE CH
CASE STU DY
LanzaTech is unique for its ability to make low
carbon fuels and chemicals from a variety of wastebased feedstocks, including industrial emissions,
unsorted, unrecyclable municipal solid waste, andagricultural or forestry wastes and residues. The
company utilizes a naturally occurring bacteria
originally isolated from rabbit droppings. As partof its natural biology, the bacteria ferments gases
containing carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and/or hydrogen into ethanol. This ethanol can beused directly as a fuel to displace gasoline or asa chemical in consumer products. 135 Additionally,
ethanol can be upgraded to make consumer goods
from polyethylene 136 or PET, and to make sustainableaviation fuel (SAF) via the LanzaJet Alcohol-to-Jet
pathway, 137 to displace fossil fuel demand in theaviation sector. The opportunities for LanzaTech’s
technologies to utilize waste carbon to produce
multiple low carbon fuels and chemicals has
expanded over the last decade as its technology has
been licensed worldwide.
The LanzaTech pathway differs from conventional
ethanol production in that it feeds its
microorganisms with a gas stream rather than aliquid sugar substrate. While carbon is the mostimportant ingredient in this gas stream, themicroorganisms are capable of fermenting gases
produced from a variety of industrial processes andfeedstocks. The gases are captured and compressed
before being delivered to a bioreactor wherefermentation to ethanol occurs. The ethanol is thenrecovered from the bioreactor and stored for future
use either in that form or following subsequent
upgrading to a hydrocarbon fuel.
The first commercial-scale facility to utilize
LanzaTech’s pathway is a steel mill located near
Beijing, China. Waste gases produced at the mill
are captured and fermented to ethanol at a rate of
16 million gallons per year. The company estimatesthat the recycling of the mill’s GHG emissions inthis manner is the equivalent of removing 80,000
cars from the road annually. 138 The success of thetechnology at such a large scale has resulted inplans to apply it to other types of industrial facilities,
including a petroleum refinery in India that willachieve an annual ethanol yield of 11 million gallons,a steel mill in Belgium that will achieve an annual
ethanol yield of 21 million gallons, and a smelter inSouth Africa that will achieve an annual ethanol yieldof 17 million gallons.
Beyond recycled carbon fuels, LanzaTech’s platform
can make second generation biofuels throughgasification of biomass wastes and residues.
LanzaTech is developing a project to convert locally28

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

available agricultural residues to approximately
5.3 million gallons per year of fuel grade ethanol
in India, using commercially proven gasification
technology and LanzaTech’s commercially provengas fermentation platform. The integrated
technology will have the flexibility to process awide range of biomass feedstocks enabling rapid
replication at other locations.
A by-product of the project will be a nutrient richbiochar. Biochar can be a useful soil supplement toenrich soil organic carbon and other nutrients.
In 2018, LanzaTech launched a new company,
LanzaJet to accelerate the commercialization of
SAF production. The LanzaJet process can use
any source of sustainable ethanol for jet fuelproduction, including, but not limited to, ethanol
made from recycled pollution, the core applicationof LanzaTech’s carbon recycling platform.
Commercialization of this process, called Alcoholto-Jet (AtJ) has been years in the making, startingwith the partnership between LanzaTech and theU.S Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL developed a unique
catalytic process to upgrade ethanol to alcohol-tojet synthetic paraffinic kerosene (ATJ-SPK) which
LanzaTech took from the laboratory to pilot scale.
SAF produced via the company’s pathway has
already been employed in two commercial flights
to demonstrate its ability to displace fossil aviation
fuel. 139 LanzaTech estimates that SAF produced using
its technology achieves a 70% reduction to carbon
intensity compared to fossil aviation fuel.

1 3 5 h ttp : / / w w w . c n b c . c o m/ 2 0 1 8 / 0 7 / 2 7/lan zat ech -t u rn s-carbon -w ast e-in to - e th a n o l - to - o n e - d a y - p o w e r - p l a n e s - cars.h t m l
1 3 6 h ttp : / / w w w . l a n z a te c h . c o m/ 2 0 1 8 / 10/04/virgin -at lan t ic-lan zat ech -celeb r a te - r e v o l u ti o n a r y - s u s ta i n a b l e - f u e l -project -t akes-fligh t /137 h t t p: / / www. l a n za t e c h . c om / 2019 / 1 1 / 2 2 / lan z at e ch -mo ve s-fo rward- on - s u s t a i n a bl e - a vi a t i on - s c a l e - u p- i n -t h e -u sa-an d-japan /1 3 8 h ttp : / / w w w . c n b c . c o m/ 2 0 1 8 / 0 7 / 2 7/lan zat ech -t u rn s-carbon -w ast e-in to - e th a n o l - to - o n e - d a y - p o w e r - p l a n e s - cars.h t m l
1 3 9 h ttp : / / w w w . l a n z a te c h . c o m/ 2 0 1 8 / 10/04/virgin -at lan t ic-lan zat ech -celeb r a te - r e v o l u ti o n a r y - s u s ta i n a b l e - f u e l -project -t akes-fligh t /2 .3 NE W B I OT E CH
TOO L S A N D B I O IND USTR I A L
MANU FACT UR I N G
2.3 .1 N E W B I OTEC H TO O L S
Rapid advances in the fundamental tools of
biotechnology increasingly are enabling biotech solutions
in manufacturing sectors beyond food, fuels andchemicals. These developments offer the potential fortransformative climate solutions in applications beyond
manufacturing as well.
Biotech tools for manipulating DNA have been in use
for decades. Many of the most important contributionsof biotechnology – vaccines and therapies, biotech crops,
and modern industrial biotechnology – were madepossible by this first generation of genetic engineering
tools. But the past decade has seen a wave of new biotech
tool innovation with transformative potential. In synthetic
biology, scientists insert synthesized pieces of DNA into anorganism's genome to alter the characteristics or functionof the organism. In genome editing, scientists use tools to
make more precise changes to the organism's own DNA
to achieve the same outcome.137 These and other new
biotech tools have dramatically increased the speed andreduced the cost of genetic engineering applications andare being deployed to tackle a range of global challenges,
including climate change.138

2.3 .2 A P P L I C ATI O N S O F
BIO - M A N UFAC TU R I N G I N
T R A DI T I ON A L I N D US TR I ES
Some of industrial biotechnology’s earliest uses
were in the application of enzymes to improve efficiency
and reduce energy use in traditional industries. The
introduction of enzymes for pulp and paper bleaching,for example, reduced energy consumption 40% versus
traditional bleaching, and a shift to fermentation-based

30

production of riboflavin (vitamin B2) in the early 2000’s
reduced associated CO2 emissions 80% compared to the
traditional chemical manufacturing route.139 Applicationsof enzymes in textile processing, such as pretreatment,
bleaching and desizing, save approximately 10 MTCO2eannually today. Full adoption of these technologies
would triple these reductions. The widespread use of
enzymes in laundry and dishwasher detergent could
save an additional 30 MTCO2e annually by 2040 byallowing for cold-water washing of laundry and more
efficient dishwashing. Full market penetration of biotech
applications in these traditional industries is estimatedto save 65 MTCO2e annually by 2030.140 While these GHG
are incremental relative to the global challenge of climatechange, they represent near-term opportunities that willbe essential to reducing near-term emissions.

GHG r ed uct i o n p o t ent i a l fr o m a p p l i ca t i o ns o f bi o t echno l o g y t o t r a d itio n a l in d us t r i es . S o ur ce: Fi g ur e 7 , ht t p s: / / wwf e u. awsasse t s. p and a. or g/ d o w n l o a d s /wwf _ b i ot e c h_ t e c hni c al _ r e p or t . p d f

2. 3 . 3 NE W MAR KE TS ANDNOVE L APPLICATIO NSWith the emergence of synthetic biology and theability to tailor microbes to specific industrial tasks,
industrial biotechnology solutions are moving into anever-expanding range of applications. A rapidly growing
number of companies, such as Gingko Bioworks, Arzeda,
and Twist Biosciences, are providing organism design andDNA synthesis services, using synthetic-biology and othermodern biotechnology tools to optimize manufacturing
pathways. SynBio companies raised over $1 billion in
investment in the second quarter of 2019 alone.141
One intriguing potential application of these new

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

biotech tools is in biological data storage, the storage ofdata on strands of DNA instead of semiconductors ormagnetic devices. DNA is roughly a million times denser
than conventional hard-disk storage. Testing is now
underway with computers that store data by synthesizing
strands of DNA. A shift to biological data storage would
eliminate the need for mining and production of silicon or
precious metals. More significantly, it could dramaticallyreduce the need for massive data storage facilities.142
Energy consumption by data storage facilities alreadyaccounts for 2% of global GHG emissions, and is projected
to surge to 14% of global emissions by 2040.143 DARPA,
the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency, is investing $15 million in work by Microsoft,
Twist Bioscience, and others to develop DNA storage.144 A
collaboration between the University of Washington andMicrosoft successfully demonstrated their fully-automatedend-to-end DNA storage process in 2019.145
Biology-based parallel computing – in which biomolecules are used to test a large number of solutions
to a problem simultaneously – is also being evaluated asanother potential application of biotechnology. A proof ofconcept experiment at McGill University yielded a solution
to a complex mathematical problem with less than 0.1% of
the energy required to solve the problem with traditional
computing.146
Synthetic biology is also being deployed to accelerate
the development of solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to applications in manufacturing,
synthetic biology has the potential to provide
transformative solutions for carbon dioxide removal fromthe atmosphere and oceans.147
Synthetic biology could be applied to enhancephotosynthetic efficiency of trees, or reduce respirationfrom soil microbes, to shift natural carbon cycles towards
carbon removal. Even small improvements in thesenatural carbon cycles could have profound impacts, giventhat 120 GTCO2e is removed from the atmosphere byterrestrial photosynthesis.148 As discussed in section 2.2.2,
deployment of microbial systems for carbon capture has
the potential to further draw down atmospheric carbon
concentrations.

1 4 3 h ttp : / / w w w . s c i e n c e d i r e c t. c o m/ s cien ce/art icle/abs/pii/
S095965261733233X?via%3Dihub
1 4 4 h ttp : / / w w w . w i r e d . c o m/ s to r y / d a r pa-w an t s-t o-bu ild-an -im age-search - e n g i n e - o u t- o f - d n a /1 4 5 h ttp : / / n e w s . mi c r o s o f t. c o m/ i n n o vat ion -st ories/h ello-dat a-dn a-st orage/
1 4 6 N i c o l a u , D V, e t a l . P a r a l l e l c o mp ut in g w it h m olecu lar m ot ors.
P r o c e e d i n g s o f th e N a ti o n a l A c a d e my of Scien ces M ar 2016, 113 (10)
2 5 9 1 - 2 5 9 6 ; D O I : 1 0 . 1 0 7 3 / p n a s . 1 5 1 0 8 25113. h t t ps://w w w .pn as.org/con te n t/ 1 1 3 / 1 0 / 2 5 9 1 . a b s tr a c t
1 4 7 h ttp : / / w w w . w s j . c o m/ a r ti c l e s / c o m pan ies-ru sh -t o-sh ore-u p-covid- 1 9 - te s ti n g - a h e a d - o f - f l u - s e a s o n - 1 1 5 9 8788800
1 4 8 D e L i s i , C . T h e r o l e o f s y n th e ti c b i ology in clim at e ch an ge m it igat ion .
B i o l D i r e c t 1 4 , 1 4 ( 2 0 1 9 ) . h ttp s : / / d o i . org/10.1186/s13062-019-0247-8.
h ttp : / / b i o l o g y d i r e c t. b i o me d c e n tr a l . c om /art icles/10.1186/s13062-0190247-8
1 4 9 H u , G. e t a l . E n g i n e e r i n g M i c r o o r gan ism s for En h an ced CO2 Sequ estr a ti o n . T r e n d s i n Bi o te c h n o l o g y 3 7 ( 5), 532-547, M ay 2019. h t t ps://doi.
o r g / 1 0 . 1 0 1 6 / j . ti b te c h . 2 0 1 8 . 1 0 . 0 0 8 . h t t p://w w w .cell.com /t ren ds/biot ech n o l o g y / f u l l te x t/ S 0 1 6 7 - 7 7 9 9 ( 1 8 ) 3 0 3 0 4 -4

