How Texas Could Solve Our Toxic Chemical Problem

Solugen Bio has built a chemical plant that produces all manner of chemical-based products using bio-based feedstock instead of fossil fuels. It also doesn't create waste and may help fight the climate crisis.
#Energy #HelloWorld #BloombergQuicktake
--------
Like this video? Subscribe: kzbin.info?sub_...
Become a Quicktake Member for exclusive perks: kzbin.infojoin
Subscribe to Quicktake Explained: bit.ly/3iERrup
QuickTake Originals is Bloomberg's official premium video channel. We bring you insights and analysis from business, science, and technology experts who are shaping our future. We’re home to Hello World, Giant Leap, Storylines, and the series powering CityLab, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Green, and much more.
Subscribe for business news, but not as you've known it: exclusive interviews, fascinating profiles, data-driven analysis, and the latest in tech innovation from around the world.
Visit our partner channel QuickTake News for breaking global news and insight in an instant.

[@feliace6485]

Working there is a honor. Seeing first hand how it has come to life and be productive by two smart people like G and Sean is why all of us who work there enjoy going into work and producing a better world!!

[@spermwater]

Excited for you! You are a part of something amazing.

[@Skunkhunt_42]

What types of chems can be produced with the processing hardware yall've built? Is the equipment very versatile for a wide range or narrow range of chems?

[@thesmalltalkkiller]

how are the interview questions?

[@LoneWulf278]

That was the most stereotypical intro ever. 😂 I almost never see cowboy hats. I know it’s just a joke. But my god, it’s funny AF.

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

Had to go full Texan. Feel the power

[@teshane8784]

This is absolutely incredible work. The research that these guys are doing now will one day be read about by all because it helped save our beautiful planet.

[@fuzz200]

Sugar oxidases aren't going to turn sugar into anything we want. I appreciate the work they've done with glucose oxidase and finding applications with gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide (directly or transformed otherwise via metal catalysis), but there's still a ton of research required to get to the lofty goals outlined in this video. Also, I doubt CRISPR is needed for this kind of work. Enzyme expression in microbes is trivial and I bet they express their enzymes off a plasmid anyways. No CRISPR required. Seeing them just name drop CRISPR for the sake of it is not a good sign.

[@kenbarker4473]

Yeah seems sketchy af whenever someone says their tech is such a huge leap forward and they drop buzzwords. I'd love to see some published research on this

[@abhishekdev258]

True...just look at what happened to Zymergen

[@whisper1776]

I just watched a documentary on Theranos so I might be biased towards being skeptical right now, but it seems too good to be true and I literally understood nothing after everything they said. I hope I’m just stupid and wrong. Or just wrong.

[@rampel1]

If they indeed produce chemical products that are sold to customers who make downstream products, than they are a lot different than Theranos. Still the claim of plucking CO2 from air is very dreamie.

[@RoyalHemlock]

The issue with Theranos is that they were flawed from a science perspective, the technology may never exist to do blood testing on small amounts of blood. This technology appears to actually work and they do have clients. We know that it is possible to stick together carbons, hydrogens and oxygens to make hydrocarbon chemicals. And we know that you can catalyse (using metals and enzymes) these reactions to make them occur more frequently or faster.

[@whisper1776]

@@RoyalHemlock Well that is very nice to hear, I simply don't have a background in chemistry needed to understand this. However, I can see and understand that they actually have clients so yes they have surpassed the prospect of being another Theranos. Thank you Jasper for pointing these things out!

[@Travlinmo]

@@rampel1 Pulling CO2 from the air to make chemicals is a more than 100 year old process. The REAL question is can do it competitively with industry being allowed so many emissions.

[@DanyCesc83]

The scientific and application portion are nothing new, so this is very real and possible but the problem is that not many companies wanted to invest into this because of the cost lol at the time and it was boring and harder to get through congress, etc. thanks to the new drive in policy around the world is easier to do this stuff.

[@knoworiginality]

Great content as always Ashlee. Thanks for what you do.

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

Thx for watching!

[@tanjoy0205]

The cowboy hats were a nice touch .

[@josephgreer8819]

"Because Houston is awesome...it doesn't believe in zoning laws" hahaha

[@demilishing]

This could be a massive technological leap forward if we can continue to develop this new science. In the future like they state, they could just license out the technology and I'm sure that's how they pitched it to their potential investors. This revolutionary tech is somewhat similar to how the cell phone was mass adopted and is still being revolutionized to change automotive, IOT, and edge networking. Being the owners of those patents are what will make them rich and they already realize it, it's why they built a demonstration plant but have plans to have limited exposure to the actual physical assets and plan to just license the tech and continue to do what they do best, innovate. Smart guys. Best of luck!

