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Planet-Profit Report, reporting on sustainable development in the Western United States.

The bio-based economy: A renewed and renewable vision

Goodbye to Dad’s old ethanol plant – Hello to the Bioeconomy and the new biorefinery

By Brent Erickson
Executive Vice-President, BIO, Industrial and Environmental Section

Ethanol plants are nice, but let’s face it: they represent simple technology that is just the tip of what could be a huge economic engine – a biobased economy. At the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) we have been preaching the gospel of the biobased economy for over a decade. I am gratified to see attention is now being paid to the effort by the White House and others.

This past September, President Obama announced that his Administration will develop a National Bioeconomy Blueprint to help harness research, development and rapid innovation in biotechnology to address grand challenges for future economic development. With the blueprint, the United States will join worldwide efforts to build the bioeconomy – the OECD, for instance, has long recognized the potential of industrial biotechnology to address energy security, climate change and sustainable economic growth.
This blueprint will be rolled out early in 2012.

The policy to support a biobased economy has traditionally been a nonpartisan issue and we hope that it will continue to receive bipartisan support.

The Bioeconomy and the bio-based economy

To be clear, the bioeconomy is the total economic activity from all sectors of the biotechnology industry – pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture and industrial biotechnology. With biotechnology we can help, heal, fuel and feed the world.

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