1 3 7 h ttp : / / w w w . g e n o me . g o v / a b o u t- g e n o mi c s / p o l i c y - i s s u e s / S y n th e ti c -Biology
1 3 8 h ttp : / / w w w . g e n o me . g o v / a b o u t- g e n o mi c s / f a c t- s h e e ts / S e q u e n c i n g - H u ma n - Ge n o me - c o s t
1 3 9 h ttp : / / w w w . b i o . o r g / s i te s / d e f a u l t/ f i l e s / l e g a c y / b i o o r g / d o c s / f i l e s / C l e a n e r E x e c S u mm. p d f
1 4 0 h ttp : / / w w f e u . a w s a s s e ts . p a n d a . o r g / d o w n l o a d s / w w f _ b i o te c h _ te c h n i c a l _ r e p o r t. p d f
1 4 1 h ttp : / / s y n b i o b e ta . c o m/ th e s e - 3 7 - s y n th e ti c - b i o l o g y - c o mp a n i e s - r a i s e d - 1 - 2 b - th i s - q u a r te r /1 4 2 h ttp : / / w w w . s c i e n ti f i c a me r i c a n . c o m/ a r ti c l e / d n a - d a ta - s to r a g e - i s - c l o s e r - th a n - y o u - th i n k /TECHNOLOGIES

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2.4 PLA NT
A ND A NIMA L
BIOTECH NOLOGY
2.4.1 PLAN T B IOTECHN OLOGYAN D GEN E EDITIN G

IN SCR I PTACASE S T U DY
The power of synthetic biology lies in its ability
to make possible microbes to perform any task.
SynBio innovators are applying the tools of theirtrade to design microbes to make plastics fromplants, optimize fertilizer, capture carbon and evencombat COVID-19. But unlocking the full potentialof synthetic biology to take on the world’s greatest
challenges – including climate change – will require
synbio tools to be available to every scientist or
biotech start-up.
Jennifer Doudna at the University of California,
Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier at the Max
Planck Institute in Berlin were awarded the 2020Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in developing
the CRISPR gene editing technique, an approachthat has revolutionized genetic engineering. But,
until recently, CRISPR technology was prohibitively
complex and expensive for most researchers.
In 2019, Boulder, Colorado-based Inscripta flipped
the script, launching an affordable system that canperform thousands of gene edits at the push of abutton. 150 This innovation has attracted hundreds ofmillions of dollars in venture capital investments anda growing list of global customers, many of whom
will surely apply the technology to addressing global
climate change.
150 h tt p :/ /www.in s c r ip t a.com/news/press- release- inscripta- launc he s-t h e -w o r ld s -fir s t -b en c h t op- platf orm- for- digital- genome- enginee r i ng

Biomass has a critical role to play in efforts tomitigate climate change. As described in Sections 2.1 and
2.2, biomass can replace a wide variety of fossil fuels andproducts, reducing or even sequestering carbon dioxide
emissions in the process. At the same time, though,biomass can contribute to climate change if it is usedunsustainably, and it will need to adapt to unprecedented
growing conditions as the planet continues to warm.
Biotechnology is providing important advantages on bothcounts, enhancing the amount of biomass that can besustainably harvested while also improving the climate
resiliency of many important crops and other plants.
Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have beenused since the 1990s to make important crops such as
grains and oilseeds resistant to common threats including
drought and pests. These past breakthroughs mitigatedclimate change by reducing the amount of land requiredby the agriculture sector. Yields of corn per acre in the
U.S. increased by approximately 60% between 1991 and2019151 while those of soybeans increased by almost
50% over the same period.152 There were fewer acres ofcropland in production in the U.S. in 2012 than there werein 1945,153 despite the large increases to the U.S. andworld populations that occurred over that time, due tothis improved productivity.
It is important that these productivity increases
continue to be made in the coming decades if agriculture’s
contributions to climate change are to be limited. The
continued growth of the global population will create
additional demand for crops at a time when growing
seasons and conditions are expected to become more
uncertain due to climate change.154 Future food crop
shortages, whether due to increased demand from
population growth or crop failures caused by extreme
weather, would potentially contribute to climate change
by encouraging the conversion of carbon sinks such as
grassland and forests to cropland, thereby releasing
carbon dioxide sequestered in the biomass and soil to theatmosphere. Likewise, improvements to the resiliency ofdedicated energy crops during extreme weather events
will improve both climate and energy security by enabling
their utilization as low-carbon bioenergy and bioproductfeedstocks to increase.
Biotechnology is also enabling the expansionof existing bioenergy pathways. The U.S. is currently
undergoing a rapid increase to its renewable diesel
production capacity that will result in additional demand
for lipid feedstocks.155 Work is underway to utilize fastgrowing and/or resilient undomesticated biomass such
as Jatropha and microalgae as biofuels feedstocks. Bothforms of biomass can grow on marginal lands while
limiting the disturbance of existing carbon sinks. However,their utilization as bioenergy has historically been
constrained by poor crop yields outside of the laboratory.
Cell engineering has enabled the necessary yields forcommercial production to be achieved in microalgae,156
and research is actively underway to improve Jatropha
as a feedstock.157 Biotechnology is also being utilized to
expand the supply of lipid feedstocks by enabling theconversion of waste products, as is described in Section
1.1.1.
The development of the CRISPR gene editing
technique over the last decade has already led to notablebreakthroughs in the effort to mitigate climate change.
In addition to microalgae,158 multiple strains of bacteria,
yeast, and filamentous fungi have been modified via
the CRISPR technique to increase the yields and typesof products produced via fermentation.159 The CRISPR
technique has also been employed with dedicated energy
crops such as Miscanthus, poplar, switchgrass, and willow
to refine specific traits that improve both resiliency andyields, although the higher complexity of these forms ofbiomass and regulatory uncertainty about their possible
status as genetically modified organisms have slowed
progress.160 Finally, CRISPR gene editing has also been
employed to improve the resiliency and carbon efficiencyof 1st-generation bioenergy feedstocks such as corn161
and soybeans under the types of extreme weather
conditions that are expected to occur with growing
frequency as a result of climate change.162
Biotechnology is also being used to develop plantvarieties, including apples and potatoes, that extend
shelf life and avoid cosmetic issues, such as browning or
spotting, that cause consumers to throw away food.163
Biotechnology has enabled major improvements tothe yields, land-use efficiency, and resiliency of important
U.S. bioenergy feedstocks in recent decades. Continued
biotechnology advances will need to occur in the near
future if these improvements are to be maintained,
let alone expanded upon. Climate change is expected

TECHNOLOGIES

33

to result in extreme weather events that are greaterin frequency, magnitude, and duration, and these will
threaten production of both the feedstocks that havecontributed heavily to U.S. bioenergy and bioproducts
to date as well as the plant biomass that slows therate of atmospheric GHG concentration increase. The
development of the CRISPR gene editing technique, alongwith continued advances in more traditional genetic
engineering processes, will do much to enhance the abilityof biomass to mitigate fossil fuel consumption and GHG
emissions.

2.4.2 A N I M A L B I OTE C H N O LO GY
In addition to the on-farm applications addressed inprevious sections, biotechnology is also being leveraged
to improve the carbon efficiency of animal agriculture
through genetic engineering of the animals themselves.
The biotech AquaBounty salmon, for example, requires
25% less feed than traditional Atlantic salmon. The
combination of lower inputs and a closed-loop, landbased production system that can be deployed muchcloser to U.S. customers is estimated to result in a carbon
footprint that is 96% lower than traditional farmed
salmon.164
Biotech tools are also being used to improve fertility,
increase production efficiency, and reduce diseasein cattle, swine and other animals, further reducing
waste in animal production. Scientists in the U.S. are
employing genomic tools to improve the ability of cattle
to tolerate higher temperatures while maintaining their
growth.165 Heat stress, which is an increasing problem
in the livestock sector due to climate change, limits the
production of animal protein, and heat-tolerant cattle
will be better able to maintain their production efficiency
as temperatures increase. The genetic sequencing of
dairy cattle has likewise led to efforts to improve theefficiency of milk production via genetic engineering.166
Livestock are a major source of the potent greenhousegas methane, causing improvements to the efficiency ofprotein and milk production to have an outsized impact
on GHG emissions.

34

151 ht t p : / / www. nass. usd a. gov / C har t s_ and _ M ap s/ F i e l d _ C r op s/ co r n y l d .
p hp
152 ht t p : / / www. nass. usd a. gov / C har t s_ and _ M ap s/ F i e l d _ C r op s/ s o y y l d . p h p
153 ht t p : / / www. e r s. usd a. gov / we b d oc s/ Dat aF i l e s/ 52096/ C r op l and _ 19452012_ b y _ st at e . x l s?v =26. 3
154 ht t p : / / www. f ao. or g/ 3/ I 9553EN / i 9553e n. p d f
155 ht t p : / / www. f ue l si nst i t ut e . or g/ ge t at t ac hm e nt / Re se ar c h/ B i o ma s s - B a se d -Di e se l -A -Mar k e t -and -Pe r f or m anc e -A nal / B i om ass-B ase d -Di e s e l _ E x e c ut i v e -S um m ar y . p d f ?l ang=e n-U S
156 A j j awi , I . , V e r r ut o, J . , A q ui , M . e t al . L i p i d p r od uc t i on i n N a n n o c hl or op si s gad i t ana i s d oub l e d b y d e c r e asi ng e xp r e ssi on of a s i n g l e
t r ansc r i p t i onal r e gul at or . N at B i ot e c hnol 35, 647– 652 (2017). h ttp : / / d o i .
or g/ 10. 1038/ nb t . 3865. ht t p : / / www. nat ur e . c om / ar t i c l e s/ nb t . 386 5
157 S . A . C e asar , S . I gnac i m ut hu, A p p l i c at i ons of b i ot e c hnol ogy a n d
b i oc he m i c al e ngi ne e r i ng f or t he i m p r ov e m e nt of J at r op ha and Bi o d i e s e l :A r e v i e w, Re ne wab l e and S ust ai nab l e Ene r gy Re v i e ws, 15(9), 2 0 1 1 , 5 1 7 6 5185, I S S N 1364-0321, ht t p : / / d oi . or g/ 10. 1016/ j . r se r . 2011. 07. 03 9 . h ttp : / /www. sc i e nc e d i r e c t . c om / sc i e nc e / ar t i c l e / ab s/ p i i / S 136403211100 2 7 9 6158 S hi n, S E. , L i m , J M . , Koh, H . e t al . C RI S PR/ C as9-i nd uc e d k no c k o u t
and k noc k -i n m ut at i ons i n C hl am y d om onas r e i nhar d t i i . S c i Rep 6 , 2 7 8 1 0(2016). ht t p : / / d oi . or g/ 10. 1038/ sr e p 27810. ht t p s: / / www. nat ur e . c o m/ar t i c l e s/ sr e p 27810
159 Paul D. Donohoue , Rod ol p he B ar r angou, A nd r e w P. M ay , A d v a n c e s i n
I nd ust r i al B i ot e c hnol ogy U si ng C RI S PR-C as S y st e m s, T r e nd s i n Bi o te c h nol ogy , 36(2), 2018, 134-146, I S S N 0167-7799, ht t p s: / / d oi . or g/1 0 . 1 0 1 6 / j .
t i b t e c h. 2017. 07. 007. ht t p : / / www. sc i e nc e d i r e c t . c om / sc i e nc e / ar ti c l e / a b s /p i i / S 0167779917301877
160 ht t p : / / onl i ne l i b r ar y . wi l e y . c om / d oi / f ul l / 10. 1111/ gc b b . 1256 6
161 ht t p : / / onl i ne l i b r ar y . wi l e y . c om / d oi / f ul l / 10. 1111/ p b i . 12603
162 Doane C hi l c oat , Z han-B i n L i u, J e f f r y S and e r , C hap t e r T wo - Us e o f
C RI S PR/ C as9 f or C r op I m p r ov e m e nt i n M ai z e and S oy b e an, Ed i to r ( s ) : D o nal d P. W e e k s, B i ng Yang, Pr ogr e ss i n M ol e c ul ar B i ol ogy and T r a n s l a ti o nal S c i e nc e , A c ad e m i c Pr e ss, V ol um e 149, 2017, 27-46, I S S N 18 7 7 - 1 1 7 3 ,I S B N 9780128117439, ht t p s: / / d oi . or g/ 10. 1016/ b s. p m b t s. 2017. 0 4 . 0 0 5 .
ht t p : / / www. sc i e nc e d i r e c t . c om / sc i e nc e / ar t i c l e / p i i / S 1877117317 3 0 0 6 5 0
163 ht t p : / / www. f or b e s. c om / si t e s/ gm oanswe r s/ 2016/ 11/ 18/ gm o s - h e l p - r e
d uc e -f ood -wast e / # 710a513943b c
164 ht t p : / / aq uab ount y . c om / sust ai nab l e /165 ht t p : / / www. d i gi t al t r e nd s. c om / c ool -t e c h/ ge ne t i c -e ngi ne e r - h e a t- r e s i s t ant -c ows/
166 ht t p : / / www. wp r . or g/ how-we -p r od uc e -m or e -m i l k -f e we r -c ow s

