TEDSalon 2007 Hot Science
Juan Enriquez: Using biology to rethink the energy challenge
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Juan Enriquez challenges our definition of bioenergy. Oil, coal, gas and other hydrocarbons are not chemical but biological products, based on plant matter -- and thus, growable. Our whole approach to fuel, he argues, needs to change.
Juan Enriquez - Futurist
Juan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will bring in business, technology, politics and society. Full bio
Juan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will bring in business, technology, politics and society. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:25
What is bioenergy? Bioenergy is not ethanol.
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Bioenergy isn't global warming. Bioenergy is
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something which seems counterintuitive. Bioenergy
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is oil. It's gas. It's coal. And part of building
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that bridge to the future, to the point where we
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can actually see the oceans in a rational way, or
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put up these geo-spatial orbits that will twirl or
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do microwaves or stuff, is going to depend on how
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we understand bioenergy and manage it. And to do
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that, you really have to look first at agriculture.
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So we've been planting stuff for 11,000 years. And
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in the measure that we plant stuff, what we learn
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from agriculture is you've got to deal with pests,
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you've got to deal with all types of awful things,
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you've got to cultivate stuff. In the measure
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that you learn how to use water to cultivate, then
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you're going to be able to spread beyond the Nile.
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You're going to be able to power stuff, so irrigation
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makes a difference.
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Irrigation starts to make you be allowed to plant
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stuff where you want it, as opposed to where the
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rivers flood. You start getting this organic
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agriculture; you start putting machinery onto this
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stuff. Machinery, with a whole bunch of water,
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leads to very large-scale agriculture.
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You put together machines and water, and you get
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landscapes that look like this. And then you get
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sales that look like this. It's brute force. So
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what you've been doing in agriculture is you start
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out with something that's a reasonably natural
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system. You start taming that natural system. You
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put a lot of force behind that natural system. You
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put a whole bunch of pesticides and herbicides --
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(Laughter) -- behind that natural system, and you
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end up with systems that look like this.
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And it's all brute force. And that's the way we've
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been approaching energy. So the lesson in
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agriculture is that you can actually change the
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system that's based on brute force as you start
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merging that system and learning that system and
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actually applying biology. And you move from a
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discipline of engineering, you move from a
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discipline of chemistry, into a discipline of
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biology. And probably one of the most important
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human beings on the planet is this guy behind me.
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This is a guy called Norman Borlaug. He won the
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Nobel Prize. He's got the Congressional Medal of
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Honor. He deserves all of this stuff. And he
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deserves this stuff because he probably has fed
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more people than any other human being alive
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because he researched how to put biology behind
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seeds. He did this in Mexico. The reason why India
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and China no longer have these massive famines is
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because Norman Borlaug taught them how to grow
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grains in a more efficient way and launched the
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Green Revolution. That is something that a lot of
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people have criticized. But of course, those are
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people who don't realize that China and India,
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instead of having huge amounts of starving people,
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are exporting grains.
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And the irony of this particular system is the
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place where he did the research, which was Mexico,
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didn't adopt this technology, ignored this
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technology, talked about why this technology
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should be thought about, but not really applied.
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And Mexico remains one of the largest grain
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importers on the planet because it doesn't apply
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technology that was discovered in Mexico. And in
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fact, hasn't recognized this man, to the point
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where there aren't statues of this man all over
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Mexico. There are in China and India. And the
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Institute that this guy ran has now moved to
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India. That is the difference between adopting
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technologies and discussing technologies.
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Now, it's not just that this guy fed a huge amount
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of people in the world. It's that this is the net
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effect in terms of what technology does, if you
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understand biology.
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What happened in agriculture? Well, if you take
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agriculture over a century, agriculture in about
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1900 would have been recognizable to somebody
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planting a thousand years earlier. Yeah, the plows look
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different. The machines were tractors or stuff
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instead of mules, but the farmer would have
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understood: this is what the guy's doing, this is
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why he's doing it, this is where he's going. What
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really started to change in agriculture is when
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you started moving from this brute force
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engineering and chemistry into biology, and that's
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where you get your productivity increases. And as
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you do that stuff, here's what happens to
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productivity.
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Basically, you go from 250 hours to produce 100
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bushels, to 40, to 15, to five. Agricultural labor
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productivity increased seven times, 1950 to 2000,
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whereas the rest of the economy increased about
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2.5 times. This is an absolutely massive increase
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in how much is produced per person.
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The effect of this, of course, is it's not just
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amber waves of grain, it is mountains of stuff.
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And 50 percent of the EU budget is going to subsidize
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agriculture from mountains of stuff that people
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have overproduced.
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This would be a good outcome for energy. And of
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course, by now, you're probably saying to
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yourself, "Self, I thought I came to a talk about
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energy and here's this guy talking about biology."
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So where's the link between these two things?
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One of the ironies of this whole system is we're
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discussing what to do about a system that we don't
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understand. We don't even know what oil is. We
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don't know where oil comes from. I mean,
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literally, it's still a source of debate what
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this black river of stuff is and where it comes
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from. The best assumption, and one of the best
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guesses in this stuff, is that this stuff comes
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out of this stuff, that these things absorb
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sunlight, rot under pressure for millions of
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years, and you get these black rivers.
