How Asia’s Smartest Businessman Plans To Power A Clean Planet With Synthetic Biology

by John Cumbers (Forbes) ... At the head of Reliance is Mukesh Ambani. As chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance, he’s the richest man in Asia, with a reputation as a shrewd investor. He is also a self-described “big believer that technology is the biggest driver of human development, and if you can use technology to benefit people, then that's the best business you can have.”

“Biology in the next 20-30 years will lead the world,” Ambani told me recently. I visited Reliance’s refinery in Jamnagar — the largest in the world. Reliance showcased how its synthetic biology program, comprised of 150+ scientists and researchers, recently developed an “algae to oil” technology that takes carbon dioxide waste from the refinery, then combines it with algae and sunlight to produce a bio-crude oil that could one day fuel carbon-neutral air travel.

Fighting climate change with algae
Reliance was early to recognize the potential of algae as a sustainable, clean biomanufacturing platform. Just as we brew beer from yeast, we can make just about anything from medicines and food to next-generation bioplastics and fuels from algae.

And, what’s even better about algae than beer yeast? They can run on sunlight, thanks to photosynthesis — meaning they don’t require traditional electricity-based energy sources to grow and produce their goods. Reliance is also using advances in gene editing to significantly improve the production capacity of algae.

Reliance is spearheading several algae-based projects, including one turning organic waste into kerosene and aviation fuel — a.k.a. “waste to wealth”. By using algae to make bio-crude and other chemicals, it mitigates traditional production techniques that take the carbon of fossil fuels out of the ground and put it into the atmosphere, further contributing to the alarming rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

With agricultural feedstocks as the basis of a new bioeconomy, he thinks Reliance can uplift India’s rural communities along with its biotech sector. READ MORE