[@CausticLemons7]

This is super cool! I think a lot of people don't realize that oil/petrochemicals are here to stay. There are some things that simply cannot be replaced with green alternatives. Certain plastics do not have anything that can compete with their properties, so a technology like this that can clean up those existing products could be huge! Really excited about this. And please don't sniff gasoline, Ashlee!

[@EyesOfByes]

Ok, this sounds like Theranos 2.0, but I hope so f*cking much that I'm wrong. Idea sounds amazing, and I really hope it's true and they're out to prove sceptics like me wrong 😏

[@telenelatelin8632]

Yeah, biochemist here, and the volume of flashy buzzwords is a bit of a red flag. But hey who knows 🤷‍♂️

[@kenbarker4473]

Yeah the part about 0 waste sounds impossible, but hopefully theyre headed in the right direction

[@xtiros2672]

The buzzwords The vagueness The bold claims of 1 size fits all Sus indeed.

[@raituano849]

Texas pioneered oil gas and chemicals so they should also lead on innovations to clean and maintain such elements

[@PhillCurtis]

incredible guys, you can see the passion. nerds leading the world that next step forward, as it should be. great content as always, keep it coming!

[@OrphanSolid]

"I built this!" I love it! 9:07

[@AureusD]

Great content . Thanks for what you do.

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

And what about the fact that corn production itself is a net generator of CO2, as well as a massive contributor to soil erosion, salinity increase and water toxicity by fertilizer and pesticide? Not to mention, fermentation like this itself produces a ghastly amount of C02.

[@AdventuresofChristopher]

No one will ever doninate nature. Nature will always prevail.

[@aleroxit]

Thanks again Ash! Great story

[@YawAnsong]

I love your content, Ashlee. Good stuff.

[@offwhitemke]

Perhaps one of the great advantages of this technology is that it reduces our dependence on foreign oil considerably and creates the potential for these chemicals to be produced pretty much anywhere in the US and other countries.

[@MrTeka500]

No more war for oil?

[@boostav]

The US doesn't depend on foreign oil anymore.

[@MrTeka500]

@@boostav they do. Because of the influence of Saudi-Arabia, the price of oil did shoot up. Especially in the US.

[@offwhitemke]

@@boostav While US oil production has increased, we still import a lot of crude oil since there is so much refinery infra in the US. We export a lot of crude. This is because we can import at a low cost due to longstanding arrangements and can sell crude to some countries at a higher rate. So while we have increased US oil production it has not directly increased the US supply and decreased our imports of foreign oil.

[@viewer-of-content]

@@offwhitemke This is both true and false. Much of the oil the U.S.A. imports is oil our refineries are tooled to process and much of the U.S.A. oil exports is what we cannot process in our refineries. Much of the U.S.A. oil refinery infrastructure has trouble expanding and adapting to new crude oil product types because regulation, land acquisition, labor, and slow rolling costs companies too much money for regular on the fly retooling. Oil grades in the U.S.A. uses a letter system in the us and come in different viscosities from water like clear Type A to tar sand Type D. Their is also pre barrel crude oil processing required like methane/natural gas/propane separation and particulate removal. Also a lot of oil refining is multi stage something like: ground fracking, field separation and fume torching, crude oil distillation and separation, enzymatic creation, product stabilization, raw material creation (pellets), secondary raw material creation(cloth), t-shirts. The US likes to do a lot of the most technical steps, but least labor intensive, and often trades different steps to other countries. The Most well known outsourcing of oil products the U.S.A. does is certain refining in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, and Textile creation in Bangladesh and Vietnam which is further badge engineered, tags sown on, in China or the U.S.A. to avoid further questions or investigations of labor conditions in Bangladesh and such. Also avoiding trade tariffs and import restrictions often change who does which step.

[@vishalpratapsingh]

Ashlee you are digging great start ups from the pile. Great video again. As far as Solugen is concerned they are after an amazing thing. They want to suck CO2 from the air and turn it into whatever we want! How cool is that. 👍🏽

[@NoName-of8dq]

I smell BS, magical process that convert corn into anything.

[@helmutzollner5496]

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing

[@opossum4463]

Ashlee Vance! Always loved his style of narration & production. It’s been a minute.

[@pooglechen3251]

There's a 100M Xprize for carbon capture. If these guys need more funding they should aim for that prize

[@gabe_aki]

Amazing as always.

[@gabriellahsdancingheart8808]

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Where can we invest?

[@starbasemymms2097]

Gonna watch this with the family tonight. Im a big fan of Ashlee’s content. Entertaining and always interesting. Thanks for posting!

[@AmerBoyo]

This seems big! Well done guys, don’t let the bigger fish swallow you up.

[@willienelsongonzalez4609]

Well done Solugen Bio!

[@SethBannon]

Carbon negative chemicals made in Houston, the heart of the petrochemical industry? Yes please!

[@PrototypeCreation]

wow, the moment when you understand what they are really doing - incredible !

