Why Do We Need White Bio?

If we look at the civilization humanity has built over the past two centuries from the simple perspective of carbon, one remarkably clear pattern emerges.

We have continuously brought carbon that had been sleeping underground up to the surface.

We mined coal, extracted oil, and produced natural gas. We burned them to obtain energy. With the carbon contained in petroleum, we made plastics, fibers, lubricants, solvents, and countless chemical products.

That carbon built modern civilization.

It powered factories, built cities, and moved cars and airplanes. Humanity achieved a level of prosperity and productivity that would once have been difficult to imagine.

But hidden within this enormous success was one problem that we did not pay much attention to for a very long time.

We learned how to take carbon out of the ground, but we never built a way to put it back.

Carbon that had been isolated in the geosphere for tens or hundreds of millions of years was brought to the surface at an extraordinary rate in barely two centuries, and a large portion of it was converted into CO₂ and released into the atmosphere.

The Earth already has an enormous system for circulating carbon. Plants absorb CO₂, soils and the biosphere store carbon, and the oceans continuously exchange carbon with the atmosphere.

But the new carbon flow created by humanity after the Industrial Revolution was different in one crucial respect.

We were not merely moving carbon from one place to another within the existing carbon cycle.

We were continuously adding new carbon—carbon that had long been isolated in the geosphere, effectively outside the active carbon cycle—into that active carbon cycle.

And we began adding it faster than natural systems could absorb it again.

As a result, atmospheric CO₂ has continued to accumulate, and the average temperature of the Earth has risen rapidly.

So perhaps it is time to change the question.

Can White Bio become a new industry?

Can biomass compete economically with petroleum?

How large can the market for bio-based products become?

These are all important questions.

But there is a more fundamental question we should ask first.

How long can we continue extracting carbon that has been isolated underground and adding it to the carbon cycle at the Earth’s surface?

For me, this is where White Bio begins.

White Bio is not simply a technology for securing one more source of carbon.

Nor is it something we should pursue merely because replacing petroleum with biomass sounds environmentally friendly.

At a more fundamental level,

it is a technology that allows us to use carbon already circulating above ground, thereby reducing the rate at which we extract new fossil carbon from underground.

Circular Carbon Technology goes one step further.

It attempts to recover even the carbon we have already extracted and used, turn it back into feedstock, and keep it circulating for as long as possible rather than simply discarding it.

Ultimately, the need for White Bio and Circular Carbon Technology begins with the same problem.

Humanity did not create carbon that had never existed on Earth during the past 200 years.
We simply moved too much carbon, too quickly, from places where it had been isolated for an extraordinarily long time to the surface of the planet.

What we now need to do is reverse that flow.

Or, at the very least, stop continuing it at the same rate.

I believe that is the most fundamental reason we need White Bio.

The Earth Has Always Circulated Carbon on Its Own

CO₂ itself is not an unusual substance.

It has existed throughout the history of the Earth and is an essential part of the carbon cycle that supports life.

Plants use atmospheric CO₂ for photosynthesis.

That carbon becomes trees, crops, algae, microorganisms, and ultimately countless forms of life.

When organisms die and decompose, some of that carbon returns to the atmosphere. Some remains in soils, some moves through rivers, and some eventually reaches the ocean.

The ocean itself is an enormous carbon reservoir.

Even today, CO₂ is constantly exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean.

This vast natural system was operating long before humans began the Industrial Revolution.

That is why I do not think the commonly used idea of the Earth’s “self-purifying capacity” is entirely wrong.

But one condition must always be attached to that idea.

It works only within the rate that the Earth can handle.

Nature has a speed of its own.

There is a limit to how much carbon plants can fix in a year, and there is a limit to how much CO₂ the oceans can absorb over a given period of time.

Soils cannot store carbon without limit either.

Yet after the Industrial Revolution, humanity connected an entirely new source of carbon to this natural cycle.