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3

CL IMATE IMPACT
A NA LYS IS

3.1 I SSU E S I N LCA FO R
BI OTE C H N O LO GY
Successfully mitigating the impacts of climate change
will involve simultaneous transformational shifts acrosstechnology, policy and business. Effectively planning,
managing and evaluating these shifts will require an
equally profound shift in how we track and account for
carbon. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is widely regarded as
the most appropriate and effective way of evaluating
the carbon impacts of products and processes in thecomplex, modern economy. LCA is an analytical techniquein which all inputs, outputs and impacts of a product orprocess are tracked and accounted for through its full life
cycle. This includes the materials used to make things,
the energy and associated emissions from transportingand processing them, and what happens at the end of
a product’s useful life. LCA is especially important andcomplex when biological systems are involved, since they
introduce a significant degree of uncertainty; external
conditions, pathogens, or changes in surrounding
ecosystems can all impact the productivity of any
organism.
There are three main approaches to LCA: attributional
LCA, consequential LCA and economic input-output(EIO) LCA. Attributional LCA focuses on the direct actions
taken by a producer in order to make a product; all of
the energy or materials consumed during production
would be captured by an attributional LCA, for example.
Consequential LCA, in contrast, focuses on comparing
the world with the product in question to a hypotheticalworld without it; it not only captures all the materials
used in production, but also how the product and its
supply chains affect markets or other products. EIO LCA
uses the flow of money through systems to estimate
environmental impacts. For example, an EIO-LCA may
use the average carbon emissions per dollar of revenue
in the petrochemical industry to estimate the impacts ofpetrochemical inputs to other products. The accuracy of
EIO LCA suffers because its impact-per-dollar estimates
are, by necessity, industry averages or abstract estimates.
It is best used for high level, market-wide estimatesrather than evaluating individual products or services.
Attributional LCA is simpler than consequential, especiallyfor most manufacturing processes, but consequential LCA
is widely viewed as a more accurate technique because it
can account for indirect effects, such as those that occur
because of changes in commodity prices or disrupted
supply chains. Attributional LCA would overlook the
impact of new strains of crop on agricultural markets, for

36example, whereas consequential approaches may be able
to account for these.
The science of LCA has rapidly evolved over recent
decades; however, a number of critical challenges remain
pertaining to LCA in biotech:
Lack of Data on Critical Inputs or Processes - Like mostmodeling techniques, the results of an LCA are only as
good as the input data. In many cases, critical elements
needed to understand the impacts of a product or process
are unavailable, due to insufficient fundamental research,
protections on proprietary information, or changes
in technology. One common example is that manybiotechnological manufacturing systems use enzymes or
catalysts. Data on the energy or materials used to makethese inputs is typically considered proprietary businessinformation, which renders many LCAs on biotech
products uncertain, at best. In other instances, the only
source of data on an industrial practice is extrapolated
from textbooks or older research on the subject, often
overlooking recent technological developments in thefield.
Inadequate tracking of existing markets or systems Consequential LCA’s value derives largely from its ability toassess indirect effects. A common example of an indirect
effect is Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), which occurs
when a system uses an agricultural product as its input,
such as a biofuel made from soybean oil. While the biofuel
itself may release little carbon during its production oruse, the gallons of soybean oil which went into the biofuelwould have otherwise been consumed elsewhere, suchas in food products, animal feed or cosmetics. Those
previous consumers must now find alternative sourcesof vegetable oil on the open market, driving up prices,which may result in clearing land to grow more oilseed
crops. This land clearance is ILUC, the acres being cleared
may not be used to produce biofuel, but they are cleared
because of biofuel. Consequential LCA often requires
tracking markets, land use, or behavior over a long periodof time in order to establish “normal” behavior in thatsystem; at present these data are often not collected, orare proprietary.
Multiple LCA Methods - LCA is at its heart a scientificexercise, but parts of it require subjective judgment, likedecisions about how to define system boundaries orallocate impacts between multiple products. There may
be multiple valid answers to these judgment questions.
For example, in the U.S. almost all ethanol production
takes in corn and produces ethanol as well as the solids
left behind after processing, which are typically sold as a

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

high-protein animal feed known as “distiller’s grains”. The
question for LCA practitioners is how much of the energy
used in the process is assigned to the ethanol productvs. the distiller’s grains. There are several methods fordoing this, such as assigning based on the relative mass,energy content or monetary value of each product, butthere is no objectively right or wrong answer about which
method should be selected; it’s a judgment call. Whentrue objectivity may be impossible to attain, consensus
can be a reasonable substitute. Government, industry andacademic stakeholders can mutually agree on answers toquestions like this to ensure that at the very least, LCAs
can be made on the basis of similar assumptions, so thatthey can be effectively compared against each other.
Ultimately, the analytical tools which support LCA willneed to evolve in parallel with the biotech industry as it
rises to meet the challenge of climate change. Industry
groups can help support the continued development of
LCA data by supporting basic research, agreeing to makemore data on inputs and outputs from manufacturing
available to researchers, and continuing to support
and publish LCA studies of their products. Luckily, LCA
shares a common characteristic of many sciences: as
knowledge accumulates, future studies become easierand more powerful. Groups of companies that use similar
processes to make a common product can aggregate theirdata together to publish industry averages for energy
or materials use, thereby protecting their proprietarybusiness information while improving analysts’ ability
to research. LCA data developed for one study is often
used in subsequent ones; students who study realworld examples emerge better prepared to contributein real-world work; and as more studies are publishedand critiqued, consensus emerges. While successfully
mitigating climate change will require significant newinvestments in cleaner technologies and production
systems, complementary investments must occur inevaluation and analysis of these systems to ensure that
the LCA tools necessary to inform the next decades’
decisions evolve as well.
Keys to Maximizing Biotech’s Potential to Reduce GHG
Emissions• GHG accounting needs to be based on life cycle
analysis, and include indirect effects such as ILUC.
Industry groups can help by making data available toregulators and researchers; IP can be protected byaggregating or anonymizing the data.
• Most biotech solutions will require massive amountsof feedstock, finding ways to produce this more
efficiently will always be useful.
• Using waste biomass to produce energy can make areal difference, but keeping organic carbon in solid
form as long as possible maximizes GHG benefits.
• Biofuels may not be zero-carbon, but they can be very
low carbon and the scale of transportation means
making them sustainable and scalable is criticallyimportant.
• Carbon capture and sequestration will be necessary
for success, but as a complement to reducing
emissions, not a replacement.

3.2 GH G MIT I G AT I ON
POTENTIA L ON
NATIONA L (U . S. )S CA LE
3.2.1 PRODUCIN G S US TA I N A BL E
B IOMAS S FEEDS TO C K
Biomass is one key to decarbonizing the U.S.
economy because it leverages the capacity ofphotosynthesis to remove carbon from the atmosphereand convert it to carbohydrates, which can be utilized
for their embodied energy, carbon, or both. In theory,
biomass can be a carbon-neutral resource, but in practicethe situation is much more complex. Growing biomass,
especially at commercial scales, typically requires fertilizer
and other inputs which have associated emissions.
Depending on how the land being used for biomass istreated, there may be additional sources, or sinks, ofcarbon in the soil. Understanding the emissions impactsof biomass across its full life cycle requires understanding
the ecosystems, carbon and nutrient cycles at play where
it’s grown. Given the potential for biomass production toresult in significant and unexpected emissions of carbon,
a risk-averse approach is prudent, but the immense
potential of biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts argues
in favor of utilizing these resources where available. While
there is significant uncertainty around the emissions
associated with any source of biomass, there are a few
useful rules of thumb:cli m a te i m p a ct a n a l y sis

37

1.

2.

3.

4.

Biomass can be low-carbon but is almost
never zero-carbon. While the carbon embodied
in plant matter was taken from the atmosphere,
and therefore has a minimal on climate change,
there are numerous sources of climate-forcing
emissions from fertilizer, irrigation, transport,
processing and changes in the soil.
Bio-based products can reduce GHG emissions
when substituted for high-carbon ones,
especially those relying on fossil fuels. GHG
reductions are realized when low-carbon biobased products displace higher-carbon ones.
Without that displacement, there is minimal
environmental benefit. Substitution, by itself,
is no guarantee of benefit, a few bio-based
products are more carbon-intensive than theirfossil equivalents.
Alternative uses and indirect effects must
be considered. Accurately assessing biomass
carbon emissions typically requires considering
indirect effects like ILUC, as well as what would
have happened in absence of the biomass
production. A cultivation system may increasesoil carbon, but should only be credited for theseincreases if this increase is greater than what
would have happened otherwise.
The labels “waste” and “residue” can bemisleading. In theory, wastes or residues haveno value, and cause emissions from their use. In
truth, many of these materials are used in somefashion, sometimes by sustainable bio-productsystems, sometimes more traditionally, as animal
bedding or returned to the soil; these uses must
be considered.

Climate policy has largely overlooked emissions fromagriculture to date, in part because of the complexityof the system and concern about financial impacts on
farmers and rural communities. With new focus onsustainable and regenerative agriculture, however, awindow of opportunity is opening to achieve a win-win
scenario for agricultural producers: utilize the latest
science to find opportunities to use agriculture as a tool
to reduce emissions, and reward farmers for the carbon
benefits they provide.
Agriculture in the U.S. emitted GHGs equivalent
to about 658.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in
2018, roughly 10% of the U.S. total.170 About 94% of thiswas emitted from agricultural soils or livestock (director “enteric” emissions from animals as well as manure
management). Additional emissions come from the38

production of ammonia, which is a primary input for mostfertilizers. With continued population growth as well as
the emergence of the bioeconomy, the agricultural sector
will be called upon to produce even more food, fodder,fiber and feedstock. Meeting this challenge while reducing
emissions will require the rapid deployment of advanced
biotechnology in several critical areas including:
Optimizing fertilizer use through new crop strains orincreased nitrogen fixation.
Nitrogen is often a limiting factor in agricultural
yields. The “Green Revolution,” which massively increased
agricultural production and allowed rapid population
growth during the 20th Century, was largely facilitatedby the development of the Haber Process for producing
ammonia from natural gas. Ammonia production supports
50-75% of global fertilizer production and is responsible
for more than 1% of global GHG emissions.171 Removing
biomass from fields, whether it’s crops for consumption
or residues for bioenergy, takes some of that nitrogen
along with it, which must be replaced. Biotech can
improve plants’ efficiency at utilizing nitrogen, or adding
genes from nitrogen-fixing organisms to allow them toproduce their own. Using modern biotechnological tools
to optimize the use of synthetic fertilizers allows growers
to consume less of them, which could help U.S. farmers
cut back on 15-20 million metric tons of carbon associatedwith its production, about as much as fueling 3-4 million
cars for a year.172
Reducing nitrous oxide emissions from soil
Nitrogen fertilizers enhance plant growth, but manysoil microbes convert fertilizer nitrogen to nitrous oxide(N2O), a greenhouse gas up to 298 times more potent
than carbon dioxide. In 2017, nitrous oxide emissions
from agricultural soil accounted for 266 million metrictons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the U.S. Relatively
low-tech interventions, such as using less volatile
fertilizers and applying them more efficiently could
reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 30-100 million metrictons annually.173 Analyses of chemical inhibitors indicate
a potential to cut nitrous oxide emissions by over 40%,and there are promising lines of research which would
integrate production of these inhibitors into a plant’s rootsystem.174 By combining all of these approaches, nitrous
oxide emissions could be reduced, by well over 150 million
metric tons of carbon equivalent, or as much as shutting
down 32 U.S. coal power plants for a year.
Enhancing soil carbon retention through expanded

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

root growth
Despite its mundane appearance, soil is a complex
and dynamic environment, in which carbon and nutrientsenter and leave through multiple avenues and cycle
through plants, animals, microbes and fungi. There areseveral promising approaches by which the soil carbon
system could be encouraged to retain more carbon insolid form, rather than being decomposed and released
to the atmosphere. Root growth is a major pathway forsoil carbon accumulation, as plants take carbon from theatmosphere and convert it to solid plant matter, moving
it underground as roots grow. Engineering crops to havelarger and deeper root systems expands this pathway
and could sequester carbon by 200 to 600 million metrictons per year if widely deployed, though this number ishighly uncertain due to the relative immaturity of thistechnology.175

in electronics to billions of tons of concrete and steel,production of physical objects is a hallmark of humansociety. As we seek to limit the damage caused byclimate change, a new focus on sustainability must enter
the conversation about how we make things. Luckily,advances in technology have presented a number ofopportunities to do just this, by developing more efficientand lower-emission alternatives to traditional industrial
techniques. Biotechnology can continue this process
by leveraging the affinity biological processes have forworking within a circular economy.
Green is the New Black

Reducing methane emissions from livestock
As population and incomes increase globally, so does
the consumption of meat and dairy products. This leads
to an increase in livestock numbers and the associatedemissions. Livestock, especially cattle, are a major sourceof methane, from enteric sources (i.e. burps) as well asfrom decomposing manure. Several novel feed additives
have been proposed which may be able to reduce theamount of methane emitted without negatively affecting
animal health or reducing yields. DSM has announced acattle feed supplement that claims to reduce methane
emissions by 30%,176 while other compounds underinvestigation - often derived from red seaweed - may beable to provide 80% reductions or greater in methane
emissions.177,178 While numerous technological andpolicy hurdles remain, widespread deployment of feedtechnologies like these could reduce emissions fromlivestock production by 50 - 140 million metric tons, orroughly one to three times the annual emissions from thestate of Oregon.