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Now, the interesting thing about that thesis -- if
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that thesis turns out to be true -- is that oil,
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and all hydrocarbons, turned out to be
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concentrated sunlight. And if you think of
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bioenergy, bioenergy isn't ethanol. Bioenergy is
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taking the sun, concentrating it in amoebas,
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concentrating it in plants, and maybe that's why
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you get these rainbows.
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And as you're looking at this system, if
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hydrocarbons are concentrated sunlight, then
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bioenergy works in a different way. And we've got
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to start thinking of oil and other hydrocarbons as
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part of these solar panels.
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Maybe that's one of the reasons why if you fly
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over west Texas, the types of wells that you're
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beginning to see don't look unlike those pictures
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of Kansas and those irrigated plots.
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This is how you farm oil. And as you think of
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farming oil and how oil has evolved, we started
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with this brute force approach. And then what did
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we learn? Then we learned we had to go bigger. And
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then what'd we learn? Then we have to go even
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bigger. And we are getting really destructive as
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we're going out and farming this bioenergy.
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These are the Athabasca tar sands, and there's an
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enormous amount -- first of mining, the largest
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trucks in the world are working here, and then
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you've got to pull out this black sludge, which is
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basically oil that doesn't flow. It's tied to the
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sand. And then you've got to use a lot of steam to
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separate it, which only works at today's oil
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prices.
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Coal. Coal turns out to be virtually the same
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stuff. It is probably plants, except that these
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have been burned and crushed under pressure.
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So you take something like this, you burn it, you
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put it under pressure, and likely as not, you get
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this. Although, again, I stress: we don't know.
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Which is curious as we debate all this stuff. But
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as you think of coal, this is what burned wheat
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kernels look like. Not entirely unlike coal.
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And of course, coalmines are very dangerous
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places because in some of these coalmines, you
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get gas. When that gas blows up, people die. So
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you're producing a biogas out of coal in some
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mines, but not in others.
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Any place you see a differential, there're some
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interesting questions. There's some questions as
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to what you should be doing with this stuff. But
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again, coal. Maybe the same stuff, maybe the same
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system, maybe bioenergy, and you're applying
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exactly the same technology.
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Here's your brute force approach. Once you get
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through your brute force approach, then you just
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rip off whole mountaintops. And you end up with
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the single largest source of carbon emissions,
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which are coal-fired gas plants. That is probably
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not the best use of bioenergy.
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As you think of what are the alternatives to this
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system -- it's important to find alternatives
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because it turns out that the U.S. is dwindling in
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its petroleum reserves, but it is not dwindling in
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its coal reserves, nor is China. There are huge
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coal reserves that are sitting out there, and
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we've got to start thinking of them as biological
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energy, because if we keep treating them as
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chemical energy, or engineering energy, we're
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going to be in deep doo-doo.
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Gas is a similar issue. Gas is also a biological
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product. And as you think of gas, well, you're
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familiar with gas. And here's a different way of
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mining coal.
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This is called coal bed methane. Why is this
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picture interesting? Because if coal turns out to
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be concentrated plant life, the reason why you may
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get a differential in gas output between one mine
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and another -- the reason why one mine may blow up
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and another one may not blow up -- may be because
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there's stuff eating that stuff and producing gas.
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This is a well-known phenomenon. (Laughter) You
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eat certain things, you produce a lot of gas. It
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may turn out that biological processes in coalmines
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have the same process. If that is true, then
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one of the ways of getting the energy out of coal
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may not be to rip whole mountaintops off, and it
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may not be to burn coal. It may be to have stuff
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process that coal in a biological fashion as you
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did in agriculture.
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That is what bioenergy is. It is not ethanol. It
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is not subsidies to a few companies. It is not
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importing corn into Iowa because you've built so
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many of these ethanol plants. It is beginning to
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understand the transition that occurred in
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agriculture, from brute force into biological
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force. And in the measure that you can do that,
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you can clean some stuff, and you can clean it
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pretty quickly.
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We already have some indicators of productivity on
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this stuff. OK, if you put steam into coal fields
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or petroleum fields that have been running for
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decades, you can get a really substantial
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increase, like an eight-fold increase, in your
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output. This is just the beginning stages of this
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stuff.
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And as you think of biomaterials, this guy -- who
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did part of the sequencing of the human genome,
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who just doubled the databases of genes and
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proteins known on earth by sailing around the
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world -- has been thinking about how you structure
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this. And there's a series of smart people
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thinking about this. And they've been putting
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together companies like Synthetic Genomics, like,
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a Cambria, like Codon, and what those companies are
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trying to do is to think of, how do you apply
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biological principles to avoid brute force?
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Think of it in the following terms. Think of it as
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beginning to program stuff for specific purposes.
