While ethanol and FAME-based biodiesel represent significant steps
towards decreasing petroleum dependence, these liquid fuels have been
selected not because of their suitability as fuels, but rather because of
their ease of production by naturally occurring organisms or processes. The
advances in synthetic biology now allow us to design renewable biofuels that
more closely resemble petroleum fuels. In this talk, we will explore the
impact of novel liquid biofuels produced through the design of microbes that
ferment sugar to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Work at Amyris has centered on
identifying the best molecules for use in today’s transportation fuel
infrastructure (including diesel, gasoline, and jet fuels) and the
subsequent engineering of microbial systems for their production. Because of
the potential fungibility of these fuels within the current transportation
fuel infrastructure, this technology has the potential to significantly
increase biofuel demand, thus offsetting the need for new sources of liquid
fuels while also significantly reducing the carbon footprint of those fuels.