Elements of a circular economy. Source: PBL NETHERLANDS.179

Traditionally, once materials were extracted, their life
was a one-way trip that ended in a landfill. As industries
become more aware of the need to reduce emissions, it is
becoming clear that reuse and recycling of materials andenergy is an essential tool for sustainability. Biotechnology
is well-positioned to succeed in a sustainable circular
economy because it is built on a foundation of biologicalcarbon cycling. Working with natural systems which have
evolved to capture and re-use carbon and nutrients,
biotechnology firms can expand these processes tocommercial scale, replacing energy- and emissionintensive extractive industries with low-impact circularones.

Turning Carbon into Products

3.2.2 EMPOWERIN G
S US TAIN AB LE PRODUCTION
Empowering Sustainable Production
Modern economies produce a staggering amountof things. From millions of printed silicon microcircuits

U.S. industry emits over 800 million metric tonsof carbon per year from the combustion of fossil fuels;
at present almost all of this goes into the atmosphere,
representing over one-eighth of national emissions.
Numerous projects have already sought to demonstrate
the feasibility of capturing this carbon and sequestering
it underground, or using it for enhanced oil production,
but a number of innovative processes are emerging to use

cli m a te i m p a ct a n a l y sis

39the carbon as a raw material for other products, including
polymers, carbon fiber, chemicals, nanomaterials or fuelsusing a variety of methods. Conventional carbon capturesystems can typically pull 80-90% of the carbon dioxide
out of exhaust from combustion systems,180 which meansthat there is a potential resource of hundreds of millions
of tons of carbon dioxide which could potentially be used
to make new products. The limiting factor will probably
be the availability of processes to utilize the carbon andmarkets for the resulting products.
Bioplastics have been one of the first largescale applications of biotechnology for the purposeof improving industrial sustainability. Dozens ofalternative biobased polymers have entered the market,
demonstrating the capacity to replace fossil carbon in avariety of applications and, in many cases, offering moresustainable recycling or reuse options than traditional
equivalents. Around 1% of U.S. GHG emissions come fromproducing plastics. Switching from fossil-based plastics tocorn-based biopolymers could reduce emissions by 0.6kg– 1.4kg of CO2 per kilogram of plastic.181 Widely applied,
this could reduce emissions from plastic production by
about 25%, totaling 16 million metric tons of CO2 peryear. Switching from corn to cellulosic feedstocks, likeswitchgrass, miscanthus, or corn stover could double theemission benefits.183
Organic Waste Utilization
Researchers and policy makers are becoming
increasingly aware of the need to more efficiently
use materials in industry. This is particularly true oforganic waste, like food scraps, agricultural residue
and un-recyclable wood products, because they not
only require fertilizer and other inputs to make thosematerials, but as they decompose, also emit carbon
dioxide or, worse, methane. Anaerobic digestion (AD)is a well-understood technology for converting organic
waste into energy, while recovering nutrients that can be
returned to the soil. When decomposition happens in theabsence of oxygen, microbes convert organic waste into
biogas -- a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, water
vapor and other trace components. This can be cleaned
up to yield Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), which is mostly
methane and functionally equivalent to fossil naturalgas. AD produces not only this valuable product, but alsosolid digestate, which is very similar to compost and canbe used as a beneficial soil amendment. By capturing themethane which would otherwise have been released into
the atmosphere, AD further reduces the GHG footprintof organic waste disposal; in some cases the effect ofpreventing uncontrolled releases of methane can be so

40

great that the resulting RNG is effectively carbon-negative,
when evaluated by LCA.180 Widespread deployment of
RNG systems at landfills, wastewater treatment plants,
livestock yards and other organic waste hotspots could
displace enough fossil natural gas to offset 40-75
million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Using
agricultural residue or wood waste could add another12-40 million metric tons, though these resources may
have other competing uses in a low-carbon economy.184
Cleaner Buildings
There are opportunities to build sustainable, circularmaterial cycles into more than just consumer products.
Carbon can be pulled out of the atmosphere and used
to make the very buildings, roads, and cities we live in.
Wood, long thought of as a traditional building material,is enjoying new attention as a low-carbon solution for
future construction. Since wood pulls carbon from theair as it grows, it represents a very stable and durable
removal mechanism for atmospheric carbon, which willremain sequestered as long as the wood remains solid.
Engineered wood products, including cross-laminatedtimber, fiber or polymer reinforced products, or woodcomposites can provide strength and durability previously
thought possible only from metal. A recent study ofengineered wood products found that they can reduce
GHG emissions by 20% when substituted for fabricatedmetal, 25% for concrete and 50% for iron or steel.
Engineered wood has been used to build several multistory demonstration buildings to show that high-rise
construction is possible without conventional materials.
A five-story wood building stores about 26 lb of carbon
per square foot.185 With over 350 million square feet of
multifamily housing constructed in the U.S. in 2019, thepotential carbon savings could be substantial.186
Another opportunity to find uses for carbon dioxide
is in cement, which is currently one of the largest sourcesof greenhouse gas emissions in the world and was
responsible for over 40 million tons of emissions in the
U.S.187 Researchers have been investigating alternative
formulations of cement, which utilize carbon dioxideduring production or absorb it from the air as it cures. By
integrating these techniques with renewable energy to
power the process, it is possible to end up with carbonneutral concrete turning some infrastructure projects into
net carbon sinks.

3 . 2. 3 D E VE LO PING LOWE R -B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RTCARB ON PRODUCTS
If humanity is to successfully avoid the worst
impacts of climate change, it will have to find lowercarbon substitutes for many of its most important
products. No product exemplifies this challenge better
than transportation fuel. The ready availability of reliable,
high-speed transportation is a foundational elementof life in the U.S.; it is the lifeblood of modern supply
chains and personal lifestyle. The U.S. is by far the biggest
consumer of oil in the world, consuming almost 20 million
barrels of crude oil per day, and processing it throughmore than 130 refineries into a wide range of fuels andpetrochemical products, most importantly gasoline anddiesel.188 The emissions from vehicle tailpipes, plus the
production and refining of petroleum total over 1,900
million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year,
almost 30% of the U.S. total or about as much as Germany
and Japan, combined.189
Neither the U.S. nor any other nation can halt
climate change while depending on petroleum to fuelits transportation system. There is no single solution tothis problem, a full portfolio of tools is needed. Lightduty vehicles, like cars, trucks, and SUVs consume themajority of petroleum in the U.S.; there is consensus
within the transportation research community that
replacing these with battery electric vehicles, charged
on a grid dominated by renewables or other carbonfree sources, will by the primary way of reducing theseemissions, with mass transit and other measures also
playing a role. Many of the medium and heavy duty
vehicles, like box trucks, delivery vans and some tractortrailers will also be powered by electricity from batteries,
or possibly hydrogen fuel cells.190 There are some typesof transportation, however, for which energy-dense
liquid fuels will be much harder to replace. Aviation is thebiggest of these; the U.S. consumed over 18 billion gallons
of jet fuel in 2019,191 and while the industry will take sometime to recover from the ravages of COVID-19, commercial
air travel will continue to factor in global transportation.
Some marine applications, long-haul trucking, military
operations, backup and emergency power, and specialized
vehicles may also need liquid fuels. The U.S. currently
consumes around 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year,
and around 2.5 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel
substitutes including biodiesel and renewable diesel. The
vast majority of ethanol is made from corn, while around⅔ of U.S. biomass-based diesel is made from soybean
or canola oil, with the rest coming from waste oil or
byproducts.192

Most of the biofuels currently used in the U.S. reducecarbon emissions when they displace petroleum fuels.
Typical corn ethanol emits about 30% less carbon thangasoline, when the full life cycle of both products are
considered, and typical biodiesel or renewable diesel
from soybean oil reduces carbon by 40-50% over thefull life cycle.193 With domestic consumption of thesefuels measured in the billions of gallons each year, theseemission reductions represent millions of tons of avoided
carbon. The use of biofuels is estimated to have reduced U.S.
transportation sector GHG emissions by 980 MMT CO2 from2009-2020.194 This is equivalent to taking roughly 16 million
vehicles off the road, or 19 coal-fired power plants offline, forthat 13-year period.195
First-generation biofuels alone cannot meet thechallenge of near-complete decarbonization by midcentury, but have achieved critical near-term reductions
as other low-carbon transportation solutions are being
developed; and they form an important technologicalfoundation for the next generation of low-carbon fuels.
The biotech industry can leverage its capacity to innovateto help advance biofuels in two main ways, reducing
emissions from current production and developing zero,or near-zero carbon fuels.
Reducing Emissions From Existing Fuels
The U.S. fuel ethanol industry operates around 200
production facilities spread across the U.S., representing
tens of billions of dollars in capital investment andthousands of jobs.196 While corn-based ethanol may
struggle to achieve the very low carbon levels neededin the long-term future, it has a critical role to play overthe next few decades. As long as there is petroleumbased gasoline being consumed in the world, there will
be value in producing a substitute that is 30% less carbon
intensive; and the evidence suggests that the industry can
reduce emissions even further. Driven in large part by the
adoption of carbon intensity standards like California’s
LCFS, the ethanol industry has improved the efficiency
of its facilities and found new ways to recover valuable
co-products. Doubling down on these processes cancontinue to reduce emissions.
Improved efficiency of ethanol production facilities
has reduced the energy inputs needed per gallon of
output by a few percent per year,197 and the industry
has begun to utilize cellulosic processing technology toconvert the previously indigestible corn kernel fiber intoethanol, increasing the yield from each bushel of corn by
3-4%. Improved crop yields and strains optimized for fuelproduction also help reduce the emissions associatedwith each unit of fuel. Incremental improvements likecli m a te i m p a ct a n a l y sis

41these seldom grab headlines, but on the scale of U.S.
ethanol production, they add up. Each 1% improvementin average carbon intensity, across the entire U.S. ethanolindustry results in around 800,000 metric tons of avoided
carbon dioxide emissions each year.198 Similarly, there
are opportunities to improve the efficiency of biodiesel
and renewable diesel production, the latter of whichanticipates almost a six-fold increase in U.S. production
capacity over the next five years.199 More efficient
catalysts and purification systems can reduce the needfor energy or reagent inputs, driving GHG emissions downeven further. If the U.S. renewable diesel industry grows
as anticipated, each 1% improvement in efficiency yields
around 170,000 metric tons of avoided emissions eachyear.200

selective and durable catalysts, or providing feedstock
which improves yields, is more easily handled or requires
less pre-treatment.
Algae or other microbes may offer the greatest
potential to deliver fuels that approach or achieve carbon
neutrality. Algae can be grown using wastewater oreven exhaust gas as their primary source of nutrientsand can be tailored to produce highly desirable oils
or carbohydrates at extremely high theoretical yields.
Attempts to scale these systems up have run into
problems with pathogens, competition from wild microbes
and finding efficient methods to separate desired
products from water and cell mass. If algal fuels, or otheradvanced synthetic fuels could be commercialized, they
offer the potential for billions of gallons of a product thatis compatible with existing vehicles and infrastructure.
Figure 2, shows the potential emissions reductions from
100 million gallons of a hypothetical advanced fuel, atvarious carbon intensities.202 Depending on what it
displaces, the emissions benefits could be a few hundred
thousand to over one million metric tons each year

Figure 3: Source: IPCC 5th Assessment Report

there is certainly no shortage of carbon dioxide in theatmosphere to remove. Accelerated R&D and rapid
deployment of demonstration projects will be necessary
to identify and prove the capabilities of the manytechnological options which could contribute.

