Investindo em Ações de Biotecnologia que Trabalham em Soluções para o Aquecimento Global

Combatendo o Aquecimento Global

Climate change, aka global warming, is becoming the central concern for most policies worldwide. A lot of proposed solutions look at it from mostly 2 angles:

1. Reducir as emissões de CO2 mudando nossos sistemas de energia para longe dos combustíveis fósseis.
2. Uma solução tecnológica para remover CO2 da atmosfera e/ou reduzir a temperatura da Terra de algumas maneiras.

Most of these soluções are technologically oriented: EVs, fuel cells, renewable energies, utility-scale batteries, carbon capture, or even geoengineering.

Isso ignora que a maioria dos danos causados pela mudança climática ocorrerá por meio da perturbação de nossos ecossistemas e da cadeia alimentar. Claro, o aumento do nível do mar ou o clima alterado têm consequências muito mais amplas do que isso.

Mas se pudermos ajudar a mitigar alguns desses danos, isso nos ajudará de várias maneiras. Primeiro, limitará a interrupção de nossas sociedades, ajudando a implementar soluções de forma mais eficaz e limitando os custos humanos. E permitirá liberar recursos para mitigar outras questões.

Um elemento chave para tornar nossos sistemas alimentares e ecossistemas mais resistentes será definitivamente a biotecnologia.

And maybe some biotechnologies could even help solve climate change by reducing carbon emissions, capturing carbon, or maybe even bypassing the need for farming entirely.

Combustíveis Alternativos

EVs are taking over the car markets. But there are going to be a lot of fuel-powered cars for decades. And oil is even harder to replace for trucks, ships, or planes. So, finding a carbon-neutral alternative to oil is needed.

That is the promise of biofuels. After all, oil and natural gas were created from organic matter, slowly decomposing and accumulating over geological time. So, recreating this process ourselves could allow for turning plants into CO2 pumps and fuel-creating machines.

The most promising avenue for this technology is algal biofuels, as it avoid competing with food production for fertile soil.

This is a topic we investigate further in our article “Biocombustível Algal: A Próxima Revolução Energética?” covering the technology’s details and the two forefront leaders in the field, Indian Reliance Industry (RELIANCE.NS) and “Big Oil” ExxonMobil (XOM ) (XOM).

Another possible “fuel” is biogas from organic matter and farming waste. Many companies produce biogas in ecological and carbon-negative or carbon-neutral ways, for example, Scandinavian Biogas Fuels International AB (BIOGAS.ST), OPAL Fuels (OPAL ) (OPAL), or EnviTec Biogas AG (ETG.DE ) (ETG.DE)

Captura de Carbono

Soil is one of the greatest carbon reservoirs on Earth. The erosion of topsoil and the loss of organic matter in soil is among the top sources of global carbon emissions.

This is why Gingko Bioworks (DNA) is working na modificação de microrganismos e fungos para aumentar a biomassa do solo.

By combining “mechanical” carbon capture with biogas, Bloom Energy (BE ) Corp (BE) is one of the rare carbon capture companies able to avoid emissions and perform actual removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

Reduzindo as Emissões da Agricultura

Farming is a big carbon polluter, and a few things could be done to reduce the sector’s CO2 production.

One option is to remove the need for fossil fuels in farming. This could be done either by electrifying tractors or removing tractors entirely and replacing them with a fleet of smaller, more efficient robots. We covered This idea further in our article “Investidores Devem Notar: Robôs Estão Dominando a Agricultura.”

Another option is to reduce the need for fertilizers. Potash and phosphorus are mined, which is a carbon-heavy activity and damaging to the environment. Nitrogen fertilizers are mostly produced using natural gas.

Nitrogen fertilizer could be replaced by engineered bacteria, fixing the nitrogen in the air into the soil. This is a project on which Bayer (BAYRY) collaborates with Gingko Bioworks (DNA).

A powerful greenhouse effect gas is methane. It is emitted by massive quantities of ruminants like cows or sheep, considering the size of herds grown for human consumption.

Estratégias de criação diferentes, alterando o microbioma dos ruminantes, or suplementos alimentares específicos could help reduce these emissions.

Another possibility is to modify crops and animals to make them less demanding (land, fertilizer, feed, etc…) or less emitting greenhouse gases. A central method likely to be used is CRISPR, a gene editing technology barely 10 years old but already widely explored for applications in human medicine and agricultural biotechnology.

We have explored this deeply in our article “CRISPR Além da Saúde Humana: A Nova Fronteira de Investimento em Edição Genética.” New crops more resistant to drought, extreme climate events, or new pathogens will help feed the world despite climate change’s harmful effects.

Eliminando a Agricultura Totalmente

Some plants are farmed only for a very specific compound they produce. An oil used in cosmetics, a scent or flavor used in perfume or food. Maybe a very expensive spice. Or an active compound, like in the case of cannabis.

Most of the time, the final product is less than 1% of the total biomass.

Portanto, métodos alternativos reduziriam a necessidade geral de agricultura e o impacto ambiental.

We explored this in our article “Top 5 Empresas de Biologia Sintética de Capital Aberto (Abril 2023)”. In it, we notably discussed Amyris (AMRS), producing fragrance and another high-value molecule in industrial fermenters. Another company doing the same is Calyxt (CLXT), using both plant cells in fermenters and CRISPR gene editing.

And Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA ) (DNA) is looking to produce cannabinoids in labs using microorganisms.

Outra opção poderia ser cultivar alimentos diretamente no laboratório.

This includes vertical farming, allowing for a reduction of water consumption and land usage. A land that can then instead be used for carbon capture, rewilding, or growing forests. Some of the prominent stocks in the sector are,

1. Kalera (NASDAQ:KALRQ)

2. Appharvest (NASDAQ:APPHQ)

3. Hydrofarm Holdings (NASDAQ:HYFM)

It can also be lab-grown meat, something we discussed in “Top 5 Ações de Carne Cultivada em Laboratório para Investir (Abril 2023)“, covering Tyson Food (TSN), JBS (JBSAY), Agronomics Limited (AGNMF), Cult Food Science (CULT.CN), and Steakholder Foods Ltd (STKH )  (STKH).

Conclusão

This is just a little bit of what biotechnology can do to help solve or at least reduce the damage of climate change.

More techniques will likely be added to the arsenal, like árvores geneticamente modificadas, biochar (capturando carbono em carvão vegetal e solo), fazendas de algas marinhas, fertilização da microalga dos oceanos com ferro, etc…

Maybe the solution to a technological problem (carbon emissions) is not, or at least not entirely, in better or new technology. Maybe life itself, in all its forms, starting from microbes and finishing with trees, also holds part of the solution.