Microbial Resources for Global Sustainability

From 2015 onward, sustainability moved high up on the political agenda through several landmark events. The essence of future sustainability is to decrease (and eventually remove) our dependence on fossil resources for fuels, electricity, and materials. The only renewable source of carbon available in huge quantities is biomass. However, building a future production regime based on biomass as a feedstock is fraught with many challenges. The use of biomass in industrial production will clash with the food needs of a population still increasing in the face of drought, soil destruction, and climate change more generally. Here the immense metabolic and genetic diversity of microorganisms can be harnessed as clear routes to fuels and chemicals can already be seen in research. The bigger challenge however is in chemical production at large scale, which has been elusive for most bio-based chemicals, with the most notable exception being ethanol. Many of the issues are as old as microbiology itself—microorganisms were not intended for industrial production. Modern techniques of biotechnology are providing some of the answers. This chapter deals specifically with industrial production of biofuels and bio-based chemicals from microorganisms, and does not deal with the on-going large worldwide efforts in adapting microorganisms to new food challenges. It is this bioeconomy, increasingly utilizing microorganisms, crops, and waste materials that offers the most hope to break out of the myriad of problems created by the over-exploitation of fossil resources.