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

该项目将对可再生燃料行业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。它将解决多种经济、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目标，这将大大减少二氧化碳（CO2）的排放，二氧化碳是作物原料乙醇生物合成的副产品。为了实现这一目标，我们将对酿酒酵母进行改造，使其消耗“绿色氢”作为能源，从而使原料碳（通常以二氧化碳的形式排放）被重新定向到乙醇生物合成中。主要目标是实现真正的零乙醇发酵，不排放二氧化碳。2019年全球基于酵母的生物乙醇产量为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化为乙醇，我们将降低排放量和每单位乙醇生产的作物原料需求，腾出农业用地用于粮食和饲料生产。这将巩固在运输燃料中增加生物乙醇使用的政治雄心，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甚至更高。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进一步的生物基产品，该项目完全符合政府的清洁增长战略和净零排放目标。该项目利用英国一家成熟且成功的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，同时潜在的年碳减排量为7700万吨，从而在向300亿加仑/ 290亿英镑的全球燃料乙醇市场提供工业酵母方面建立领先地位。

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.