Enhanced Weathering
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration(BECCS)3 . 2. 4 E NH ANCING CARBO N
SE Q UE STRATIO N
Figure 2: Each 100 million gallons of advanced, low carbon biofuel has the potential to displace
as much as one million tonnes of carbon, if it displaces petroleum fuels, or over 200,000 tonnes
if it displaces current-generation biofuels. Source: California Air Resources Board.

Developing Zero or Near-Zero Carbon Fuels
Decarbonizing transportation will require a newgeneration of fuels. Cellulosic biofuels, which use inedible
plant matter as their feedstock, offer the potential
for much deeper reductions in carbon emissions.201
Cellulosic biofuels have been on the horizon for many
years, but technological and supply chain challenges
sank several early projects. A new wave of cellulosic
production facilities, promising 60-80% lower emissions
than conventional fuels are under development and if
early projects are successful, could be the start of a new,multi-billion gallon per year industry. One key difference
between the first wave of cellulosic production facilities
and this one is that rather than breaking down cellulose
into sugars and fermenting them into ethanol like you
would with starch, these facilities use heat to convert
biomass into a gas, or light oils, then process those into
finished fuels. There are numerous opportunities tofurther refine the process, however, by making more

42

Enhancing Carbon Sequestration
Drastically reducing carbon emissions is necessary ifhumanity is to avoid the worst effects of climate change,
but more will be needed. Almost every model of a
successful stabilization of temperatures includes a large
amount of carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere,
through enhanced plant growth and CCS. Figure 3 shows
results from the IPCC 5th assessment report regarding
global carbon emissions trajectories that preserve a
hospitable climate. Each line represents one simulation of
the future in which average temperature increase is kept
below 1.5oC (the graph for a 2oC outcome looks quite
similar). In every case, net emissions must not only be
reduced to zero, but the world will need to rapidly remove
carbon from the atmosphere over the second half of thiscentury.203 Biotech can provide crucial tools to help thiseffort.
It is difficult to estimate how much of an impact
carbon capture might have on the climate system of the
future; in some ways the sky is really the limit sinceB I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

Most biomass decomposes or is consumed by animals
but some, especially the hard-to-digest fibrous partsof plants composed of lignin and cellulose, remains insolid form for decades or more and is integrated into
soil. Human encroachment on natural lands and climatechange are affecting most natural ecosystems, often
disrupting this process; but careful intervention, throughthings like managed replanting, selective breeding
for sequestration potential, soil amendments such ascompost or biochar, selective harvest and prescribed fire
can increase the rate of carbon sequestration and build
healthy, resilient ecosystems. The National Academies
concluded that enhanced management of forests could
sequester anywhere from a few hundred pounds to overa ton of carbon per hectare annually;205 widely deployed
this could result in sequestration of 100 million metric tonsof carbon per year, with an additional 150 million metric tons
possible through expanding forested areas, this would be liketaking 20 to 50 million cars off the road.

Many of the most promising concepts for scalable
carbon sequestration rely on photosynthesis to do theactual capturing of carbon dioxide, which can then be
used or stored. One of the most promising is BECCS,
which uses the biomass from plants to produce fuels orenergy, storing carbon along the way. There are many
proposed models for BECCS, from burning biomass inconventional power plants and capturing carbon fromthe exhaust, to gasification systems which leave behindcarbon-dense biochar that can be used as a carbonsequestering soil amendment. The energy or fuels
produced by these systems would also help displace fossil
fuels, providing a double climate benefit. A recent analysis
estimated that, by 2040, BECCS could cost effectively
remove over 700 million metric tons of carbon per year,204
or more than half the emissions from all U.S. coal power
plants, though doing so would require a massive amountof sustainable biomass feedstock to be produced.

While the majority of carbon removal fromthe atmosphere is done by plants, it is not the only
mechanism. Certain types of mineral like olivine,
serpentine and basalt will react with carbon dioxide
to form stable carbonate minerals in a process known
as “weathering”. This mechanism has been largely
responsible for mitigation of high atmospheric CO2
concentrations in prehistoric times. Unfortunately, it isnaturally quite slow, suited for geological rather thanhuman time scales; but there are ways that it might beaccelerated and scaled to help address the climate crisis.
Olivine and serpentine are often found in discarded minetailings or asbestos formations; basalt can often be foundin geologically active areas, where geothermal power
plants may be active. By managing air flow, moisture andpH levels in these sites, the rate of carbon uptake could
be substantially increased. Adding catalysts, or microbial
agents could increase the potential even further.

Direct Air Capture
Sequestration in Natural and Working Lands
Natural ecosystems have been sequestering carbon
for millennia without human assistance and should not
be overlooked as a method of removing carbon fromthe atmosphere. The main mechanism of sequestrationis through the growth of roots in the soil, accumulationof fallen organic matter, or the accumulation of organic
matter at the bottom of oxygen-poor bodies of water.

Most carbon capture systems rely on naturalprocesses to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but
new innovative approaches may offer the opportunity
to cut out the intermediate step. Several processes arebeing tested that use chemical solvents, such as amine orcarbonate solutions, to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere,
and release it into a containment system, resulting inpure CO2 that can then be sequestered underground or

cli m a te i m p a ct a n a l y sis

43

used to make products. Since CO2 is only a few hundredparts per million in the atmosphere, this process requires
a lot of surface area and usually uses heat to regenerate
the solvent solution. This can make these systems bulky
and energy-intensive. By developing more effective anddurable solvents, or lower-energy regeneration processes,
these systems could be made cheaper and more scalable.
The upper limit of potential for these systems depends
on how optimistic one is about the rate at which they will
improve their energy and cost efficiency. Studies haveprojected the impact of direct air capture at anywherefrom a few hundred million tons to more than half oftoday’s global CO2 emissions.206

188 ht t p : / / www. e i a. gov / p e t r ol e um / r e f i ne r y c ap ac i t y /189 ht t p s: / / www. e p a. gov / si t e s/ p r od uc t i on/ f i l e s/ 2020-04/ d oc u me n ts / u s -ghg-i nv nt or y -2020-m ai n-t e xt . p d f
190 ht t p : / / www. c al e t c . c om / asse t s/ f i l e s/ I C F -T r uc k -Re p or t _ F i nal _ D e c e mb e r -2019. p d f
191 ht t p : / / www. t r anst at s. b t s. gov / f ue l . asp ?p n=1
192 ht t p : / / www. e i a. gov / b i of ue l s/ up d at e /193 B ase d on C A RB d e f aul t v al ue s und e r t he L C F S . I t shoul d be n o te dt hat t he G H G r e d uc t i ons f r om c ur r e nt b i of ue l s ar e unc e r t ai n a n d th e
sub j e c t of c onsi d e r ab l e d e b at e , t he v al ue s p r e se nt e d he r e ar e c o n s e r v a t i v e e st i m at e s. ht t p : / / ww2. ar b . c a. gov / r e sour c e s/ d oc um e nt s/ su b s ti tu te -p at hway s-and -d e f aul t -b l e nd -l e v e l s-l c f s-r e p or t i ng-sp e c i f i c -f ue l
194 U nnasc h. S . and D. Par i d a (2021) G H G Re d uc t i ons f r om t he R F S 2 – A
2020U p d at e . L i f e C y c l e A ssoc i at e s Re p or t L C A . L C A . 6145. 213. 20 2 1 P r e p a r e d f or Re ne wab l e F ue l s A ssoc i at i on. ht t p : / / e t hanol r f a. or g/ wp- c o n te n t/
up l oad s/ 2021/ 02/ L C A _ -_ RF S 2-G H G -U p d at e _ 2020. p d f .
195 ht t p : / / www. e p a. gov / e ne r gy / gr e e nhouse -gas-e q ui v al e nc i e s - c a l c u l a to r
196 ht t p : / / www. e i a. gov / p e t r ol e um / e t hanol c ap ac i t y /170 h tt p :/ /www.ep a .g o v/ sites/production/f iles/2 0 2 0 - 0 4 /document s/ us-g h g - in ven t o r y-2020-ma in- text.pdf
171 G r een Ch em., 2020,2 2 , 5 7 5 1 - 5 7 6 1 . https://doi.org/1 0 .1 0 3 9 /D0G C 0 2301A. h t t p :/ /p u b s .r s c.org/en/content/articlelanding/2 0 2 0 /gc / d 0gc 02301a #!d ivAb s t r a c t
172 E st im a t e b as ed o n EPA GHG emission inventory. Quantifica t i on i s
i m p r ec is e b ec a u s e em is sions from energy consumption during am m oni ap r od uc t io n a r e ag g r eg at ed with multiple other uses.
173 h tt p :/ /ec .eu r o p a .eu /environment/enveco/climate_ change/pd f / ni t r o u s _ o xid e_em is s io n s .p df
174 No r t o n Jea n et t e, O u yang Yang, Controls and Adaptive Man age m e nt
o f N i t r ific a t io n in Ag r ic u ltural Soils, Frontiers in Microbiology, 10, 2019,
D O I . 10.3389/ fmic b .2019.0 1 9 3 1 , ISSN= 1 6 6 4 - 3 0 2 X . http://www.f r ont i e r si n.
o r g / a rt ic les /10.3389/fmicb.2 0 1 9 .0 1 9 3 1 /f ull
175 h tt p :/ /a r p a-e.en er g y .gov/sites/default/files/documents/file s/ Re v i s e d _F in al_R ep o r t _t o _ARPA_ Bounding_ Analysis.pdf
176 h tt p :/ /www.d s m .c o m/corporate/markets/animal- f eed/minim i z i ng-m e t h a n e-fr o m-c a t t le.h t ml
177 R oq u e BM, V en eg as M , Kinley RD, de Nys R, Duarte TL, Yang X , e t al .
(2 021) Red s ea weed ( As paragopsis taxiformis) supplementation r e d uc e s
e n t e r i c m et h an e b y o ver 8 0 percent in beef steers. PLoS ONE 16(3):e 0 247820. h t t p s ://d o i.o r g/1 0 .1 3 7 1 /journal.pone.0 2 4 7 8 2 0 . http: / / www.
b i o r x iv.o r g / c o n t en t / 10.110 1 /2 0 2 0 .0 7 .1 5 .2 0 4 9 5 8 v1 .abstract
178 B r ea n n a M. Ro q u e, Joan K. Salwen, Rob Kinley, Ermias Kebr e ab ,I n c l u sio n o f As p ar a g o p s i s armata in lactating dairy cows’ diet re d uc e s
e n t e r i c m et h an e emis s ion by over 5 0 percent, Journal of Cleaner Pr od u c t i on , 234, 2019, 132-1 3 8 , ISSN 0 9 5 9 - 6 5 2 6 https://doi.org/1 0. 1016/ j .
j c l e p r o .2019.06.193 h t t p : //www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic l e / ab s/
p i i / S 0 959652619321559
179 h tt p :/ /t h ema s it es .p bl.nl/o/circular- economy/
180 h tt p :/ /d o i.o r g / 10.115 5 /2 0 1 4 /8 2 8 1 3 1 . https://www.hindawi.c om /j ou r n a ls / t s wj/2014/82813 1 /181 E nvir o n . S c i. T ec h n o l . 2 0 1 6 , 5 0 , 6 , 2 8 4 6 –2 8 5 8 . https://doi.
o r g / 10.1021/ a c s .es t .5b 05 5 8 9 . http://pubs.acs.org/doi/1 0 .1 0 2 1 / ac s.
e s t. 5b 05589