Fossil carbon.

The problem was that this source was enormous.

The Problem Is Not That CO₂ Exists. The Problem Is That It Keeps Accumulating.

Think of a bathtub.

There is a drain.

If water enters slowly and the amount entering is roughly equal to the amount draining out, the water level does not change very much.

But what happens if the faucet is opened wider?

The drain still works.

Water is still flowing out.

And yet the water level rises.

Because more water is entering than leaving.

Atmospheric CO₂ is not exactly the same, but the analogy is useful.

Terrestrial ecosystems absorb CO₂.

The oceans absorb CO₂.

But they do not absorb it quickly enough to remove everything we add through fossil-fuel use.

A difference remains.

And that difference accumulates year after year.

I think this perspective is important.

The problem we need to solve is not simply the fact that we “emit CO₂.”

The deeper problem is a system that continuously increases the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

CO₂ is not the only greenhouse gas that matters. Methane and others must also be managed.

But in the fossil-carbon problem, CO₂ is the central species that accumulates over the longest timescale.

The Earth Has Warmed Before. But Is This the Same Thing?

Whenever this issue is discussed, a similar question tends to arise.

Hasn’t the Earth’s temperature always risen and fallen in the past?

Yes.

There have been ice ages and interglacial periods.

The climate was changing long before humans began the Industrial Revolution.

The Earth’s orbital parameters change, solar radiation varies, and volcanic activity can also affect climate.

There is no reason to deny that natural climate change exists.

But there is one difficulty in explaining the present situation entirely that way.

The rate is different.

Since the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations have risen rapidly, and the average temperature of the Earth has also increased at a pace that differs from the long-term natural variations of the past.

Current scientific understanding considers anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions to be the main driver of recent warming.

I do not think we need to insist that science can never be wrong.

Science can always be revised when new evidence emerges.

But that does not mean we should ignore the strongest evidence available to us today.

What if the current scientific assessment is right?

If we continue waiting until the situation becomes truly difficult to reverse, the cost will not be paid only by us.

It will be paid by the generations that follow.

If a risk is sufficiently large, then at some point we need to act even before every uncertainty has disappeared.

For me, this is not simply an environmental issue.

It is a question of risk management.

Then Why White Bio?

This brings us back to the original question.

Why White Bio?

Would it not be enough to expand solar and wind power?

Could we not electrify cars, replace heating with electricity, and electrify industrial processes wherever possible?

Wherever we can, we should.

If electricity can do the job, there is less reason to burn carbon to do it.

But not every problem can be solved with electricity.

We still need carbon molecules.

We need aviation fuel.

We need lubricants.

We need plastics.

We need solvents, fibers, adhesives, paints, pharmaceuticals, and countless organic chemicals.

Energy can sometimes be replaced by electricity, but when the material itself is made of carbon, carbon cannot simply be eliminated.

Then the question changes.

If we must use carbon,

where should that carbon come from?

Should we continue extracting oil and coal?

Or should we use carbon that is already above ground?

White Bio belongs to the second choice.

Plants Have Been Doing Direct Air Capture for a Very Long Time

Consider the problem from a slightly different angle.

What we now call Direct Air Capture is a technology that separates and captures CO₂ present at very low concentrations in the air.

It is an extraordinarily difficult task.

And yet nature has been doing something similar for hundreds of millions of years.

Plants do it.

Plants use solar energy to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere and fix carbon.

They then produce carbohydrates, lipids, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.

Of course, natural photosynthesis is not always highly efficient in the way we might want an industrial process to be.

It requires land.

It requires water.

We cannot expand agriculture and forests without limit.

Even so, biomass has one very important characteristic.

A large part of its carbon was, until relatively recently, carbon in the atmosphere.

In this respect, it is fundamentally different from fossil carbon.

When we extract and use petroleum, we add geological carbon to the active carbon cycle.