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Think of the cell as a hardware. Think of the
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genes as a software. And in the measure that you
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begin to think of life as code that is
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interchangeable, that can become energy, that can
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become food, that can become fiber, that can
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become human beings, that can become a whole
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series of things, then you've got to shift your
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approach as to how you're going to structure and
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deal and think about energy in a very different
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way.
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What are the first principles of this stuff and
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where are we heading? This is one of the gentle
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giants on the planet. He's one of the nicest human
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beings you've ever met. His name is Hamilton
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Smith. He won the Nobel for figuring out how to
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cut genes -- something called restriction enzymes.
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He was at Hopkins when he did this, and he's such
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a modest guy that the day he won, his mother
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called him and said, "I didn't realize there was
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another Ham Smith at Hopkins. Do you know he just
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won the Nobel?" (Laughter) I mean, that was Mom,
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but anyway, this guy is just a class act. You find
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him at the bench every single day, working on a
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pipette and building stuff. And one of the things
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this guy just built are these things.
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What is this? This is the first transplant of
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naked DNA, where you take an entire DNA operating
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system out of one cell, insert it into a different
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cell, and have that cell boot up as a separate
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species. That's one month old. You will see stuff
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in the next month that will be just as important
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as this stuff.
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And as you think about this stuff and what the
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implications of this are, we're going to start not
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just converting ethanol from corn with very high
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subsidies. We're going to start thinking about
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biology entering energy. It is very expensive to
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process this stuff, both in economic terms and in
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energy terms.
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This is what accumulates in the tar sands of
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Alberta. These are sulfur blocks. Because as you
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separate that petroleum from the sand, and use an
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enormous amount of energy inside that vapor --
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steam to separate this stuff -- you also have to
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separate out the sulfur. The difference between
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light crude and heavy crude -- well, it's about 14
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bucks a barrel. That's why you're building these
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pyramids of sulfur blocks. And by the way, the
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scale on these things is pretty large.
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Now, if you can take part of the energy content
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out of doing this, you reduce the system, and you
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really do start applying biological principles to
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energy. This has to be a bridge to the point where
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you can get to wind, to the point where you can
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get to solar, to the point where you can get to
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nuclear -- and hopefully you won't build the next
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nuclear plant on a beautiful seashore next to an
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earthquake fault. (Laughter) Just a thought.
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But in the meantime, for the next decade at least,
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the name of the game is hydrocarbons. And be that
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oil, be that gas, be that coal, this is what we're
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dealing with. And before I make this talk too
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long, here's what's happening in the current
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energy system.
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86 percent of the energy we consume are
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hydrocarbons. That means 86 percent of the stuff we're
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consuming are probably processed plants and
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amoebas and the rest of the stuff. And there's a
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role in here for conservation. There's a role in
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here for alternative stuff, but we've also got to
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get that other portion right.
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How we deal with that other portion is our bridge
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to the future. And as we think of this bridge to
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the future, one of the things you should ponder
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is: we are leaving about two-thirds of the oil today
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inside those wells. So we're spending an enormous
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amount of money and leaving most of the energy
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down there. Which, of course, requires more energy
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to go out and get energy. The ratios become
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idiotic by the time you get to ethanol. It may
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even be a one-to-one ratio on the energy input and
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the energy output. That is a stupid way of
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managing this system.
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Last point, last graph. One of the things that
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we've got to do is to stabilize oil prices. This
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is what oil prices look like, OK?
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This is a very bad system because what happens is
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your hurdle rate gets set very low. People come up
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with really smart ideas for solar panels, or for
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wind, or for something else, and then guess what?
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The oil price goes through the floor. That company
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goes out of business, and then you can bring the
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oil price back up.
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So if I had one closing and modest suggestion,
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let's set a stable oil price in Europe and the
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United States. How do you do that? Well, let's put
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a tax on oil that is a non-revenue tax, and it
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basically says for the next 20 years, the price of
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oil will be -- whatever you want, 35 bucks, 40
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bucks. If the OPEC price falls below that, we tax
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it. If the OPEC price goes above that, the tax
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goes away.
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What does that do for entrepreneurs? What does it
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do for companies? It tells people, if you can
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produce energy for less than 35 bucks a barrel, or
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less than 40 bucks a barrel, or less than 50 bucks
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a barrel -- let's debate it -- you will have a
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business. But let's not put people through this
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cycle where it doesn't pay to research because
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your company will go out of business as OPEC
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drives alternatives and keeps bioenergy from
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happening. Thank you.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Juan Enriquez - FuturistJuan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will bring in business, technology, politics and society.
Why you should listen
A broad thinker who studies the intersections of these fields, Enriquez has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. He is the managing director of Excel Venture Management, a life sciences VC firm. He recently published (with Steve Gullans) Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Shaping Life on Earth. The book describes a world where humans increasingly shape their environment, themselves and other species.
Enriquez is a member of the board of Synthetic Genomics, which recently introduced the smallest synthetic living cell. Called “JCVI-syn 3.0,” it has 473 genes (about half the previous smallest cell). The organism would die if one of the genes is removed. In other words, this is the minimum genetic instruction set for a living organism.
Juan Enriquez | Speaker | TED.com