197 F l ugge , M . ; L e wand r owsk i , J . ; Rose nf e l d , J . ; B ol and , C . ; H e n d r i c k s o n ,T . ; J agl o, K. ; Kol ansk y , S . ; Mof f r oi d , K. ; Ri l e y -G i l b e r t , M. ; and Pa p e , D . ," A L i f e -C y c l e A nal y si s of t he G r e e nhouse G as Em i ssi ons of C orn - B a s e d
Et hanol " (2017). Pub l i c at i ons f r om U S DA -A RS / U N L F ac ul t y . 161 7 . h ttp : / /d i gi t al c om m ons. unl . e d u/ usd aar sf ac p ub / 1617. ht t p s: / / www. r e s e a r c h g a te .
ne t / p r of i l e / Mar y b e t h_ Ri l e y -G i l b e r t 2/ p ub l i c at i on/ 312621455_ A_ L i f e -C y c l e _ A nal y si s_ of _ t he _ G r e e nhouse _ G as_ Em i ssi ons_ of _ C or n-B a s e d _Et hanol / l i nk s/ 5894b a9e 4585158b f 6e 95397/ A -L i f e -C y c l e -A nal y s i s - o f -t he -G r e e nhouse -G as-Em i ssi ons-of -C or n-B ase d -Et hanol . p d f
198 B ase d on an assum e d 15 b i l l i on gal l on e t hanol i nd ust r y a n d 6 8 g
C O 2e / MJ av e r age c ar b on i nt e nsi t y f or f i ni she d e t hanol , a v al ue r e p r e se nt at i v e of t y p i c al Mi d we st c or n e t hanol p r od uc t i on.
199 ht t p : / / ad i -anal y t i c s. c om / 2020/ 02/ 10/ r e gul at i ons-t o-d r i v e - u - s - r e ne wab l e -d i e se l -c ap ac i t y -gr owt h-t hr ough-2025/
200 B ase d on an assum e d 2. 5 b i l l i on gal l on p e r y e ar r e ne wab l e d i e s e li nd ust r y and 54 g/ M J c ar b on i nt e nsi t y f or f i ni she d r e ne wab l e d i e s e l , av al ue r e p r e se nt at i v e of c ur r e nt soy b e an oi l b ase d p r od uc t i on.
201 Mur p hy , C ol i n W . , and A l i ssa Ke nd al l . “L i f e C y c l e A nal y si s o f B i o c h e m i c al C e l l ul osi c Et hanol und e r M ul t i p l e S c e nar i os. ” G C B B i oe n e r g y , v o l .
7, no. 5, May 2015, p p . 1019– 1033, d oi : 10. 1111/ gc b b . 12204. http : / / o n l i ne l i b r ar y . wi l e y . c om / d oi / ab s/ 10. 1111/ gc b b . 12204.
202 B ase d on t y p i c al c ar b on i nt e nsi t i e s of f ue l s und e r t he L C F S a s
r e p or t e d i n: ht t p : / / ww2. ar b . c a. gov / si t e s/ d e f aul t / f i l e s/ c l assi c / fu e l s / l c f s /f ue l p at hway s/ c ur r e nt -p at hway s_ al l . xl sx
203 S our c e : I PC C M i t i gat i on Pat hway s C om p at i b l e wi t h 1. 5° C i n th e
C ont e x t of S ust ai nab l e De v e l op m e nt , F i gur e 2. 5. ht t p : / / www. i pc c . c h / s i te /asse t s/ up l oad s/ si t e s/ 2/ 2019/ 02/ S R15_ C hap t e r 2_ L ow_ Re s. p d f
204 ht t p : / / www. or nl . gov / ne ws/ b i oe ne r gy -c ar b on-c ap t ur e -c omb o - c o u l d -c ost -e f f e c t i v e l y -m i t i gat e -c ar b on-d i ox i d e
205 ht t p : / / www. nap . e d u/ c at al og/ 25259/ ne gat i v e -e m i ssi ons-t ec h n o l o gi e s-and -r e l i ab l e -se q ue st r at i on-a-r e se ar c h-age nd a
206 Re al m ont e , G . , Dr oue t , L . , G am b hi r , A . e t al . A n i nt e r -m ode l a s s e s s m e nt of t he r ol e of d i r e c t ai r c ap t ur e i n d e e p m i t i gat i on p at hw a y s . N a t
C om m un 10, 3277 (2019). ht t p : / / d oi . or g/ 10. 1038/ s41467-019-1 0 8 4 2 - 5 .
ht t p s: / / www. nat ur e . c om / ar t i c l e s/ s41467-019-10842-5

182 D a n iel P o s en et al 201 7 Environ. Res. Lett. 1 2 0 3 4 0 2 4 . http : / / i op s c i e n ce.io p .o r g / a r t ic le/ 10.1 0 8 8 /1 7 4 8 - 9 3 2 6 /aa6 0 a7 . It should be not e d
t h a t t h is s t u d y fo u n d g r eater GHG benef its f rom plastic produc t i on
u s i n g r en ew ab le en er g y than feedstock conversion, however th e se ar en ot m u t u ally exc lu s ive.
183 h tt p :/ /ww2.ar b .c a .g ov/resources/documents/lcf s- pathway- c e r t i f i e d -c a r b o n -in t en s it ies
184 h tt p :/ /g a s fo u n d a t io n.org/2 0 1 9 /1 2 /1 8 /renewable- sources- o f -nat ur al -g a s /185 h tt p :/ /www.p ik-p o t s dam.de/en/news/latest- news/buildings-c an-b e c o m e -a -g lo b al-c o 2-s in k-if- made- out- of - wood- instead- of - cement -and -steel
186 h tt p :/ /www.c en s u s .g ov/construction/chars/highlights.html
187 h tt p :/ /www3.ep a.g o v /ttnchie1 /conference/ei1 3 /ghg/hanle.p d f

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B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

4

BA R R IER S TOA D O P TIO N
A ND P O L ICY
P RO P O S A LS
B a rriers to a do p tion a nd p olic y p ro p os a ls

45

4.1 . F I NA N CI N G
BAR R I E R S
Biofuels and bioproducts have historically faced amajor commercialization hurdle in the form of accessto financing. Biotechnology products that are intended
to reduce GHG emissions must necessarily competewith fossil fuels that supply a well-established refining
and petrochemicals production infrastructure. Whereas
this fossil infrastructure is often decades old and hasoften been fully paid off by its owners, biotechnology
products require investment in either new infrastructureor large-scale retrofits of existing infrastructure. These
investments can be very expensive, with one review ofannounced commercial-scale cellulosic biofuel projects
finding capital costs to be approximately $11/gallon of
installed production capacity.207 With the exception oflarge, established companies, few new producers haveready access to this amount of capital, necessitating thatthey access the capital markets through lenders and/or
investors.
Private sources of capital generally require ademonstration that a biotechnology project can achievecertain levels of profitability in the form of a “hurdle rate”
before providing access to financing. Biobased fuels
and products compete with fossil fuels and products
for market share, and the market value of the former
operates as a function of the latter as a result. On
occasion this has been advantageous for biotechnology
products, such as when fossil fuel prices rose sharply
in 2007-08. The steady decline of fossil fuel pricesthat has occurred over the last decade in response toincreased unconventional production of natural gas
and petroleum in the U.S. has made it more difficult forbiotechnology products to obtain the necessary hurdle
rates for financing, however, even as climate change has
become an important concern for American consumers.208
Likewise, the immediate financial incentive to makeinvestments in energy efficiency and other marginal
reductions to GHG emissions is limited when energy costs
are low.
A challenge faced by biofuels and bioproducts isthat many of the advantages that they offer over fossil
fuels are not reflected in their market value. For example,
in addition to the GHG emissions reductions discussed
above, many biotechnology products achieve low levelsof other types of pollution such as particulate matteremissions, sulfur emissions, water contamination, andtoxic waste production compared to fossil fuels. These
reduced impacts on human health and the environment

46

have a clear monetary benefit in the form of reduced
spending on medical services, environmental remediation,
recovery from extreme weather events, etc.209 Moreover,biotechnology provides the ability to reduce GHG
emissions and other forms of pollution across a variety of
economic sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing,and transportation. Such benefits are not reflected in themarket value of the biotechnology products, however,placing them at a competitive price disadvantage to fossil
fuels.
Governments have sometimes enacted policies
that cause the benefits of biofuels and bioproducts tobe reflected on the marketplace, either by subsidizing
those biotechnology products that have reduced impacts
on human health and the environment or by increasing
the cost of fossil fuels (see Section 4.3). Some, such as
California’s LCFS, have prompted rapid growth in the useof biofuels by subsidizing biofuels, especially those from2nd-generation feedstocks, based on the degree to which
they reduce transportation GHG emissions.210 The LCFS
recently expanded to provide support for CCS; whencombined with Federal 45Q tax credits, this can offer over
$150/tonne of total incentive for project developers.211,212
Government incentives in the U.S. have not always been
sufficient to make biotechnology products competitive
with inexpensive fossil fuels, though: one recent analysis
calculated that new cellulosic biorefineries would struggle
to be financially viable despite the presence of supporting
federal policies because of the low fossil fuel prices thathave prevailed since 2014.213 Producers of biotechnology
non-fuel products, for which government support
mechanisms are fewer, have also faced high hurdles toprivate financing.
Some producers of U.S. biofuels and bioproducts
have been able to obtain public financing in the formof loans, loan guarantees, and grants from the federal
and state governments. The U.S. Department ofAgriculture offers loan guarantees of up to $250 million
for the building of capacity for the production of specificbiotechnology products including advanced biofuels andbiobased chemicals.214 The loan guarantee program wasstarted in 2008 to enable financing of advanced biofuels
and was expanded in 2014 to cover other bioproducts aswell. The loan guarantee reduces the barriers to obtaining
private financing by having the U.S. government backstop
qualifying loans to producers. While this backstop
does not guarantee private financing for the facility, it
substantially reduces the producer’s financing hurdle rateby reducing the risk of default on any loan covered by theguarantee. Several states operate their own direct loan
and loan guarantee programs for biorefineries, albeit on asmaller scale.215

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

Grants are another public finance mechanism thathas supported the commercialization of biotechnology.
Unlike direct loans and loan guarantees, grants are
one-time awards of financing that are not repaid. The
awards generally involve smaller amounts of financing
than are provided via direct loans and loan guarantees,
and they have often been used to support R&D or make
improvements to existing facilities rather than to build a
new commercial-scale facility. One example is the Value
Added Producer Grants program administered by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, which “helps agricultural
producers enter into value-added activities related
to the processing and marketing of new products.216
Other grants indirectly support the establishment andcommercialization of biofuels by being directed toward
the upgrading of infrastructure that is downstream ofproduction facilities and improving consumer access.
The private and public capital that has been invested
into biobased fuels and products has spurred thecommercialization of low-carbon technologies since theturn of the century. Investments have fallen far short ofwhat is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change,
however, reflecting the major hurdles to financing thatstill exist within the biotechnology industry. The IPCC
estimates that $2.4 trillion in annual investment is needed
globally in the energy sector alone until 2035 to limit
temperatures to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial
levels.217 This number is larger still if the decarbonizationof non-energy sectors such as agriculture and materials
are accounted for. Actual global low-carbon energy
investment in 2019 was only $0.6 trillion, or 25% ofwhat is needed.218 Additional policy mechanisms will
be required to rapidly reduce existing hurdles to thefinancing of biobased projects. Governments will alsoneed to reduce the regulatory barriers that these projects
face, as unfavorable regulatory environments increase
the financial risks that they bear and their hurdles tofinancing.

