Bioeconomy Solutions

Issue

In a world with too much CO₂ already in the atmosphere and more accumulating every year, reversing climate change requires rapid development of industries that remove and use CO₂ at a gigaton scale.  For more than three billion years, photosynthesis has been removing tens of gigatons of CO₂ per year from the atmosphere, forming the foundation of a food and energy web that has sustained life on Earth.  For a few dozen centuries, humans have harnessed photosynthesis through agriculture and forestry, producing raw materials for our food, fiber, and energy industries.  We have now begun to consider ways to reconfigure those industries to solve the climate challenge. 

Bioenergy and biomaterials can substitute coal and petrochemical products to reduce fossil carbon emissions, as well as sequester carbon in long-lived wood products, bioplastics, and other biomaterials.  Organic wastes can be composted, digested or converted to biochar and returned to soils to increase soil carbon storage, while waste CO₂ from bioprocessing can be pumped underground to massive geologic storage reservoirs or upcycled to fuels and polymers.

Growing and transforming a new Bioeconomy

Developing industries and products that are carbon negative offers remarkable potential for both rural economic development and environmental sustainability.  At a global scale, the annual CO₂ captured by the photosynthesis of forests, agricultural crops and grasslands exceeds fossil fuel emissions by a factor of ten.  Converting just a few percent of that photosynthesis to carbon negative bioenergy and biomaterials can play a critical role in reversing climate change and generate millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars of new economic activity.  However, there are a range of technical, social, economic, and policy barriers to realizing that vision.  The initiative aims to catalyze the development of integrated innovative processes rooted in systems approaches that ensure the viability and long-term sustainability of the solutions.

Convener

Juliana Vasco-Correa, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Associated Members

Associates

• Austin Brown, Extension Program Specialist In Small Ruminant Production & Management
• Mary Ann Bruns, Associate Professor, Soil Microbiology & Biogeochemistry*
• Harry Crissy, Extension Educator, Business and Community Vitality
• Melik Demirel, Huck Chair & Professor of Biomimetics*
• Paul Esker, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology & Field Crop Pathology*
• Lara Fowler, Senior Lecturer, Penn State Law
• Michael Jacobson, Professor
• Heather Karsten, Associate Professor, Crop Production/Ecology*
• Judd Michael, Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering
• Jacqueline O'Connor, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
• Matthew Royer, Assistant Research Professor, Director of the Agriculture & Environment Center*

Affiliates

• Charles Anderson, Associate Professor of Biology
• Elizabeth Boyer, Professor of Environmental Science
• Stephen Chmely, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering*
• Christine Costello, Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
• Wayne Curtis, Professor, Chemical Engineering*
• Kenneth Davis, Professor of Atmospheric & Climate Science*
• Zhen Lei, Associate Professor, Energy & Environmental Economics*
• Bruce Logan, Kappe Professor, Environmental Engineering*
• Felipe Montes, Assistant Research Professor, Plant Science
• Andrew Read, Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences*
• Phillip Savage, Professor & Department Head, Chemical Engineering*
• Rui Shi, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering*
• Hilal Ezgi Toraman, Assistant Professor, Energy & Mineral Engineering & Chemical Engineering*
• Meng Wang, Assistant Professor, Environmental Systems Engineering*
• Hojae Yi, Assistant Research Professor*
• Yi Zhang, Assistant Professor, Food Science

Related College of Agricultural Sciences Research Impact Areas

• Climate-Smart Agricultural Systems
• Human and Community Dynamics