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Science is always focused on breakthroughs and the next big thing. And, too often, there is loads of hype about what benefits to society a particular breakthrough might bring.
But when I saw the image of Albert Einstein peering out of a petri dish in the office of Christopher Voigt, the chairman of the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I knew that he was on to something very big. Something that is almost certainly going to affect our children in the decades to come.
The image in the petri dish was built by tiny, living organisms whose DNA had been manipulated by Dr. Voigt and his students so that they were directed to line up in a formation that resembled Einstein’s face.
I was in Dr. Voigt’s office reporting an article on the role that re-engineering nature might play in helping fight climate change. (Read the full piece here.)
And what Dr. Voigt was demonstrating — in images created more than a decade ago during an early stage of his research — is that bacteria and other living things are as programmable as computer code. Life itself could be turned into a modifiable tool of production.
It is compelling proof that the fast-growing field of biological engineering is going to change the world. In very big ways.
I ended up in Dr. Voigt’s lab because one of his former graduate students, Karsten Temme, had worked with him to decode the genetics of a bacteria to help researchers fully understand what is known as nitrogen fixing, the process that nature uses to turn nitrogen in the atmosphere into food for plants.
For decades, farmers in the United States and around the world have been using chemical fertilizers to supplement this natural process and greatly expand the amount of food they produce.
But chemical fertilizer has turned out to be a big problem for the climate. To make it, manufacturers burn an enormous amount of natural gas, producing carbon dioxide that warms the planet.
This manufactured fertilizer helps feed the world. But its production, distribution and the environmental impact of its use is responsible for the equivalent of an estimated 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, which is more than the emissions from the remaining coal-burning power plants in the United States.
And making matters worse, once this chemical fertilizer is spread on fields, a large amount of it runs off into area streams and rivers, causing algae blooms and killing aquatic life, and more of it evaporates as nitrous oxide, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
To tackle this problem, Dr. Temme joined Dr. Voigt and a third colleague to form Pivot Bio, a company that has changed the DNA of bacteria to direct it to turn nitrogen from the atmosphere into more nutrients for corn plants than it would naturally.
After the bacteria is coated onto corn seeds, it reduces the amount of chemical fertilizers that farmers use, cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. Just five years after Pivot’s product was introduced to the market, it is being used on about 5 percent of the corn crops in the United States.
After seeing the M.I.T. lab, I visited corn fields in Illinois where Pivot’s DNA-modified bacteria had been applied to seeds. And what I saw was larger corn stalks, with thicker leaves and denser growth.
What is happening in Illinois is vital to questions around climate change.
I also managed to get a tour of a giant fertilizer manufacturing plant, which rose like some kind of an alien ship that had landed in the middle of miles of flat Iowa corn fields. The plant, owned by Koch Industries, almost never turns off, burning natural gas day and night.
That fertilizer plant in Iowa is going to continue to run. When they’re used, Pivot’s coated seeds so far only replace about 20 percent of the fertilizer farmers need. But it’s a start. And the company hopes to get to 50 percent in the coming decade.
At The New York Times this year, we have been examining what many have concluded: Greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb, instead of fall, and the growing middle class in the developing world means growing demand for energy, much of it from fossil fuels. As a result, changing the trajectory of the world’s climate is going to require some bold action and risk-taking.
It’s an open question just how big these risks are and what complications might ensue. With Pivot, for example, some wonder if these “mutant” bacteria could spread uncontrollably. Pivot is convinced this fear is unjustified, as their research shows the DNA modified bacteria die off each year. But scientists are often not that good at predicting the impact of novel technologies.
What is clear: This is a debate all of us are going to have to get used to. Preventing climate catastrophe may require at least some forms of geoengineering of our natural world.
We hope New York Times readers this year are learning about this debate, as reporters on the Climate team travel to spots around the world to see these actual experiments unfold. Thanks for coming along for the ride. There is a lot at stake here.
THE CLIMATE FIX
Can the sustainable aviation industry get off the ground?
The problem: Thanks to its use of fossil fuels, air travel produces a significant amount of emissions, or roughly 2 percent of the global total annually. Those emissions are also considered “hard to abate” by climate experts, partly because there’s not yet a widely available alternative to traditional jet fuel.The fix: Airlines, climate advocates and the U.S. government are betting on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which can be made with feedstocks like animal fat or plant and cooking oils and is not as carbon intensive as traditional jet fuel. Right now, SAF production is low, satisfying less than 1 percent of jet fuel demand annually, and the industry’s emissions are expected to double by 2040 as travel rises.
Last week, the Department of Energy announced hefty conditional loan commitments for two companies working on producing SAF, Gevo Net-Zero 1 and Montana Renewables, totaling $2.9 billion.
The obstacles: The industry for producing sustainable aviation fuel has barely gotten off the ground and demand for what little fuel does exist is significantly higher than available supply. That’s because there are more financial incentives for U.S. companies to produce other types of renewable fuels, like biodiesel, said Pedro de la Fuente, senior manager for external affairs and sustainability for the Americas at the International Air Transport Association.
While the Energy Department funding could help juice the SAF industry, a 2022 Inflation Reduction Act tax credit is slated to end at the end of this year. The Treasury Department also has yet to provide guidance for a similar incentive that’s supposed to take the old tax credit’s place in just a few months. But that credit is slated to end in 2027.
“The banks, the financial institutions, the project developers, they’re looking for that durability in policy, and we can’t offer that yet,” said Lauren Riley, chief sustainability officer at United Airlines.
What’s next: It’s unclear if Congress will extend the tax incentives promoting SAF. Meanwhile, starting in 2025, the European Union will require aviation fuel suppliers to make sure at least 2 percent of the fuel provided to airlines is sustainable, and that mandate is expected to gradually go up over time, according to I.A.T.A. — Allison Prang
The U.N.’s Verdict on Climate Progress Over the Past Year: There Was None
One year after world leaders made a landmark promise to move away from fossil fuels, countries have essentially made no progress in cutting emissions and tackling global warming, according to a United Nations report issued on Thursday.
Global greenhouse gas emissions soared to a record 57 gigatons last year and are not on track to decline much, if at all, this decade, the report found. Collectively, nations have been so slow to curtail their use of oil, gas and coal that it now looks unlikely that countries will be able to limit global warming to the levels they agreed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
“Another year passed without action means we’re worse off,” said Anne Olhoff, a climate policy expert based in Denmark and a co-author of the assessment, known as the Emissions Gap Report. — Brad Plumer
More climate news:
A beloved grizzly bear, the oldest known reproducing female in the Yellowstone ecosystem, is dead after being struck by a vehicle, The Guardian reports.
Floods like the ones that killed more than 1,000 people this year across Africa’s Sahel region will become a regular occurrence because of climate change, according to studies highlighted by Bloomberg.
Wild temperature swings, severe heat and drought are exacting an invisible toll on the world’s buildings, Bloomberg reports.
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