When sustainably produced biomass is used, we are instead reusing carbon that was already part of the active carbon cycle.

That difference is where White Bio begins.

But Biomass Does Not Automatically Solve the Problem

We should not idealize White Bio.

Not all biomass is sustainable.

If forests or other ecosystems must be cleared to produce it, the carbon balance can actually become worse.

Agriculture requires fertilizer and machinery.

Biomass must be collected and transported.

Wet biomass may require substantial energy for drying.

Large quantities of hydrogen may be needed to convert bio-based feeds into hydrocarbons.

If a fermentation product exists at only a few percent concentration in water, separating it may require enormous amounts of energy.

In the end, the word “bio” is not what matters.

What matters is whether the entire system is actually better than the fossil alternative.

That is why I do not agree with the idea that White Bio should simply mean replacing petroleum with biomass wherever possible.

For White Bio to have real meaning, at least one question must be answered clearly.

Does it actually reduce the use of new fossil carbon?

If it does not, then the name White Bio itself means very little.

Carbon Already Above Ground Does Not Need to Be Used Only Once

Once we begin thinking about White Bio this way, the idea naturally extends into Circular Carbon Technology.

There is already an enormous amount of carbon above ground.

The plastic we have used and discarded contains carbon.

Food waste contains carbon.

Waste oil contains carbon.

Sludge contains carbon.

Industrial organic waste contains carbon.

Why should that carbon be used only once?

Whenever possible, we should use it again.

If waste plastic can be mechanically recycled, it should be reused as a material.

When mechanical recycling is no longer practical, chemical recycling can be considered.

Waste plastic can be pyrolyzed into WPPO and potentially returned as feedstock to refinery or petrochemical processes.

Instead of converting food waste only into methane, fermentation conditions could be controlled to produce VFAs, which could then become chemical feedstocks.

Complex biomass and waste streams could be gasified into syngas—a relatively simple carbon intermediate—and then converted again into chemicals or fuels.

There are many possible pathways.

But the purpose is the same.

Use the carbon we already have for as long as possible.

For me, this is the simplest and most fundamental definition of Circular Carbon Technology.

But There Is an Even More Direct Approach

At this point, a slightly uncomfortable question appears.

If the goal is to reduce atmospheric CO₂, why go through the trouble of growing biomass, recovering waste, and recycling materials?

Why not simply capture CO₂ from the air and use it again?

Technically, this is possible.

Direct Air Capture already exists.

Technologies also exist for converting captured CO₂ back into chemical feedstocks.

CO₂ can be reduced to CO and combined with hydrogen to form syngas.

Fischer–Tropsch synthesis can then be used to produce hydrocarbons.

Methanol can be made as well, and from there olefins and other chemicals can potentially be produced.

In principle, humanity already knows a pathway like this:

Air → CO₂ Capture → CO₂ Conversion → Syngas / Methanol → Fuel / Chemical

It might appear that the problem has already been solved.

But it has not.

It is too expensive.

To Reduce Carbon Again, We Must Give Back the Energy We Once Took From It

When you think about it, this is hardly surprising.

Burn petroleum and you obtain energy.

Carbon and hydrogen in hydrocarbons react with oxygen, producing CO₂ and H₂O while releasing energy.

What happens if we then try to turn that CO₂ back into hydrocarbons?

We must go in the opposite direction.

We must put energy back in.

CO₂ is already carbon in a highly stable, oxidized state.

To reduce it back to CO or hydrocarbons requires substantial energy.

And atmospheric CO₂ is extremely dilute.

Large amounts of air must be processed to separate a relatively small amount of CO₂.

Hydrogen is also required.

Producing low-carbon hydrogen requires electricity.

So although capturing atmospheric CO₂ and converting it back into petroleum-like molecules is technically possible, it is currently, in many cases, an energy-intensive and expensive process.

This is also one reason petroleum has remained so difficult to beat.

