We recently attended the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s (BIO) Pacific Rim Summit in Honolulu, Hawaii. As the name and venue indicate, the event is meant to bring together developers of biofuels and biomaterials from regions as dispersed as Asia, North America, and Australia. One plenary session illustrated the differences facing development of biofuels and biomaterials, even within these regions: Nobuyuki Kawashima, Executive Director of the Chemical Society of Japan, reported that Japan is planning to expand use of biofuels from 30,000 liters in 2007 to 50 million liters in 2011 and 6 billion liters in 2030 – which would account for just 10% of the country’s fuel use. Japan’s modest ambition, however, stood in stark contrast to two other speakers.

Dehua Liu of China’s Tsinghua University reported an aggressive adoption of new biotechnologies. For example, 70% of cotton grown in China is transgenic. He said that because of its rapid growth, China’s energy use compared to GDP is six times the OECD average, and essentially all growth demands imported energy. For that reason, China is aggressively pursuing biofuels from every feasible feedstock, including food crops, cellulosic material and algae.

Bhima Vijayendran of Battelle explained that Malaysia has about 15 years of oil and 25 years of natural gas left, but “with abundant rain and sun, we have a lot of biomass: 4.1 billion hectares of palm plantation, and 16 million tons per year in total biomass from forest.” Given the country’s looming oil crisis, its government, academia, and industry are focusing on biotechnology. The country’s national oil company Petronas is partnering with Battelle on renewables to design a palm biorefinery. Malaysian scientists recently sequenced the palm genome in preparation for engineering it, and the government has set a goal for the biotechnology sector to account for 5% of the country’s economy by 2020, up from 2.5% today.

As these examples show, it’s not only a country’s natural resources or available technology that determine its biofuel strategy. Demographics, energy policy and the government’s stance on genetic modification all play roles that are just as important. As enamored as technology developers are with their chemistry, biology and engineering feats, social factors often pose greater obstacles and opportunities than technical ones.

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