Category: iSEE Congress

The 2025 iSEE Congress, “A Circular Bioeconomy as a Path to Net-Zero” is fast approaching! Scheduled to take place September 25-26, 2025, this free public event will feature panel discussions on sustainable food, biofuels, plastics, and carbon reduction strategies from academic and industry research experts, including a keynote address from Korneel Rabaey.

Rabaey is professor in the Department of Biotechnology at Ghent University, as well as honorary professor at The University of Queensland. He is one of the founders and the present Chief Technology Officer of CAPTURE, a center focusing on resource recovery in the fields of Water, Carbon Capture and Utilization and Plastics to Resource. In addition, he is also the founder of HYDROHM, a company focusing on electrification in the water sector. His main research efforts focus on resource recovery from wastewater and CO₂ streams from industry.

iSEE Communications Intern Anjali Yedavalli spoke with Rabaey about his research and the future of a circular bioeconomy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Our Congress theme this year is a “circular bioeconomy,” which is a new term for many people. How would you define this term, and why do you feel it’s an important and timely topic right now?

“Circular bioeconomy” is a term that refers to a biomass- and bioconversion-based economy where we can use microorganisms to supply our products, and also to recover resources. It’s extremely broad, from setting up a way for the wastewater treatment plant to recover phosphorus, to taking waste biomass and making new polymers. We call it a “bioeconomy” because it’s not just a set of processes; it’s a contributor to the economy at large. And increasingly, you see that these biomass- and bioconversion-based processes make a lot of economic sense.

You say the term itself is broad. What specific parts of it are causing a lot of buzz or excitement?

I think there’s currently a lot of interest in finding novel, more sustainable approaches to supply food. Sustainably and economically producing protein plays a key role in that. 

And a second large theme that people are excited about is bioplastics, including bio-based plastics, and biodegradable plastics. On the one hand, of course, there are issues caused by waste plastics in the environment. On the other hand, there is a necessity to make a supply of novel plastics more sustainable. 

Why should policymakers, economists, and scientists be interested in a circular bioeconomy?

From a policymaker perspective, there’s a big need to update our regulatory frameworks. One of the issues in our current frameworks is that many resources are considered waste. And if you produce something from waste, the legislation says that the product is also waste. You can make the nicest plastic from waste biomass, and it’s technically still classified as waste. Working on these so-called end-of-waste regulations is critical.

And more generally, the bio-based economy is noteworthy because it interacts with supply chains. One of the reasons we are producing novel forms of protein is that, for example, if you have to feed salmon for our consumption, about half of what you feed to salmon is wild caught fish. They just grind it up and provide it as a so-called fish meal. And so we are depleting stocks in the ocean by catching fish that will be fed to other fish. Perhaps instead, we could produce novel sources of protein to feed the salmon. But, you need to optimize these technologies and strategies so they can be economically viable.

One of the aspects of a circular bioeconomy that you study is resource recovery. What does this term refer to?

 Resource recovery refers to the way we recover something from a source that is considered “waste.” And the simplest example is recovering water from wastewater. Wastewater is about 99.5% water and 0.5% of a not-so-nice thing. So recovering the water is a massive resource that you can get back.

What emerging challenges or opportunities do you see shaping your field in the next 5 to 10 years?

In terms of general opportunities, I think we’re at a phase where, in the next 5 to 10 years, we want to put into practice the technologies and methodologies we’ve been researching so far. But to do that, we really need to think of the societal transition necessary to implement a bio-based economy. In order to have a societal transition, having the technology is only one of the necessary ingredients.

People will wonder, “Is it economic? Is it better for the environment? Is it socially acceptable?” These are very important questions. We need to inform people about bioproducts and find ways to get their buy-in. And this is a difficult task. 

I’ll give an example in the context of microbial proteins. So we’re specialized in “side streams,” which are the leftover materials generated during food processing that are not the primary product. We grow organisms on these side streams, and they’re very protein-rich. You can use this protein to help supplement human nutrition. And you might say, “Let’s just make hamburgers from this microbial protein.” However, in my opinion, that’s a bad idea. Hamburgers made from microbial protein will be new and different, and many people will be hesitant to accept them.

How do you get the rest of the population on board? Well, microbial protein has great environmental benefits – it saves an enormous amount of water and greenhouse gas emissions. So you might propose, “If I replace 10% of that beef hamburger you’re eating with this microbial protein, you will not taste or see the difference, but  we’ve made 10% of it more sustainable.” These approaches make it a lot easier to reach that societal transition and acceptance.

What do you hope attendees take away from your upcoming keynote address at the iSEE Congress?

My keynote will emphasize that microbial protein can be produced from carbon dioxide derived building blocks, allowing for high volumes of protein production, which would be very economical. The use of this protein is not limited to food or feed; it is also an attractive option for producing plastics.

