What are your thoughts on the sustainability of using corn syrup for chemical production--especially as this would compete with the food production system and corn production leads to GHG emissions and environmental damage? Like you mentioned in the comment, they would probably want to find a way to directly use CO2 (or lignocellulosic agricultural waste) as feedstock; I wonder if Solugen is working on enzymes/catalysts to power this process as well.
Hey Yelim, great question. I haven't fully formed my thoughts on this. On one hand, growing corn is technically a carbon sink—you're sucking up carbon during the growing process. If Solugen plants are proximal to corn fields, and there are improvements in the sustainability of corn production, it still is far more sustainable then extracting petrochemicals. On the other hand, this shouldn't be viewed as the final state. It seems that directly capturing carbon—or using waste as you mentioned—should be the end goal.
you say 'corn syrup, which is effectively a carbon sink'--- that is backwards-- corn syrup is their carbon SOURCE-- if/when they start getting their carbon from CO2, they won't need corn syrup anymore.
Very inspiring!
Thanks Steve!
What are your thoughts on the sustainability of using corn syrup for chemical production--especially as this would compete with the food production system and corn production leads to GHG emissions and environmental damage? Like you mentioned in the comment, they would probably want to find a way to directly use CO2 (or lignocellulosic agricultural waste) as feedstock; I wonder if Solugen is working on enzymes/catalysts to power this process as well.
Hey Yelim, great question. I haven't fully formed my thoughts on this. On one hand, growing corn is technically a carbon sink—you're sucking up carbon during the growing process. If Solugen plants are proximal to corn fields, and there are improvements in the sustainability of corn production, it still is far more sustainable then extracting petrochemicals. On the other hand, this shouldn't be viewed as the final state. It seems that directly capturing carbon—or using waste as you mentioned—should be the end goal.
you say 'corn syrup, which is effectively a carbon sink'--- that is backwards-- corn syrup is their carbon SOURCE-- if/when they start getting their carbon from CO2, they won't need corn syrup anymore.
Using corn syrup acts as a "carbon sink" because the process of actually growing the corn sequesters carbon in the soil.
The full Solugen vision of directly capturing CO2 as a carbon source would still be ideal!