4.2. REGULATORYBA RRIERS
The biotechnology industry plays an importantrole in developing and commercializing novel productsthat are not always directly compatible with theexisting infrastructure in the sectors into which they
are introduced. Moreover, many of these products are
manufactured using technologies such as gene editingthat are closely regulated by national governments.
These factors have resulted in the formation of multiple
regulatory barriers that hinder the adoption of low-carbon
biofuels and bioproducts and constrain the biotechnology
industry’s ability to reduce emissions of GHGs and otherpollutants.
Biotechnology Regulation
GMOs have had a long and contentious regulatory
history in the U.S. Since 1986, biotech products in the U.S.
have been regulated under the Coordinated Framework
for the Regulation of Biotechnology (Coordinated
Framework).219 The framework has been updated several
times since its introduction, including a comprehensive
revision in May 2020, known as the Sustainable, Ecological,
Consistent, Uniform, Responsible, Efficient (SECURE)
rule, or Part 340 rule, which significantly streamlined
and modernized the regulatory framework.220 While U.S.
regulators and consumers are relatively accepting of GMO
products, societal opposition to the use of GMOs in the
agriculture sector in particular has, on occasion, prompteda cautious response to new GMO products by regulatorsthat has slowed the introduction of biotech products tothe market.
Regulations in other regions, such as Europe,
are more hostile,221 hampering the ability of the U.S.
biotechnology market’s products to make an outsized
contribution to global GHG emission reductions. For
example, as discussed in Section 1.4, GMO food crops
have enhanced resiliency under the types of extreme
weather conditions that are becoming more common
as the climate changes, thereby reducing the amount ofland required by agriculture and reducing the incentive toincrease GHG emissions via land-use change.
Studies have found that Americans, including
those residing in states with large agricultural sectors,
have concerns about the production of bioenergy
from GMO feedstocks as well.222 Some 2nd-generation
bioenergy feedstocks have attracted opposition due totheir use of fast-growing and potentially invasive formsof biomass. These feedstocks, especially those thathave been genetically engineered to expand rapidly,
have prompted concerns that they could expand intoand damage the surrounding ecosystem.223 Notably,
though, biotechnology has also provided a means ofpotentially overcoming this barrier. In one recent researchbreakthrough, microalgae grown as a biofuels feedstock
has been genetically engineered to be unable to survive
outside of the production facility, thereby preventing its
uncontrolled growth.224
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production of fuels, chemicals and other products arealso subject to federal regulation, but their place in the
Coordinated Framework has long been unclear, and GE
microbes were not clearly addressed in the SECURE rule.
This regulatory uncertainty is likely to present a significant
barrier to the development and commercialization of
biotech climate innovation.
Regulation of Fuels and Products
A second major regulatory barrier is posed byconflicting state policies on certain biotechnology
products. While the U.S. has a comparatively more
integrated common market than the European Union,
individual state governments sometimes have policies inplace that discourage the introduction of biotechnology
products into entire regions, let alone individual markets.
This situation can prevent the adoption of productsthat have interstate supply chains. One example that isalready occurring involves the transport of renewablediesel through existing refined fuels pipelines. Renewablediesel is a drop-in biofuel that can utilize cost-effective
distribution infrastructure such as the refined fuels
pipelines that connect refineries to multiple states’
markets (e.g., the Colonial Pipeline in the SoutheasternU.S.). Many states require that the biofuels content offuels retailed within their borders be stated on a fuelpump label, but this is not easily known if the renewablediesel is being pipelined in a blended form with diesel
fuel. The result is that having even a single state on aninterstate pipeline with strict pump labeling requirements
can discourage the movement of a drop-in biofuel suchas renewable diesel through it. The biofuel must instead
be transported by rail, ship, or truck, all of which are more
expensive and polluting options than pipeline.225
Biotechnology products that are not compatible
with unmodified existing infrastructure often face aheightened regulatory barrier. U.S. ethanol consumption
has historically been constrained by the so-called “ethanol
blend wall”, which refers to the maximum blend that canbe used in existing infrastructure. Ethanol is a hydrophilic
fuel that is miscible with water, and this trait prevents its
movement through pipelines at any blend rate and use
in unmodified engines above specific blend rates due tothe potential for water contamination. Ethanol blends foruse in unmodified engines were limited to 10% by volume(E10) until 2011, when the U.S. government began toallow blends of up to 15% by volume (E15) during certain
seasons of the year.226 The unrestricted sale of E15 was
not permitted until 2019.227 The blend limits apply toethanol whether produced from corn or lignocellulosic
biomass, and the blend wall sharply constrained fuel48

ethanol demand from all feedstocks beginning in 2013 asa result.228
The U.S. government has also used regulatorychanges to restrain demand for all biofuels since 2017.
National biofuels demand over the last decade has been
driven by the revised Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2),
which mandates the annual consumption of specificvolumes of different types of biofuels. Petroleum refiners
are tasked with ensuring that sufficient quantities of
biofuels are blended with refined fuels to comply withthe mandate, and a refiner’s individual blending quota isdetermined by its market share. Between 2017 and 2019the federal government greatly increased the numberof hardship waivers that it awarded to refiners, reducing
their blending quotas and overall demand for biofuels
under the mandate.229 One analysis calculates that theincreased number of hardship waivers awarded causeddemand for advanced biofuels under the mandate to
be up to one billion gallons lower per year, and that theamount of the annual reduction has equaled as much as
50% of U.S. production.230
Regulatory barriers can be particularly high for truly
novel biotechnology products due to a lack of suitable
regulatory frameworks. Cultured meat, for example,
has been identified as one product for which existing
U.S. regulations are inadequate due to the existenceof myriad production techniques and the potential for
genetic modification as part of the production process.231
Regulatory uncertainty is as much of a barrier as adverse
regulation is, inasmuch as both discourage financiers fromproviding the capital necessary for commercialization.
The lack of an adequate regulatory framework also raises
the possibility that adverse regulation could result from a
regulatory rulemaking process.
The future growth of the U.S. biotechnology industry
will be heavily affected by existing and potential regulatory
barriers. One recent analysis estimated that 50% of thetotal economic impact of biotechnology over the next
decade “could hinge on consumer, societal, and regulatory
acceptance” of the industry’s products.232 The analysis
further calculated that this amount increases to 70% overthe next two decades. This has important implications
for the ability of biotechnology to provide climate
solutions given that early emissions reductions are morevaluable than later reductions. The continued presenceof regulatory hurdles is an especially pressing issue given
the major shortfall of decarbonization investments (seeSection 4.1).

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

4.3. POLICYPROPOS A LS
The growing recognition by many U.S. policymakers
that existing efforts to decarbonize the country’s economy
are falling short of its commitments under the 2015
Paris Climate Agreement has led to the unveiling of avariety of climate policy proposals at the federal, state,
and local levels of government. These proposals fall into
two broad categories: the first category focuses on the
decarbonization of individual sectors while the second
category instead takes an economy-wide approach. The
sector-based proposals are similar to policies already inplace in states such as California, whereas the economywide proposals are more novel and less well established.
An aggressive combination of sector-based and economywide policies is needed to rapidly realize the full potentialof biotechnology to combat climate change.

waivers, further reducing the market for biofuels in the
U.S.234
EPA has taken some steps to expand U.S. biofuels
markets. The ongoing effort to expand the volume ofethanol permitted by the ethanol blend wall is one
example of this trend (see Section 3.2). Following on
earlier efforts to ease restrictions on E15 consumption,in 2020 the Trump Administration announced that thefederal government would not block the use of E15 infuel pumps that were compatible with E10 (although state
governments are still able to do so).235 The complete
replacement of E10 consumption by E15 would increase
the amount of fuel ethanol consumed in the U.S. by 50%.
While the magnitude of the associated transportation
sector emissions reduction would depend on thefeedstocks being used, any increase to E15 consumption
would contribute to the sector’s decarbonization.
Additional actions to expand U.S. biofuel markets and establish
greater RFS program certainty are needed to maximize nearterm climate gains.

4.3.1 DECARB ON IZIN G

Low Carbon Fuel Standard

TRAN S PORTATIONThe success of California’s LCFS and a lack of federal
action on climate policy after 2016 has prompted similar
policies to be proposed in other states. Oregon adopted
a LCFS under its Oregon Clean Fuels Program thatmandates a 10% reduction to the carbon intensity of its
transportation sector from 2015 levels by 2025.236 Efforts
to implement a statewide LCFS in neighboring Washington
are ongoing despite the failure of an earlier attempt.237
Similar regional initiatives have been proposed in the
Midwest238 and East Coast,239 although legislative action
on these proposals has yet to occur.
Efforts to implement a national LCFS date to 2007,
when then-U.S. senator Barack Obama introduced a billto require future reductions to the carbon intensity of
the U.S. transportation sector.240 While that proposal
was ultimately discarded in favor of legislation thatcreated the RFS2, the U.S. House Select Committee
on the Climate Crisis recently recommended that the
RFS2 be transformed into a national LCFS.241 That
recommendation also included a provision to expand theremit of the RFS2 to include shipping and aviation fuels,in addition to on-road transportation fuels, as part of thetransformation. The success of California’s LCFS and steps
by other states to adopt similar programs suggests thetime has come for a federal low-carbon fuel standard.

The first two decades of the 21st century saw the
introduction of several policies to reduce the carbon
intensity and GHG emissions of the transportation sector.
Some, such as federal RFS2 and California LCFS, weresuccessfully implemented and have resulted in the partial
decarbonization of the on-road transportation sectors intheir respective jurisdictions through the increased use of
biofuels. But regulatory implementation of these policies
has, particularly in the case of RFS2, limited their impact.
Barriers to the full implementation of existing federal renewablefuels policies should be removed and aggressive follow-ontransportation sector climate policies adopted to achieve themaximum near-term and longer-term GHG reductions.
Renewable Fuel Standard
The continued presence of the RFS2 as thecenterpiece of U.S. transportation sector decarbonization
efforts has had an important impact on the developmentof intermediate-term GHG emission reduction strategies,
with cumulative reductions of 980 MMT CO2 since RFS2
was enacted.233 But a series of EPA regulatory actions
has substantially limited the program’s climate gains. The
agency has repeatedly reduced RFS volume obligations
and has issued a growing number of small refinery

Other Fuel Policies
In addition to market-driving programs such

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as the RFS and LCFS, ongoing federal and state
investments in the improvement of existing biofuels
and the development of next-generation biofuels arerecommended to achieve the greatest near-term climate
benefit. Robust federal investment in biofuel research anddevelopment at the U.S. Department of Energy and USDA andlong-term tax credits or other incentives for private-sector
biofuel research and development and facility construction arerecommended to help drive additional private sector investment
in low-carbon fuels.

4.3.2 DE CAR B O N I Z I N G
INDUST RY

the Bioeconomy” cites the lack of an industry classification
system for biotech products as a significant roadblock toinvestment and broader adoption, and recommends aseries of actions to fill this gap.244
The Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical, and Biobased
Product Manufacturing Assistance Program (BAP) provides
loan guarantees for the development, construction, andretrofitting of commercial-scale biorefineries.245 The 2018
farm significantly expanded and streamlined the BAP loan
program.
The Commerce Department and USDA should moveswiftly to implement biobased product classification systems,
and Congress should fully fund BioPreferred and the BAP loan
program.
Tax Policy

Policy has historically favored the productionof biofuels over other forms of biobased products.
Renewable chemicals and other non-fuel biobased
products that achieve GHG emission reductions, such as
those described in Section 2, will need to be supported
if sectors outside of transportation are also to be
successfully decarbonized. Several potential mechanisms
exist for achieving this result, some of which build upon
existing policy frameworks and others that employ morenovel approaches.
Renewable Chemical and Biobased Product Programs
The U.S. government operates two important FarmBill Energy Title programs, the BioPreferred Program
and the Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical, and Biobased
Product Manufacturing Assistance Program, that support
the commercial development of renewable chemicaland biobased product manufacturers. These producers
continue to face substantial hurdles to commercialization
due to the lack of an even playing field with producers ofcompeting products from fossil fuels.
The BioPreferred Program, originally authorizedunder the 2002 farm bill and reauthorized and expanded
under the 2018 farm bill, includes a federal biobased
product procurement preference program and a voluntary
USDA labelling program for biobased products.242 These
programs have significantly increased both consumerawareness and market demand for biobased products.
The 2018 farm bill provided increased funding for
BioPreferred and, among other provisions, directed USDA
and the Department of Commerce to develop North
American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes forrenewable chemicals and biobased products.243 The 2020
National Academies of Science report on “Safeguarding

50

Tax policy has been a vital early driver of biofuel andother renewable energy development. Several recent
policy proposals seek to provide a similar push to nonfuel biobased products. A proposed change to federal
tax law would enable producers of biobased products toutilize the Master Limited Partnership pass-through tax
structure that is widely employed by fossil fuel producers
to improve access to capital and reduce tax burdens.246
Such an expansion has been employed in the past in the
U.S. to support the development of renewable electricity
and biofuels logistics infrastructure, making its absencein the biobased products sector particularly notable.
Federal legislation to expand existing business-related
and investment tax credits to include renewable chemicals
production has also attracted bipartisan support inCongress,247 although it has yet to become law.
U.S. tax policy should be updated to extend renewableenergy tax incentives to renewable chemicals and biobased
products.

4 . 3 . 3 D E CARBO NIZINGAGR ICULTUR E
One of the most important mechanisms available
to leverage biotechnology for climate mitigation isagriculture policy. As discussed in section 2, the carbon
intensity of industrial products is highly dependent on the
carbon intensity of feedstocks. Substitution of biobased
feedstocks for fossil feedstocks is an essential step, but
the greatest gains are achieved when climate objectives
are integrated into the production of the feedstocks
themselves, internalizing the environmental benefits

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

that are provided by producers of biobased products,
especially those that operate within the agricultural
sector.
One such proposal would expand Farm Bill programs
such as the Conservation Stewardship Program, which
encourages producers to undertake conservation
activities on working lands,248 to include practices that
decrease the carbon intensity of agricultural production
while increasing crop yields. Likewise, the existing section
45Q tax credit for certain CC&S technologies could be
expanded to encompass the building of soil carbon in the
U.S. agriculture sector.
The agriculture sector faces high barriers of entry tovoluntary carbon credit programs that prevent their fullcarbon sequestration potential from being recognized.
Federal legislation such as the Growing Climate Solutions
Act of 2020 has been introduced as a means of enabling
the private sector to overcome these hurdles,249 but
federal agencies could also provide additional support by
expanding existing agricultural conservation programs
and creating agricultural sequestration certification
programs.
Congress and the White House should move swiftly to
implement programs to reward farmers for reducing thecarbon footprint of feedstock production and for capturing andsequestering carbon.