[@swaraj6053]

Mindblowing🔥🔥

[@lukeamato2348]

It's a brilliant concept, and if they can make it commercially viable even more so than the industry standard of petrochemicals than this could revolutionise the entire world again

[@javibaldrich6649]

Really impressive!

[@ernestoramos520]

Wow great idea and it looks promising, the only thing that don’t add up if they are 100% clean what does the brown water pool doing next to the factory?.

[@utubebroadcastme]

wait why is this not much bigger ... this is insane!

[@RCrosbyLyles]

Brilliant!

[@mingruan3792]

Very nice!

[@1luckyarmywife461]

Wow! Bravo! 👏

[@tonygreen4331]

Great idea! Great Young men! Hope they make it and make the earth greener.

[@haydenbrophy9460]

Ashlee Vance is the best!!!!

[@ju-airuan7118]

Extremely promising technology indeed.

[@testuser2709]

Lifecycle - what happens to the material when I (the consumer) are done with the plastic? If it ends up in a landfill, how bad is that (leaching etc)?

[@reel1tv587]

Did they just replace petro? US government isn't going to like that.

[@aubreyb7319]

But how much oil and gas did you use to make the corn?

[@EyesOfByes]

5:20 Which server?

[@herzogsbuick]

I've only seen a few of Ashlee's videos, but I enjoy them a lot. I would say, however, that much of the conglomeration of companies and resources has come through government grants, patents, and subsidies -- look at open source, for instance: not a whole lot there. People release their code to be used by those who may benefit from it, or improve it. Restaurants: shit tons of restaurants everywhere, and they're all serving burgers or whatever. Nothing stopping anyone from copying or improving or serving at home. No gov't interference, everything's cheap, low barriers to entry. Airbnb and Uber "disrupted" (god how I hate that word now) the old companies because of medallions and permits. Anyway, voluntary exchange should be our end goal, and these guys have a brilliant idea of how to embiggen hence. /rant

[@RealSuReal]

We need more HIPPIES like these guys 😂

[@ampadatta4681]

I am proud as Indian..For Gourav Chakrabarti.. Go ahead..Asirbard Kochi aro boro hobe..

[@kennethtrimblett4617]

Question is and will always be can they do it at the big boy scale and will their price be competitive to replace the existing infrastructure. Even it is niche small volume application I love the attempt.

[@sawmakai]

Ashlee you're the hero we don't deserve

[@naveenn6235]

Corn itself is a fertilizer using stock from the first stage , just calculate the toxic waste its produce to fram corn

[@ericliu5491]

Making industrial and consumer chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass is the future because it will use an already existing way of removing co2 from the air. There is plenty of agricultural residues that can be turned into biofuels and biochemicals.

[@Monkechnology]

It makes me a bit angry to see amazing companies like this one so undervalued and investors pumping billions in shit like WeWork.

[@SlowPCGaming1]

Point #1: Why is their server based in Germany? Why can't it perform the calculations to research higher enzyme yields here in the USA? Point #2: Safer chemicals but what measurement?

[@AR-scorp]

Awesome technology.

[@JEMZypor]

It is great industrial process to impact, that it's need be expanded.

[@rothn2]

30k metric tons of CO2 go in, 10k metric tons of product come out?

[@amehwican]

ah finally, another use for corn

[@nareshthakuri2777]

Thank you!!

[@sunalwaysshinesonTVs]

TL;DW. How Texas *could*, but wont.

[@JJs_playground]

Ashlee Vance is so funny. He's a great addition.

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

He really ties the room together

[@bardigan1]

If they're going to use CO2 as a feedstock, won't they have to use massive amounts of power to upscale it into the molecules they're creating? We can turn CO2 into gasoline but you'd have to add more than the energy you get out of it in order to make it.

[@wellthi]

but it could make the non biodegradable plastique problem and fuel causing CO2 even worst by making those nasty chemical unlimited

[@andrewkiminhwan]

not only do i wish them the best of luck, but i'm praying that they figure this shit out soon before the earth goes to shit

[@adahmantium2769]

Why pollute ENVIROMENT by burning this liquified money..instead STORE it and use it to make sustainable things... but yeah More focus on RENEWABLE.

[@shadbakht]

What's the difference between taking oil (carbon) and turning it into plastics and taking feed-stock (carbon) and turning it into plastics? As long as either process isn't sending that carbon into the air, it makes no difference. Both are carbon neutral. Right?

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

Big part of this is the actual process is meant to be more efficient. The corn feeds the enzymes, and you get your end product direct without all the other stuff. You're right that either process would work if it didn't send carbon into the air, but the petro processes do send carbon into the air

[@costcorotisseriechicken2520]

A plant gets its own carbon from CO2 in the air while growing. So using plant-based carbon sources causes the total cycle to be carbon neutral, compared to pulling ancient carbon out of the ground and then letting it out into the atmosphere.

