Towards the carbohydrate economy

Sugar CRC CEO Dr Peter Twine sees the industry - with a little help from its friends in the research community - leading Australia into what he calls the 'carbohydrate economy'.

Twine said the US Department of Energy has published series of 'roadmap' documents describing how nations can shift from a petrochemical-based economy to a carbohydrate economy, in which industrial chemicals would be derived from crops, and ethanol would replace petroleum as a fuel.

He said the Sugar CRC is trying to engage companies in long-term projects aimed at producing industrially useful molecules from the sugar industry's renewable resource, rather than from non-renewable, greenhouse-gas generating, fossil fuel feedstocks.

"Through Commonwealth support, and the 14 companies and agencies that formed the CRC, we have something like $80 million in cash and kind to invest in exploring the opportunities biotech offers," he said.

"Change is a strange beast. She comes where there is an opportunity.

"But it's not just the science we have to develop - we have to develop supply and distribution chains for the products of renewable materials, especially plastics.

"Plastics are a huge carbon source, but most are low-value. We're trying to develop high-value plastics from sugarcane. Companies like Dow, Cargill and Dupont are all keen to look at manufacturing molecules from renewable resources.

"We believe there is opportunity to create new intellectual property for the industry, rather than using other people's IP and being at their behest. And we don't want to get into a situation where we are just developing another commodity product. Niche molecules like biodegradable plastics will be a key part of the change.

Twine said sugarcane has little propensity to flower, and has no close native relatives, so GM cultivars can't easily spread their transgenes via wind-blown or insect-borne pollen.