It is far cheaper to extract reduced carbon that geological time has already prepared underground.

Perhaps What We Are Waiting For Is Not a Breakthrough in Carbon Capture

This leads to an interesting possibility.

We often assume that what we are waiting for is a cheaper carbon-capture technology.

A better adsorbent.

An absorbent with lower regeneration energy.

A better catalyst for CO₂ conversion.

A more efficient electrochemical reduction process.

All of these are important.

But the solution may come from somewhere completely different.

Energy itself may become extraordinarily cheap.

Imagine that one day the absolute cost of low-carbon electricity falls to a level far below what we consider normal today.

It could be fusion.

It could be an entirely new form of nuclear technology.

It could be a solar technology we cannot yet foresee.

It could be a completely different power system combined with massive energy storage.

The specific technology is not the important point.

What matters is a world in which clean energy becomes almost unbelievably inexpensive.

If that happens, every economic calculation we make today would have to be reconsidered.

Direct Air Capture could remain energy-intensive and still become affordable.

Hydrogen could be produced at enormous scale through electrolysis.

Reducing CO₂ back into hydrocarbons could become economically realistic.

At that point, atmospheric CO₂ might truly become an industrial carbon source.

And if that happened, our entire relationship with petroleum could change.

But No One Knows When That Day Will Come

The problem is time.

That technology may arrive in ten years.

Or thirty.

Or fifty.

It may never arrive in the form we currently imagine.

Fusion may not become as cheap as we hope.

The cost of Direct Air Capture may not fall as quickly as expected.

Hydrogen may remain expensive longer than anticipated.

Something we have not imagined at all may appear first.

So what should we do?

Can we simply continue using fossil carbon at the current rate while waiting for a future breakthrough?

I do not think so.

Because carbon continues to accumulate while we wait.

That is why the important thing is not simply to wait.

It is to create enough time for us to wait.

And this is where I see the role of White Bio differently.

White Bio May Be a Technology for Buying Time

I think it is perfectly acceptable to admit that White Bio cannot solve every problem.

In fact, its role becomes clearer once we admit that.

White Bio may not be the final solution to climate change.

Biomass is not unlimited.

Many pathways are not economically competitive.

In many cases, the efficiency and cost structure of existing petrochemical processes are extremely difficult to beat.

And yet White Bio still matters.

Because among the options available to us today, it can help reduce the rate at which we introduce new fossil carbon into the system.

Renewable electricity does the same.

Electric vehicles do the same.

Energy efficiency does the same.

Recycling does the same.

CCUS does the same.

None of them is perfect.

But together, they gradually close the faucet of fossil carbon.

And that gives us time.

Time for better technologies to arrive.

In that sense, I would describe one important role of White Bio this way:

White Bio is a technology for buying time.

It is not a technology that will save the planet on its own.

It is a technology that helps us buy time until better solutions are available.

And It Is Also Insurance for the Future

There is another way I think about White Bio.

It is insurance.

Consider a future in which the breakthroughs we are hoping for do not arrive.

CO₂ concentrations continue to rise.

The impacts of climate change grow more severe.

But inexpensive carbon-capture technology does not appear.

Low-cost fusion does not arrive.

Hydrogen remains expensive.

At some point, society may decide that the risks of climate change have become unacceptable.

What happens then?

We may have no choice but to use technologies that we currently reject as uneconomic.

Even if product prices double.

Even if they triple.

We may deploy DAC at costs that seem unacceptable today.

CCUS may become mandatory.

Renewable fuels may be required, and bio-based chemicals may have to be purchased at prices substantially higher than their fossil alternatives.

But we cannot wait until that day to begin developing the necessary technologies.

Catalyst development takes time.

Microorganism development and scale-up take time.

Biomass supply chains must be built.

Pretreatment and separation must be optimized.

Commercial reactors must be operated for years so that their real problems can be understood.

Hydrogen infrastructure and renewable power networks will be required.