[@skepticalmagos_101]

Eco friendly Factorio 😍

[@cryptout]

This could be a cool movie 🍿

[@elliottsutton3476]

Bioprocesses, for the most part, are not currently economical in the slightest. This could be revolutionary, and for the sake of the environment and the industry I really hope they pull it off. Good on them!

[@CristobalRuiz]

Very interesting work yet using corn-"anything" as feedstock has always prompted the impact on agriculture and the price of corn. Wish them all the best hoping they turn as a "real" alternative vs plastics made from hydrocarbons.

[@ericpham7871]

Some trash grinder and mixed with used oil or cooking oil could make gasoline or natural gas or ethenol depend on type

[@adityavardhanganji3785]

Sounds like theranos..

[@dwaynebaker8580]

Cool ! We need more brains caring about the Earth 🌎 ❤!

[@dougtso4126]

Yes, you mock Houston, maybe we should stop processing oil for a month, see how it goes.

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

I grew up in Houston and love Houston. It's just some playful ribbing

[@dougtso4126]

@@AshleeVanceHelloWorld And you work for Bloomberg too?

[@AshleeVanceHelloWorld]

@@dougtso4126 apparently

[@craiganderson9819]

I like the idea and wish all the best but... I have my doubts not on them but on the big company big cooperate industry that's been there will mostly likely find some way of dominating them and prob shut them down sadly with some sort of big dumb law suit.

[@Rasheed9957]

Beautiful! Beautiful.

[@naomikriss5208]

Why do we want these chemicals, even if they are made in a new way?

[@paulmitchell5349]

Enough corn left to eat ?

[@vaiyaktikasolarbeam1906]

I love the presenter

[@nerdynaga]

Is this scalable ?

[@ktktktktktktkt]

12:45 I feel so bad to say this but they honestly have no idea about business... Uber and Airbnb don't own taxis/rental properties because they are an intermediary internet company that charges a fee for helping connect users. They can't be copied because they have spent lots of money acquiring users which is not feasible for most companies. This is not an internet company. If you don't own a patent or have some sort of proprietary technology that can't be copied, your company will not be worth a lot. People will be able to copy your technology which I guess is what you want but you won't be earning any money on other peoples' usage of your technology. I would recommend that you do patent it. That way, if the tech catches on, you can democratize it (sort of) by licensing the technology to others who can pay you a licensing fee, thus increasing the availability of the technology while making you possibly wealthy.

[@davenorthunion9597]

50 patents filed in 2020.. as mentioned in the video

[@James-pf9mn]

*sniffs gas*

[@larcomj]

cool stuff. there's a company called novozymes that replaced chemical agents with biological ones. sounds similar to what this company is doing.

[@phill2065]

This is really exciting

[@rem77jet]

It's like alchemy haha!

[@kentuckyrain1144]

Reminds me of Ginko Bioworks, another scam.

[@olisd4512]

this is terrible, using food for chemicals?, its a horrible idea. what about all the fertilizers, earth tiling, etc...

[@AustinCKinghorn]

Very cool. Even the nerds are bigger in Texas.

[@vthilton]

Save Our Planet

[@geraldmaxwell3277]

The entire first minute of this video confirms A LOT of stereotypes about Texans

[@Kenneth_James]

Your starting with freagin sugar its not amazing you can turn energy into things

[@NicWalker627]

can get rid of toxic chemicals. cant get rid of an accidental pregnancy. hmm..

[@Lalit-yw2tb]

Yeah just throw around a bunch of science words(like they do in Marvel with the word Quantum) irrespective of they make any sense in the cohesive meaning of the words put together. It makes literal zero sense. You cannot make anything with 0 waste it's physically impossible in the literal sense and they are now talking about Carbon capture as well, wtf? And Ashlee don't hold catalysts in your hand, almost all chemicals are harmful to human skin, you can get anywhere from normal rash to an autoimmune disease just bcz of working with chemicals. This sounds like a lot of wordplay not actual science, chemistry in this case. I hope to be proven wrong. But this all sounds too fantasy driven than actual scientific work. Your first step towards any groundbraking discovery is to publish it and get it peer reviewed to find the problems with them not hide it.

[@jaydibernardo4320]

Theranos 2.0? Or is their product real but not cost effective?

[@CWB342]

Hey guys, good vid. One suggestion. Next time lead with the word "Bioforge." It's so cool.

[@ciscocomputertech]

This is BIG

[@danjohnston9037]

So The Corn Belt May Rejoice, Not Just Ethanol Bio-Fuel, But Bio-Plastics Will Be Made From Their Crop

[@AkashVora]

Good stuff. I hope they start a factory in India. My home town Ahmedabad has a lot of chemical spill issues

[@jgalt155]

Feed it to cattle ….yeeehaw.