Construction Informer

The move to economies not dependent on oil has begun, and some are making headway in finding alternatives. I have been ranting about our dependence on oil and the simple fact that it is going to run out. But before that happens, it will decrease in quantity until those who can pay the price will be the only ones who have it. More importantly though, businesses that need oil to make other products like plastics will find shortages in oil, leading to shortages in those materials.

You can read my tirade here, here, here and here to get the background on this really important topic that is regularly marginalized not only by those invested so heavily in oil that a world without an abundance of it is unthinkable, but also by mainstream media.

So, here’s a company that’s figured out how to make polymers, plastics and hydrocarbon fuels using waste gas resources. According to Dr Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, the New Zealand clean tech company:

is the first to demonstrate that this platform chemical can be produced via fermentation from gases. LanzaTech has shown 2,3-BD production from waste gas resources in an industrial setting.

LanzaTech’s microbial gas fermentation process potentially enables chemicals production to be decoupled from petroleum and valuable food resources. Conventional approaches for the production of polymers and plastics require chemical building blocks normally prepared from the cracking of petroleum or through fermentation of sugars. However, LanzaTech’s process uses nonfood, low value gas feed stocks, including industrial waste gases such as those produced by steel mills, oil refineries, coal manufacturing, syngas from landfill-waste and reformed natural gas.

Notice how the technology is developing outside the U.S.? It will be interesting to see if this process is robust enough to replace current refinery processes, and if it is more sustainable from an energy perspective, than current processes.