Could we biomanufacture in new ways? Some believe that centralised mass-production is not the only route to sustainable industry thanks to open-source biotech and 3D printing.
We look at the groups trying to move biobased production out of large-scale plants and into the hands of a much wider range of actors, something that could strengthen the climate resilience of whole economies.
Scaling outwards
Across renewable industries, the mantra today is scaling. Ambitious climate targets demand more of the technologies that already exist. As a result, the energy transition has become tied to large factories and corporate players. Bigger is better, in this order of things, and more is more.
However, many in the scientific, tech, and design communities are calling for more decentralisation in climate tech. They believe technologies for making renewable goods should not just be confined to the corporation and the mega-plant but capable of breaking out into garages, small businesses, community centres, and bedrooms across the world.
Rather than scaling up, we could call this a ‘scaling outward’ – the diffusion of biomanufacturing technologies not through bundles of large investments into a few assets, but many millions of small-scale shifts.
The biggest benefit of this model is not just environmental. It is also a way of making the renewables transition fairer: more people could access technologies that help them produce for everyday needs such as food, clean water, and energy regardless of where they are or where they fall on the income ladder.
Distributed Design
One advocate of the decentralised approach is the Distributed Design group. They are a collective of roughly twenty European designers, offering an exchange and networking hub for anyone interested in distributed production.
The collective places emphasis on supporting innovations in biobased design and other sustainability tech that are accessible to the wider public. They take on board designers that make their design processes transparent, and replicable, from the hardware and software involved to implementation and usability. Products are eminently customisable and open to those who cannot afford capital intensive, IP-protected platforms.
Each year the Platform holds an open call for new members, a selective process that tries to ensure new members are committed to designing in ways that go beyond narrow conceptions of sustainability.
Rather than designers that focus on single metrics, such as reducing carbon emissions, pollution impacts, they are looking for those with a more expansive sustainability vision: technologies that actively improve the environment while also augmenting cultural and social wellbeing among its consumers and users.
Open source bio-building blocks
(Seaweed) Farm to Table is a representative member of the Distributed Design collective. The startup, which is based in both Delft the Netherlands and in Copenhagen, Denmark, has created an open source archive for marine biomaterials, with advice on how to use them in architecture.
The project is led by Kathryn Laarsen and is based on her 2022 master’s research into designing with shells, seagrass, and seaweed, based on years of research.
The archive contains ‘recipes’ for making strong biomaterials from basic plant matter that can be foraged from the foreshore or coast. The initiative is a way of spreading the latest know-how on the use of unconventional, but easily sourced, biobased materials in buildings as widely as possible.
Potential users would be building companies that may have little background in the use of these raw materials. Another target audience are seaweed farmers looking to start producing higher value materials from their crop but do not know where to start.
Shellcrete, a shell-based biocomposite that can be used to form bricks, is one of the renewable biomaterials on the list. Another marine building block material is sargassum, a type of macroalgae that can be manually pressed into unfired clay bricks. Seagrass presents another opportunity to use a common material from the shoreline for making an insulating renewable brick.
Grow-your-own spirulina
Superfood spirulina has health and planetary benefits, offering a high protein source that does not require the acreage and energy needed to raise cattle. Growing the protein-packed organism can be completely carbon neutral under certain techniques.
However, the algae is usually sold in a powdered form that tends to be too pricey for the average consumer. Spirulina Society is looking to fix that with a way of growing the algae anywhere, even from a bedroom window.
The organisation provides downloadable 3D models of the tools people need to build their spirulina building kit including lids and harvesting funnels. Those who lack the necessary craft skills are encouraged to take the blueprints to local makerspaces or manufacturers.
This project is a small attempt to generate new models of equitable and sustainable food production on a more volatile planet. With our food systems already heaving under the simultaneous pressures of drought and flooding, there needs to be more investment ways ordinary people can access healthy, culturally appropriate food. The Spirulina Society’s mission is to make the prerequisites for a healthy and sustainable protein an internet connection and a supply of basic raw materials like water and sunlight.
Decentralisation can support high volume production
Even in the corporate world of biobased technologies, downsized and portable production tools are catching on. Yet here, decentralisation does not necessarily mean small-scale.
In Argentina, the Buenos Aires- and San Francisco-based startup called Stämm has been trying to put it into practice with its ‘bioprocessor’ that it says could decentralise cell-based biomanufacturing.
The all-in-one cell cultivator and bioreactor automates the steps involved in biomanufacturing, from growing an initial cell culture to finally harvesting chemicals from the cells, ready for purification. It includes bioreactors that track cell behaviour, alters the cell’s output and keeps a tab on oxygen, pH and temperature.
In the view of startups like Stämm, decentralised biomanufacturing is not an alternative to large-scale industrialisation but rather a way of accelerating it. They say the bioreactor could be used to transmit the technical know-how acquired in one biomanufacturing plant to another way on the other side of the world.
“The decentralisation of industrial biomanufacturing compels us to start building a common language for production, to facilitate the replicability and transfer of production protocols,” Yuyo Vegh told GEN News. “This ultimately strengthens the resilience and robustness of the industry as a whole.”
Cell-free biomanufacturing could bring costs down
Decentralised, ‘on-demand’ biobased production may one-day get a boost from an up and coming method known as engineering cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS).
Already, industrial and pharmaceutical biotech uses a broad process called precision fermentation where cells are modified at a genetic level to produce lots of a specific chemical. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) is similar to this but synthesises protein in vitro without the use of living cells.
The simple act of eliminating living cells in the manufacturing process means the technology could make biomanufacturing for any material or chemical a lot cheaper. This is because most of the costs related to current precision fermentation relate to the massive efforts needed to keep organisms alive and happy.
Without any cell wall, producers could directly manipulate the chemical environment, which also helps to regulate the easy sample absorption, concentration optimisation, and online reaction monitoring. They would no longer need to account for the length of cell growth cycles which can slow the process and add costs.
Advocates say that the cell free synthesis method, much more than with conventional fermentation, can allow for decentralised and on-demand biomanufacturing platforms that turn out a flexible range of chemical outputs and are highly portable.
Resilience at multiple scales
By unlocking wider access to biobased innovations, decentralised biomanufacturing is something that could usher in a more just and more rapid energy transition.
The energy transition is more likely to take hold and last if there is social acceptance around its technologies and practices – something more likely to happen if people see their tangible benefits and feel empowered as makers and users.
Hyper-local supply chains can cut waste and emissions while encouraging thrift and circularity. Tied to the demands of a small number of people, the production of goods under the distributed model – food, agricultural inputs, medicines – are more likely to be oriented towards the wants and needs of a populace rather than on maximising returns through wasteful practices like overcapacity.
Lightening the environmental load comes with social benefits. With access to tools for producing biobased goods, people can meet basic needs outside the uncertainties of the market and without relying on fallible, far flung supply chains. This is critical especially developing countries, which are less able to roll out capital-intensive industrial capacity and infrastructure.
Ultimately, the energy and material transition has to happen at multiple and interlocking scales. The large-scale capacity-building being pursued by states and corporations is vital but only one part of the picture. A missing component today is finding ways of enabling communities and individuals to bring the production of essential goods, and the power of tech, under their control.