24.05.2003
By LIAM DANN
Dr Jim Watson has a startling new vision for New Zealand's economic future.
He wants us to grow our own energy.
The chief executive of New Zealand's largest biotechnology company -
Genesis Research & Development - has big plans to take his science beyond
medicine and food.
He is proposing to engineer plants that can be used to create alternative
fuels and biodegradable plastics.
This is not just academic theory. The seeds of his vision were sown last
month when Genesis announced its strategic plan to split in two.
If the board approves, the plant science division - about 50 per cent of
the company - will be spun off this year as a separate entity titled, for the
moment, the Plant Company.
Genesis will continue as a listed company but will focus solely on medical
products such as its breakthrough psoriasis drug, PVAC.
The Plant Company will be unlisted but will aim to float in several years.
Genesis will keep a stake in the Plant Company that will eventually be
returned directly to shareholders.
The Plant Company will continue to generate revenue from licensing its
extensive databases of plant DNA. It would also develop software tools to help
companies to commercialise DNA information.
That will form half of the company's core business, Watson says - but it
has to go further than that.
"We have to create revolutionary new products."
The development of plants for use in energy generation and biodegradable
plastics will be the other half of its core business.
Watson's logic for the move comes from looking at New Zealand's competitive
advantage in the past 100 years and applying it to the next.
"Last century was about food production," he says."New Zealand did well
because our climate and soils favoured growing biomass.
"We became very good at converting that biomass into commodity products."
It's no secret that the value of the those commodities is dropping.
"This is the century of energy," Watson says. "Finding new ways to generate
energy is going to become a whole new primary industry."
The use of biotechnology to enhance food production is still going to be
big business but it faces problems, he says.
It lacks public acceptance and even if that changes, the efficiency gains
are incremental and limited.
Plant matter is already being used to produce the fuel substitute ethanol
and to make plastic-type substances.
There are local examples. Forest Research is using wood chip to make
biodegradable plant pots that look and feel like plastic.
And the United States produces 7.5 billion litres of ethanol fuel a year by
fermenting maize. Volumes have been growing steadily since the oil crisis in
the 1970s when the first experiments began.
All cars in the US are built to run on a fuel mix that contains 10 per cent
ethanol and 90 per cent petrol.
Watson says ethanol can also be converted directly into a petrol substitute
or used in hydrogen fuel cells.
Using plant matter to create energy is environmentally smarter, says
Watson.
A plant that is used to generate fuel consumes carbon while it grows to
balance the carbon it releases as a fuel. It is also renewable, unlike fossil
fuels.
The big problem is cost: it is still cheaper to use fossil fuels than to
process plant matter, Watson says.
He wants to apply New Zealand science to solving that problem.
The most useful polymer in plant matter is cellulose fibre. The other
polymer in plant matter is lignin, which is not so useful. "The problem is
extracting the lignin."
The Plant Company will develop plants proven to grow well in New Zealand,
he says. "We're sitting on an exciting new business
Sounds like Genesis has well and truly lost the plot.
Mick
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