Bio-Based Ideas

Someone posted this in our companie's internal website. This is just cool!

In light of the current drought in California, I have revisited this issue since the last time I wrote about it . Water conservation must be one of the easiest things we can do. According to an article posted by the Sierra Club, the three biggest sources of water consumption are:  The toilet (26.7 %) The clothes washer (21.7%) The shower (16.8%) The article mentions that there is huge variability of course, and it is not clear what is used as a base line here (a 1.6 gal/flush toilet or something with higher consumption, what kind of clothes washer, and what showerhead etc.). At any rate, changing out a toilet can cost anywhere between $200-$500. Changing out a decent clothes washer can run anywhere from $700-$2000 for high-end clothes washers. A showerhead, however, will at most cost about $80 for which you will get a luxury showerhead while having the potential of cutting the water usage more than half! So they are affordable compared to replacing a toilet or washing m...

It's always difficult to talk about what my company is working on, so I rarely do. However, as of late, I am really happy to be able to share some of the things I am excited about. Have a look at this promotional video of Amyris and Darpa. The cool thing: All of those people in the video are real people - not actors or anything. It's sort of amusing and cool to see your friends being featured in this video.

This is just a quick note on my way to work. I just listened to a news podcast from DW. I have to give it to the German press: Today's podcast covered a topic that I think is very forward thinking. It discussed the importance of soil. The main points were very simple: 1.) Fertile soil is an important resource. 2.) It takes a long time to build up fertile soil (upwards of a generation or so). 3.) The demands on soil are increasing because of in large parts increasing populations and decreasing availability of fertile soil (due to different forms of erosion, and unsustainable agricultural practices). Interestingly the news podcast also discussed that a future in which the biobased economy takes root will by necessity also contribute to increased demands on the limited soil that we have.  Given the above, and the fact that making, managing fertile soil is never in the farmer's short term interest as the farmer usually just thinks about the next few harvesting seasons, the arti...

Have you ever wondered what other countries outside of the US are thinking about the biobased economy? Following is a word-for-word copy of what the "German Bioeconomy Council" thinks should be the road ahead. You can access the original document here: http://biooekonomierat.de/fileadmin/Publikationen/Englisch/Strategy_paper.pdf Decided at the 8th session of the Council, 14.5.2014 Preamble A sustainability-oriented bioeconomy can contribute vital solutions to the serious ecological and economic challenges of the future. However, such a bioeconomy will not develop automatically. Regulatory, social and technology policies are needed to move towards an ecologically sustainable economy that is based on innovation, renewable resources and efficient production processes. The Bioeconomy promotes process and product innovations with consumption and societal expectations in mind.

This year, I had the opportunity to attend the Synbiobeta 2013 Conference. Synbiobeta is an organization with the mission of fostering a community, and ecology of people, organizations and companies involved in synthetic biology. The conference was divided up into several sessions. In the next few posts, I will try to summarize what I thought was noteworthy during the meeting. We'll start with session 1.

Here is another video from TED (did I mention that I love TED talks?) that talks about space requirements of renewable energy sources, and the 6 levers we have to get off 90% use of fossil energy use.