20 October 2009 | World Forum | The Hague

Session 2 | Vision Chemistry & Energy
10.30 - 12.00 hrs

The Netherlands has an excellent position to capture large economic and ecological benefits of the Biobased Economy for the chemicals, fuels and energy sectors: strong chemical industries that lead the sustainability index, world-class biotechnology and chemical scientists, a tradition of close, successful industry-academic collaborations (DPI, B(E)-Basic, CatchBio, IBOS and others) and a key position as the logistics gateway to Europe. Past substantial governmental investments
as well as those from private and public investments have contributed to this top position.

But this is not a time to sit down and relax: proof-of-concept in an industrial or academic laboratory requires experimentation at relevant (pilot) scale; industrial targets for continued 'greening' of production require the development of supply chain of sustainable biomass; we need a pro-active financial sector to invest in sometimes seemingly risky opportunities; and anticipated job creation requires thousands of engineers, scientists and technicians to build and operate this new branch of a successful industry. From a Life Sciences point of view, we have to remember that industrial biotechnology plays an important but not isolated role in building this sector. Therefore, this session will focus on 3
of its many challenging and relevant interfaces
(1) biotechnology and chemical catalysis,
(2) agro/forestry and industrial biotechnology, and (3) industrial biotechnology and the environment - balancing GHG reduction and increased agro-industrial stress on the environment.

At the interface of white biotechnology |

 

Chair & Introduction
Luuk van der Wielen, Professor of Biotechnology at
TU Delft, Scientific Director B-BASIC

Bio/chemo interface
Bert Weckhuijsen, director CatchBio

Green/white interface
Nilay Shah, Deputy-Director Porter Alliance/Imperial College

White/climate interface
Bram Brouwer, Director BioDetection Systems,
Director Ecogenomics Consortium, BE-Basic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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