4.3.4 N EGATIV E-CARB ON
TECHN OLOGIESTo achieve agreed upon climate mitigation objectives,a major focus of climate policy must be investment innegative-carbon technologies. This will require policies
that drive carbon capture, use and storage throughout theeconomy, including in agriculture and manufacturing. Thisshould include sector-specific programs in each of theseareas. Climate policy should drive investment in agricultural
biologicals, plant biotechnology and other biotechnologies toincrease soil carbon sequestration and should reward microbialcarbon capture and other biotechnologies for carbon removal
and recycling. Provisions for biological carbon capture anduse in the section 45Q tax credit provide a template forinclusion of these technologies in future climate policy.

4.3.5 ECON OMY-WIDE CLIMATEPROGRAMSThe U.S. transportation and power sectors have been
the primary focus of policymakers due to their large shareof total U.S. GHG emissions (28% and 27%, respectively,
in 2018).250 Several states have adopted more ambitious
long-term policies that require the full decarbonizationof their economies by 2050, however, and the remaining
sectors (industry, commercial/residential, and agriculture)
will need to achieve future carbon intensity reductions
greater than those that have been achieved by the power
and transportation sectors to date if these policies are to
be successful.
The first such state policy to be implemented was
California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which
mandated an economywide emission reduction of 80% by
2050.251 In 2018 California’s governor issued an executive
order that changed this target to 100% on a net basisby 2045. 252 Equally ambitious is the New York Climate
Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Passed in 2019, the CLCPA requires that the state’s
economywide emissions by reduced by 100% by 2050,253
although up to 15% of the reduction can take the form ofoffsets such as those described in Section 2.2. Colorado,
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada,
Rhode Island, and Washington also all have statutory
targets requiring statewide GHG emission reductions of atleast 80% by 2050.254
A notable aspect of the deep economywide
decarbonization targets is that they will likely require thewidespread deployment of carbon-negative technologies
and non-fuel bioproducts in order to be successful. Policy
language referring to “net zero” emissions targets or, inthe case of New York, explicit carbon offset thresholds
reflects the recognition of this probable outcome bypolicymakers. Existing state decarbonization requirements
also identify varying degrees of decarbonization difficulty
for different economic sectors. New York’s statutory
target, for example, imposes an absolute zero-emission
target on its power sector by 2040 through languagethat explicitly excludes the use of carbon offsets by that
sector. The reason for this distinction is the expectationthat zero-emission technologies such as solar PV and wind
will enable an absolute zero requirement to be achieved.
Those sectors such as transportation and manufacturingthat utilize more energy-intensive systems, by contrast,
will need to rely upon biomass and biotechnology toachieve net-zero emissions, sometimes via carbonnegative technologies, while supplying close substitutes
for the fossil fuels and products that modern economies
rely upon.
Existing government efforts in the U.S. to incentivize
decarbonization have largely been limited to thetransportation sector, whereas the implementation

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of performance-based decarbonization standards
in manufacturing would enable the broad scope of
biotechnology’s benefits to be recognized by the market.
Such standards include, but are not limited to, financing
R&D, promoting alternatives to non-fuel fossil products,
supporting and expanding sustainable procurement
policies, and incentivizing the development of green
manufacturing and sustainable agriculture practices.
Recent years have seen only limited action
at the federal level to encourage the utilization of
biotechnology’s decarbonization potential. Several states
have adopted more ambitious long-term economywide
decarbonization targets, however. While the policy
mechanisms to achieve these targets have yet to beestablished, their success will likely depend on the extent
to which the policies properly value the decarbonization,
including net carbon sequestration, abilities of both fueland non-fuel biotechnology pathways. The economywide
scope of these decarbonization targets will require the adoptionof policies that reflect the ability of biotechnology products toachieve decarbonization across all major sectors of the U.S.
economy.

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236 ht t p : / / www. or e gon. gov / d e q / ghgp / c f p / Page s/ d e f aul t . asp x
237 ht t p : / / www. se at t l e t i m e s. c om / se at t l e -ne ws/ gov -j ay -i nsl e e s - l o w - c a r b on-f ue l -st and ar d -f ac e s-t ough-r oad -ahe ad -i n-washi ngt on-st ate /238 ht t p : / / www. gov e r nor sb i of ue l sc oal i t i on. or g/ gr oup s-e x p l or i n g - p o te n t i al -m i d we st -l c f s-c ol l ab or at i v e /239 ht t p : / / www. t r ansp or t at i onand c l i m at e . or g/ c ont e nt / t c i -d e c l a r a ti o n -i nt e nt
240 ht t p : / / www. c ongr e ss. gov / b i l l / 110t h-c ongr e ss/ se nat e -b i l l / 1 3 2 4241 ht t p : / / c l i m at e c r i si s. house . gov / si t e s/ c l i m at e c r i si s. house . go v / f i l e s /C l i m at e % 20C r i si s% 20A c t i on% 20Pl an. p d f
242 ht t p : / / www. b i op r e f e r r e d . gov / B i oPr e f e r r e d / f ac e s/ p age s/ A b o u tBi o Pr e f e r r e d . xht m l
243 ht t p : / / www. soy b i ob ase d . or g/ up d at e -of -usd a-b i op r e f e r r e d- p r o g r a m/
244 ht t p : / / www. nap . e d u/ r e sour c e / 25525/ i nt e r ac t i v e /245 ht t p : / / www. r d . usd a. gov / si t e s/ d e f aul t / f i l e s/ f ac t -she e t / 508_R D _ F S _RB S _ B i or e f i ne r y . p d f

217 h tt p s ://r ep o r t .ip c c .c h/sr1 5 /pdf /sr1 5 _ spm_ f inal.pdf

246ht t p : / / www. b i o. or g/ si t e s/ d e f aul t / f i l e s/ 2020-01/ F i nal -B I O % 2 0 C o mm e nt s-H ouse % 20C om m i t t e e % 20on% 20C l i m at e % 20C r i si s% 20RF I - 1 2 - 2 0 - 1 9 .
pdf

218 h tt p s ://www.iea.o r g /reports/world- energy- investment- 2 0 2 0/ k e y -f i ndings

247 ht t p : / / p asc r e l l . house . gov / ne ws/ d oc um e nt si ngl e . asp x?Doc u me n t I D=4548

219 h tt p s ://u s b io t ec h n o logyregulation.mrp.usda.gov/biotechnol ogy gov /a b o u t/a b o u t

248 ht t p : / / www. f e d e r al r e gi st e r . gov / d oc um e nt s/ 2019/ 11/ 12/ 20 1 9 - 2 4 3 6 7 /c onse r v at i on-st e war d shi p -p r ogr am -c sp -i nt e r i m -r ul e

220 h tt p s ://www.a p h is .u sda.gov/aphis/ourf ocus/biotechnology / b i ot e c h-r u l e - r evis io n / s ec u r e-r u le/secure- about/3 4 0 _ 2 0 1 7 _ perdue_ biot e c hr e g

249 ht t p : / / www. c ongr e ss. gov / b i l l / 116t h-c ongr e ss/ house -b i l l / 7 3 9 3 / a l l - i n fo52

B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

B a rriers to a do p tion a nd p olic y p ro p os a ls

53

"CLIMATECHANGE WILL
AFFECT EVERYPERSON,NATION,
INDUSTRY, AND
CULTURE ON
EARTH."

Avoiding its worst effects will require an equally universal
response. The biotechnology industry is uniquely positioned
to play a leading role in the effort to reduce emissions, adapt
to new climate conditions, and address the needs of the 21st
century and beyond. In this report, three key themes haveemerged. These themes should guide policymakers – and thebiotech industry itself – if we are to achieve the full potentialof biotechnology to address climate change.
Biotechnology is an essential climate mitigation tool. Biotech
has already delivered vital climate solutions and holds the potential
to provide transformative climate technologies across a broad
spectrum of industrial sectors.
Biotech can achieve at least 3 billion tons of CO2 equivalentmitigation annually by 2030 using existing technologies. The
biotechnologies with the greatest potential impact include:• Biotech solutions have the potential to reduce agriculture
sector GHG emissions by nearly 1 billion metric tons (1gigaton) annually – or the equivalent of GHG emissions
from more than 100 million U.S. homes. This includes
reducing nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture
by over 150 million metric tons of carbon equivalentand enhancing soil carbon sequestration by up to 600
million metric tons per year through a combination ofagriculture biotechnology and agricultural biologicals.
• The transition to next-generation biofuels enabled bybiotechnology will double the per-gallon emissions
reductions of biofuels versus petroleum. Doubling
biofuel use through broad adoption of next-generation
biofuels in aviation and other transportation sectors
would increase the contribution of biofuels to U.S.
transportation sector GHG emissions reductions from
980 million tons over the past thirteen years to over
1.8 billion tons for the decade 2020-2030, a reduction
equivalent to taking more than 45 coal-fired power plants
offline.
• Broad adoption of algal and microbial feed ingredientsthat reduce enteric methane emissions from ruminantanimals can avoid the equivalent of up to 140 million
metric tons of carbon annually.

S U M M ARY A N D
C ON C LUSI O N
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B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT

• Broad adoption of anaerobic digestion for animal waste
would reduce U.S. GHG emissions by over 150 million
metric tons annually using current technology.
• Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration(BECCS) could cost-effectively remove over 700 million
metric tons of carbon per year, or more than half theemissions from all U.S. coal power plants.

su m m a r y a nd conclusion

55• Suitable land and other infrastructure exists to deploy
algae-based carbon capture systems at more than 500
power plants and ethanol facilities in the U.S. Thesesystems would have a potential to capture more than
200 million tons of CO2 annually.
Emerging biotechnologies could have transformative GHG benefits
in a range of industrial sectors. Among the most promising
applications are:is not threatened by sustainability. There is ample evidence
that reducing emissions is, in fact, essential in supporting a
thriving economy.
The biotechnology industry has a tremendous
opportunity to build upon decades of success, and provide
critical tools and expertise for the decades to come. Like
every other industry, change will be profound and lasting,but if any industry can demonstrate that change can be an
opportunity for growth, it is this one.

• Biobased plastics and polymers, such as PLA, PHA, andBDO have achieved lifecycle GHG reductions of up to
80% versus their petroleum-based counterparts. A
rapidly growing list of new biobased chemical building
blocks is now in development.
• Plant-based and cultured meats are providing new
consumer choices and up to 89% lower lifecycle
emissions for a global food sector responsible for morethan a third of total GHG emissions.
• Biology-based parallel computing and DNA data storage
have the potential to cut the energy and carbon footprintsof computing and data storage – sectors expected toaccount for 14% or more of global GHG emissions by
2040 – by 99% or more versus current technology.
Biotechnology offers vital contributions to nearterm GHG reductions and revolutionary tools to combat
climate change in the longer term. To successfully address
the challenge of climate change, humanity will need to
predominantly decarbonize the global economy by midcentury and begin significantly drawing down concentrationsof atmospheric carbon shortly thereafter. The struggle
against climate change must be viewed as a multi-decade
process, which needs to begin immediately. A ton of carbon
emissions avoided now matters more than a ton avoided
next year, but every step needs to be evaluated from theperspective of maintaining a trajectory towards success.
An aggressive combination of sector-based andeconomy-wide policies is needed to rapidly realize the fullpotential of biotechnology to combat climate change. The
future growth of the U.S. biotechnology industry will beheavily affected by both existing and potential regulatory
barriers, and by the degree to which governments invest
in the development and deployment of biotech solutions.
Biotechnology is a vital component of the national and global
infrastructure needed to combat catastrophic climate change.
The economywide scope of this challenge will require theadoption of policies that reflect the ability of biotechnology
products to achieve decarbonization across all major sectorsof the U.S. economy. Biotechnology companies will needto speak up not only to ensure that new policy provides
opportunities for success, but to make it clear that prosperity

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B I OT E C H S O LU T I O N S FO R C L I M AT E R E P O RT