Energy storage will be required.

Technology cannot be created overnight simply because money suddenly becomes available.

That is why White Bio should be developed now.

Not because it is always the cheapest option today, but because it must be ready if the day comes when we truly need it.

And the Hardest Problems May Not Be Technical

When climate change is discussed, we often focus on technology.

But the real world is not that simple.

There are countries that produce oil.

There are companies heavily invested in the petroleum industry.

There are developed countries that industrialized using fossil carbon for more than a century, and there are developing countries that are only now attempting to grow their industries.

Their views on carbon reduction cannot be identical.

Some countries depend heavily on oil and gas exports.

National security matters.

Energy security matters.

Elections matter.

Inflation matters.

People may say that they care about the environment, but react very differently when gasoline or electricity prices rise sharply.

Companies do not operate on sustainability alone.

There is therefore a large gap between what is technically possible and what societies actually choose to do.

Perhaps humanity will not always move at the most rational speed.

It may be that much stronger action will occur only when climate risks become so obvious that most nations and most people experience them as a common threat.

At that point, technologies we now dismiss as too expensive may suddenly become essential.

We should hope that future never arrives.

But we should also prepare for it.

What We Need to Build Is Not One Technology, but Options

For this reason, I do not think we need to place too much weight on White Bio alone.

White Bio alone is not the answer.

CCUS alone is not the answer.

Renewable electricity alone is not the answer.

Circular Carbon alone is not the answer.

What we need is a portfolio of technologies.

Let electricity do as much as possible where electricity works well.

Where carbon molecules are genuinely necessary, use sustainable carbon.

Use biomass.

Recover waste carbon.

Recycle materials whenever possible.

Use chemical recycling when appropriate.

If highly heterogeneous feedstocks require it, gasify them.

If CO₂ can be used economically, use it as a carbon source.

Produce the hydrogen required for these processes with as little carbon as possible.

And for the final carbon that cannot reasonably be circulated, apply capture and storage or carbon removal.

No single technology needs to solve everything.

What matters is having enough options to maintain an industrial society without depending continuously on new fossil carbon.

Ultimately, the Goal Is Not to Eliminate Carbon

Sometimes even the word “decarbonization” feels slightly strange to me.

We cannot eliminate carbon from our world.

Life itself is built on carbon.

Plastics are carbon.

Aviation fuels are carbon.

Lubricants are carbon.

Countless pharmaceuticals and chemicals are carbon.

What we need to eliminate is not carbon itself.

It is:

the system in which we continuously bring new fossil carbon to the surface, use it once, and discard it.

Instead, we need to use the carbon already above ground for as long as possible.

Use biomass carbon.

Recover waste carbon.

If necessary, fix CO₂ again.

And most importantly, stop using carbon where carbon is no longer necessary.

That, to me, is much closer to the true meaning of the carbon transition.

Perhaps One Day Industry Will Look Above Ground for Carbon Instead of Below It

Today, when industry needs carbon, it looks underground.

It searches for oil fields.

It develops gas fields.

It mines coal.

That has been so obvious for so long that we rarely needed to imagine another way.

But the future may be different.

When carbon is needed, industry may look to biomass.

It may look to waste.

It may look to used plastics.

It may look to food waste and sludge.

It may even look to CO₂.

And biotechnology, chemistry, and catalysis may convert that carbon into the molecules we need.

We may no longer use carbon once and discard it.

We may use it twice.

Then three times.

Then convert it into something else and use it again.

The energy required for all of this may increasingly come from low-carbon electricity rather than fossil fuels.

Only the carbon that can no longer be reasonably circulated would finally become CO₂.

Some of that CO₂ would be absorbed by the natural carbon cycle.

Where necessary, additional carbon removal would deal with the rest.

A perfectly closed carbon cycle may never be realistic.

It does not need to be.

We do not need perfection.

What we need is a much slower influx of fossil carbon than we have today.