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Okay, Metabolics is a bioscience company |
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and we’re focused on clean solutions for
plastics, chemicals, and energy. |
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Our first product that we’re commercializing
this year is a biodegradable biobased plastic. |
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The kind of things that our technology
has aimed to solve |
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include energy security, litter, and
global warming, CO2, |
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and I’ll get into the problem first and
then the solution. |
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Show of hands, how many people in the
room subscribed to the pick oil theory |
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and that we should plan for a world
without oil? |
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Almost everyone, very good. |
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What about plastics? Almost all plastics
today are made from oil. |
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You don’t have oil, try living a day
without plastic, what are you gonna do? |
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Okay, 540 billion pounds a year of plastic
made. The vast majority ends up in landfills. |
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The biggest dumping ground, the ocean. |
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There’s an island of plastic on the
Pacific Ocean about the size of Texas. |
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Our plastic naturally biodegrades in the
ocean. |
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Of the 540 billion pounds of plastic
made, |
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each pound generates between
two and four pounds of CO2 |
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during the production process from
petroleum. |
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Our first technology is greenhouse gas
neutral |
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and we’re gonna drive that to be
greenhouse gas negative going forward. |
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Metabolics is a leader in the world of
industrial biotechnology. |
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And what that means is we take a variety
of renewable resources |
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into a series of processes including
genetic modification, fermentation. |
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We can deal with the industries of plastics,
chemicals, and fuels in a variety of ways |
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and our technology allows us to access
each of these markets. |
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Moving to what we do, |
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here’s our plant that’s being constructed
with our joint venture partner |
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Archer Daniels Midland in Clinton, Iowa, |
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and we will be commercializing this
family of products this year |
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and it’s starting up as we speak right
now. |
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So this technology is live and it’s
meaningful. |
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Now, as much it’s biodegradable, this is
a picture of a credit card type piece of plastic. |
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Within 90 days it will naturally
biodegrade anywhere microbes are present. |
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A bag, plastic bag, biodegraded in 20
days in a lake in Wisconsin. |
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We can tailor the rate of
biodegradability based on the application. |
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It allows us access to huge markets. We
have 3,000 potential customers. |
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We’re looking at both the conventional
applications like printers and cosmetic cases, |
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but very innovative cases. Ag Film that
biodegrades in the field. |
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Shoreline restoration where the plastic
can hold plants in place |
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and naturally biodegrade as a shoreline
recovers. |
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It also offers a whole series of options
for plastic’s end of life. |
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Right now, landfill is the predominant,
little bit of recycling. |
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But with a material like ours, we can
accelerate composting, anaerobic digestion |
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for the production of biogas, |
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and even better, a product that’s
biodegradable by design |
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like the ag mult...film example. |
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The same core technology allows us to
access chemicals. |
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We can deal with biobased chemicals |
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and produce biobased chemicals we’re
working towards that |
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go into solvents, coatings, paints,
and a number of things |
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all built off our same technology...
platform, |
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and this is next in our sights
in term of what we’re commercializing. |
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Our third platform really illustrates how
fast this technology is moving. |
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We can express the same plastic directly
in the gliff tissue of crops. |
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We’ve already expressed
near four percent in switchgrass |
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and near four percent in sugarcane. |
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What this means is a negative carbon
footprint in extremely low cost to production |
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that allows us to compete with petroleum
plastics at very low oil prices. |
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It also enables the creation of the
vision for many of us, the biorefinery. |
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We’re at one refinery. We can make
fuels, chemicals, and plastics |
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in a very environmentally advantageous
way. |
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It’s been a very long road for Metabolics.
This technology was found in 1992. |
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A lot of bumps along the way, a lot of
things we’ve had to overcome, |
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but we’re positioned wonderfully now. |
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We have a great joint venture partner,
Archer Daniels Midland, |
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and we actually can see huge opportunity. |
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The issue for us is how do we actually
get this to market more quickly? |
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Now, the way I see that happening |
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is the integration between consumer and
societal demand for this type of product. |
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The industry both with the established
infrastructure |
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and what we’re doing as entrepreneurs
and government policy. |
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And I think each of these are moving
forward |
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but I don’t believe they’re moving fast
enough |
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and we have to try to integrate them in
an effective way. |
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So just to conclude, you know, this
technology is here |
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that can address all of these major
issues. We’re doing it now. |
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And it can make a huge difference for us
as we look towards the future |
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as it relates to energy security, as it
relates to CO2, and as it relates to litter. |
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Thanks. |
