HydroGreen Biofuel: Reducing the carbon footprint of highly efficient bioethanol production

该项目将对可再生燃料部门乙醇生产的可持续性和成本效益产生破坏性影响，同时改善整个乙醇行业的环境足迹和气候变化影响。它将满足多种经济、社会、环境和政治需求。它将通过创新的基于合成生物学的碳减排来实现这一点，该减排显著减少了二氧化碳(CO2)的正常伴随排放，二氧化碳是从农作物原料生物合成乙醇的副产品。为了实现这一目标，我们将设计酿酒酵母来消耗“绿色氢气”作为能源，以便将原料碳(通常会以二氧化碳的形式排放)重新导向乙醇生物合成。我们的首要目标是实现真正的净零酒精发酵，不排放二氧化碳。2019年全球酵母基生物乙醇产量为286亿加仑(《生物燃料文摘2020》)，向环境排放了7760万吨二氧化碳温室气体。通过将碳从二氧化碳转向乙醇，我们将降低单位乙醇生产的排放量和作物原料需求，释放农业用地用于粮食和饲料生产。这将支持在运输燃料中增加生物乙醇使用量的政治野心，解决环境和经济挑战，并支持英国政府立法，将燃料乙醇含量从E5提高到E10及以后。由此产生的作物原料需求减少(高达33%)将提供市场领先的竞争力。由此产生的工程酵母的效率和可持续性收益将适用于更多的基于生物的产品，该项目完全符合政府的清洁增长战略和净零排放目标。该项目利用一家成熟和成功的英国工业生物技术公司的专业知识和最终用户关系来实施一项颠覆性技术，该技术将建立行业领先的产品竞争力，并潜在地每年减少7700万吨的碳排放，从而在向300亿加仑/GB 290亿美元的全球燃料乙醇市场提供工业酵母方面确立领先地位。

This project will have a disruptive impact on the sustainability and cost effectiveness of ethanol production for the renewable fuels sector, while improving the environmental footprint and climate-change impact of the entire ethanol industry. It will address multiple economic, social, environmental and political needs. It will achieve this through innovative synthetic biology based, carbon-abatement that significantly reduces the normal concomitant emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a by-product of ethanol biosynthesis from crop feedstocks. To achieve this aim we will engineer _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_ (Brewer's yeast) to consume 'green hydrogen' as an energy source in order to allow feedstock carbon (that would normally be emitted as CO2) to instead be redirected to ethanol biosynthesis. The primary goal is a truly net zero ethanol fermentation that emits no CO2\. Global yeast-based bioethanol production in 2019 of 28.6 billion gallons (BioFuel Digest 2020) emitted 77.6 million tonnes of CO2 GHG into the environment. By redirecting carbon from CO2 to ethanol we will lower emissions and crop feedstock requirement per unit ethanol produced, freeing up agricultural land for food and feed production. This will underpin political ambitions to increase bioethanol use in transportation fuels, addressing environmental and economic challenges and supporting UK government legislation to increase fuel-ethanol content from E5 to E10 and beyond. The resulting reduction in crop feedstock requirements (up to 33%) will provide market-leading competitiveness. The efficiency and sustainability gains of the resulting engineered yeast will be applicable to further bio-based products and the project aligns fully with the government's Clean Growth Strategy and net zero emissions targets. This project leverages the expertise and end-user relationships of an established and successful UK industrial biotechnology company to implement a disruptive technology that would establish industry-leading product competitiveness alongside potential annual carbon abatement of 77 million tons to establish a leading position in the provision of industrial yeast to the 30 billion gallons/£29 billion global markets for fuel ethanol.