Doctoral Dissertation Research: Plant-Based Biotechnologies and Petrochemical Security

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What would plastic bottles, synthetic rubber, and even toothpaste be made of if we stopped using petroleum? With mounting concern over the availability and security of fossil fuels, much scholarly and public attention has been paid to finding alternatives for petroleum-based fuels. However, less attention has been paid to finding alternatives for petroleum-based chemicals, used to manufacture of a vast array of everyday items. In the past decade, some scientists have worked to develop an alternative to petroleum-based chemicals: the same chemicals made from sugarcane. This is one example of a category of biotechnologies aiming to utilize crops to manufacture a wide range of products not imaginable even only a decade ago. Nonetheless, questions remain as to whether these plant-based alternative materials are more socially, environmentally, and economically viable than the petroleum-based originals. As the United States and other countries continue to invest millions of dollars into this kind of biotechnology and alternative manufacturing research, it will be critical to understand what social, historical, and economic factors would make plant-based petroleum replacements feasible. Kathleen Ulrich, under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Ballestero of Rice University, will explore the social, economic, and historical dimensions of post-petroleum biotechnological development. Research will be conducted in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where in the past decade an unprecedented amount of scientific funding has been allocated to sugarcane-based product development. This is also a particularly notable research setting because Brazil is the top producer of sugarcane in the world, and the country was originally built upon the slave-based sugarcane industry starting in the sixteenth century. The investigators will examine how sugarcane scientists, state funding agents, and sugar factory workers in Sao Paulo conceive, develop, and implement sugarcane as a petroleum replacement. The investigators will assess to what extent these actors understand the historical, social, economic, and environmental characteristics of sugarcane in Brazil as positively or negatively impacting the feasibility of making sugarcane-based petroleum replacements. The investigators will carry out participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and surveys among the sugarcane scientists, funding agents, and sugar factory workers. This research will increase understandings of how biotechnology, manufacturing, and agriculture are coming together in new ways in the twenty-first century. Findings from this research will be crucial to formulating socially, economically, and environmentally responsible policies around plant-based manufacturing practices in the future. Furthermore, this research will contribute to efforts to improve cross-disciplinary collaborations between social scientists and biologists with the aim of better understanding and communicating to the public the social implications of new biotechnologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.