About : Global Energy Challenge

Increased market demands now, and mandates for ethanol use in the future, are spurring a rapid increase in biofuels development today. Demand is being driven by economics, environmental concerns, and a desire for energy security.

The need for alternative resources

Today’s world faces a convergence of pressures at the end of the era of low-cost oil that fueled global prosperity in the twentieth century. Diminishing oil supplies in the hands of unstable or hostile political regimes and the mounting threat of climate change all point towards the need for new ways to produce fuels and other chemical products in the 21st century.

America’s economic infrastructure is built on cheap fossil fuels, and the recent run-up of global oil prices is proving disruptive to our energy-intensive economy. Cheap oil has fueled prosperity here and in much of the world, but rising prices since 2005 have increased public awareness that low-cost hydrocarbon energy is not limitless. Many within the oil industry are now acknowledging that the transition from surplus to shortage could be much closer than we once believed, and the impact such a shortage could have on our prosperity is increasingly grim.

Of course, petroleum will continue to play a major role in meeting our energy needs for decades to come, but alternatives will be needed to fill the widening gap and increase diversification as a matter of prudent risk management. As we move from decades of surplus to a new era of shortage, alternative, sustainable fuel technologies are critical. The energy policies we set today will determine if our transition away from fossil fuels is disruptive and costly, or smooth and peaceful.

Environmental impact

But economics aren’t the only factor driving the expanding biofuels sector. Widespread, public environmental concerns are a growing part of the mix. The global focus on the carbon footprint of every nation, community and individual, gives added urgency to the need to find more sustainable fuels. It is no longer possible to dismiss the threat posed by global climate change, or its link to hydrocarbon consumption. Governments of the world are demanding that private industry find ways to meet society’s energy needs in less damaging ways. Cellulosic ethanol offers one of the most promising near-term pathways to achieve this goal.

Model for the future

Just as American interest in advanced biofuels explodes, there is a model of national economy that has achieved success, based in large part, on its development of biofuels. Brazil has achieved a high degree of energy self-sufficiency and an expanding economy over the last decade, in part, through a sustained national commitment to biofuels. America sees the example of Brazil and other nations benefiting from investment in green technologies and it is clear that innovation and alternative energy is a path to future prosperity.

The next generation of ethanol

In the U.S., the corn ethanol industry has shown that a large-scale biofuels industry is feasible. Recently, it has become clear that the redirection of corn away from food to the production of fuel has contributed to rising grain costs and increased land competition. But such challenges arising from the first-generation biofuels have spurred new thinking and solutions at Verenium and within the cellulosic ethanol industry that address them.

Verenium believes that the key to greener, low-cost biofuels is progress in industrial biotechnology, the science that has contributed over the last two decades to steady gains in our understanding of genetics, enzymes, and other cellular-level phenomena.

Biotechnology is the future of energy. Rather than following the petroleum model of continual outward expansion in our search for hydrocarbons, we at Verenium are now moving ever inward to explore biological processes that can help unlock the abundant energy found in nature - and do so at a cost we can afford.