BIV Magazines: LifeSciences 2008

Industrial biotech. Remember it. It’s a new term you’ll be hearing a lot. And like its kissing cousin life sciences, it’s a catchall phrase for a lot of technology.

“BIO in the U.S. has a division dedicated to industrial biotech; BIOTECanada also has a sub-committee for industrial biotech,” said Ross MacLachlan, president and CEO of Lignol Energy. “We’re starting to recognize the fact that there is a direct interplay between biology and chemistry for industrial-level applications. It’s not just life sciences. A lot applies to industrial applications.”

One advantage to industrial biotech is that it often has a nearer term horizon for the successful application of technology. Without the regulatory barriers of drug development or the need for investment for pure research, industrial biotechnologies are often quicker out of the gate.

“It doesn’t mean they are two independent camps,” said MacLachlan. “The industrial biotech area or sector draws on a lot of the fundamental research in biotech, looking for applications or discoveries in that sector and applying them.”

In other words, companies take research and apply it to real-life solutions – tangible applications.

The market potential is huge. According to BIOTECanada, the national industry association, the trend toward industrial biotech will continue to accelerate. Five per cent of global chemical production is already dependent on biotech processes, and McKenzie and Co. estimates show that the total value creation potential in the chemical industry alone could be as high as $160 billion by 2010.

But there’s another reason why industrial biotech will thrive, said MacLachlan.

“It complements the research and development being done in life sciences,” he said. A big challenge in B.C. for the biotech industry is creating enough critical mass of people in research, education and investment.

“We need opportunities for people to exploit their talent and broaden their base. A lot of these skills are portable between life sciences and industrial biotechnology. It doesn’t detract but adds to critical mass,” said MacLachlan. “B.C. has a competitive life sciences industry. Adding an industrial biotech component helps create critical mass for the biotech industry at large.”

Converting cellulose into energy

“Very simply put, we’re making alcohol,” said Lignol’s MacLachlan. Lignol’s process technology refines cellulosic biomass into fuel-grade ethanol and other bio-chemicals. The company’s technology uses significantly less water and is more energy-efficient than competing technologies, and relies on readily available feed-stock from agricultural residues and forest products.

“Straw, wood, grass, cellulosic feed-stocks – all these need a lot of enzymes or bugs to break down the biomass into industrial sugars. Our process prepares the material so it’s easier for these enzymes or bugs to make the sugars, and from there, it’s pretty easy to make alcohol.”

Sounds simple, but if it was, it would already be done everywhere, said MacLachlan. The significant hurdle left is to do it on a commercial scale. “The technology is proven. We know it works.”

In order to deploy the technology commercially, Lignol has a bit more work to do.

“We’re now building a significant showcase facility on the BCIT campus. It will be online this summer, then we use the data to fine-tune and optimize the process with final engineering design in 2009, and we plant steel in the ground in 2010.”

A huge added benefit is that Lignol can retrieve high-purity lignin (HP-L) from its process. HP-L has widespread applications in the industrial world and can displace other chemicals made from oil.

Converting manure into power

The smell of manure as you drive through the Fraser Valley could be a thing of the past, if anaerobic digestion (AD) technology is implemented locally. AD is a natural process that recovers methane from manure and uses anaerobic enzymes to break down manure, in the absence of oxygen, to produce biogas which is captured to create green electricity.

“We looked at Lynden; an anaerobic digester has been running there for years,” said Pat Bell, minister of agriculture and food. “They take manure from 1,000 dairy cows and pipe it from a number of different farms, bringing it by pipe for sufficient volume. The anaerobic digester is a large septic tank. They remove the methane and burn it to produce 400 kw of electricity.”

As methane is far worse for the environment that CO2, there’s a 20-fold benefit to removing the methane. The end by-product is dry material for fertilizer without the odour.

“There’s nothing stopping people from doing this now,” said Bell. “I’d be very surprised not to see construction this year. There does not appear to be a downside to it.”

The main thing farmers need, he said, is critical mass to generate enough manure. One thousand head of cattle seems to be the minimum.

The only barrier that exists is that farmers have to have property that isn’t in the agricultural land reserve to put an anaerobic digester on the site – or apply for an alternate use permit.

Converting ocean knowledge

Space is not the final frontier – that designation can be claimed by something that is far closer and covers 70% of the earth’s surface. It’s our oceans.

“The heavens fascinate us, for good reason,” said Dr. Martin Taylor, president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada, a non-profit created to oversee the Venus and Neptune ocean observatories. “The knowledge of our oceans is primitive compared to knowledge of our lands and the moon.”

Yet it is our oceans that hold the promise of new discoveries, early warning systems and positive action on climate change.

Neptune and Venus are two underwater ocean observatories. Venus is a shallow coastal observatory, whereas Neptune is a deep sea, 800 kilometre cable system in and out of Port Alberni. The cable loops across one of the world’s most active tectonic plates. Both projects allow continuous measurements, continuous power and two-way communications through instrumentation controlled remotely on an Internet-based platform.

“First and foremost, they are funded as research labs,” said Taylor. The results of the data analysis will be used to inform public policy, and Canada is definitely leading the world in ocean research. “It’s not an exaggeration to say the eyes of the world are upon us.”

No one has ever been in a position to understand oceans because of our limited ability to observe them. Venus and Neptune will collect never-before-seen fundamental data. Oceans are a huge driver of climate. Accumulated carbonic acid in the earth’s waters is at a level never known before, and has fundamental effects on the ecosystem and food chain.

Oceans also signal effects like tsunamis and earthquakes.

“We can measure seismic pressure and better understand seismic pressure so we can model and predict,” said Taylor. “It will be short but better advanced warning.”

Ocean research also impacts security and sovereignty issues. In putting such a system into the water, we can hear what’s happening. “That capacity is critical to security issues surrounding the development of major ports,” he said.

More than $100 million in capital investment has been put into Venus and Neptune. The backbone infrastructure is immense, and the development of a knowledge base around oceans can translate into the commercialization of knowledge products.

There’s also a bio-pharma angle.

“Oceans are the richest eco-system in terms of protein, enzymes – basic life systems,” said Taylor. “Richness is greatest under the oceans. We’re now in a position to look at sub-marine life like never before and how that translates into new products that might have significant therapeutic value.” •

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