What advice would you give to students who want to follow a similar path or make an impact in your field?

Dare to think far ahead to determine which process or technology will make a true difference, and do this based on calculations that don’t start from the premise that everything will be very cheap in the future. It won’t be. Then determine what you can contribute along this path and who you need to work with.

I work now partially at a university and partially in two startup companies. But before doing a Ph.D. and further studying, I had a lot of doubts about what I was doing and where I was going. Whatever decision you make, you cannot turn it back, but you can change what you’re doing in the present. If you find you’re not doing what you like, then do something else.

Jessika Trancik is a professor at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines the dynamic costs, performance, and environmental impacts of energy systems to inform climate policy and accelerate beneficial and equitable technology innovation. Her projects focus on all energy services — including electricity, transportation, heating, and industrial processes. This work spans solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, low-carbon fuels, electric vehicles, and nuclear fission, among other technologies. She is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and was formerly at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and at WSP International/UNOPS (now Interpeace) in Geneva.

She will be the plenary speaker at the upcoming UIUC-UIC collaborative workshop, “Envisioning Equitable Transitions to Sustainable Transportation Systems,” on May 16-17, 2024, in Chicago. Ahead of this event, iSEE Communications Specialist April Wendling sat down with her to discuss her work.

 

April Wendling: Could you tell me a bit about your area of study?

Jessika Trancik: My work focuses on evaluating different potential climate solutions with a particular focus on energy solutions. I develop data-informed models to understand the impacts of those solutions and which ones might be most promising to invest in developing further. The idea is to use data-informed models to anticipate what sorts of energy solutions can be used to achieve the best outcomes. And information from these models can allow decision-makers to be deliberate about the investments they’re making in this transition, given the limited time to mitigate climate change and the finite financial resources available.

 

AW:  What do these models look like?

JT: One example we’ve worked on quite a bit is modeling optimal locations for electric vehicle charging stations. One of the research questions we asked was: where should we place chargers so that people can conveniently charge their vehicles? Also, what is the rate of charging that would be needed in each of those different locations? There are a lot of factors that you need to take into consideration for a model like this. There’s the capacity of the batteries and range of the vehicles, where do people naturally stop and for how long, and how predictable are those behavioral patterns?

And what we find is that if you just haphazardly install chargers at, for example, shopping centers or malls, rather than in deliberate locations based on our understanding of how people use their vehicles, you end up with huge inefficiencies in your system. And inefficiencies prevent the system from working well for the people using it.

It’s really important to consider the variability of different people’s travel patterns and where they might park and where charging stations can be installed, and overall, one can design infrastructure to save people time, which ultimately would allow more people to adopt electric vehicles if they want to.

We also do a lot of work on comparing the costs and the emissions of different vehicle options, and then just generally in the transportation space, there’s a lot of questions at the intersection of technology, performance, and behavior. How good are technologies today, how much might they improve, how can we improve them, and then how does that fit in with people’s behaviors and what people want. So this research spans engineering and human behavior.

 

AW: How do you keep track of all these people using electric vehicles?

JT: We study not just the electric vehicle owners of today, but also people who may be electric vehicle owners in the future. The people that have already adopted electric vehicles in this country have primarily been wealthier individuals — they may be more likely to have off street parking spots, be able to install chargers at home, and have more than one car. And all of that is not really a model for a future equitable transition to sustainable transportation. It’s really important that the data covers the populations overall, not just early electric vehicle adopters.

We draw on a number of different datasets, and part of the modeling is to develop ways to match information across these datasets, so you can probabilistically match detailed data on a given trip with a less detailed but broader dataset covering an entire population that looks at how many trips they take per day, and their start times and end times and so on. We’ve worked mostly with publicly available data at various resolutions. And we’ve also done some data collection ourselves.

 

AW: I bet what you find from these models is very different depending on where you’re looking, right?

JT: There are differences, but there are some ways in which the results were more similar across urban and rural areas, and across different cities, than we expected. One of those results was from a paper we published back in 2016. We asked what percentage of vehicles on the road could be replaced by a low-cost electric vehicle without having to recharge during the day.

We looked across the entire country, and the answers weren’t as different as you might expect. It doesn’t mean that the cities are the same — some cities are much more car dependent than others. But when people do drive, there’s a certain similarity in the energy use. And our results indicated that across many different kinds of cities, there was a much larger adoption potential than one might have expected. Even at that time, close to 90% of vehicles could be replaced with these low-cost electric vehicles even if they could only charge overnight.

 

AW: What are some key areas in the coming years where you think we need to devote a lot of thought?

JT: Finding out what people want from climate solutions and what fits in with their lifestyles is what’s crucial. Many people do want to address climate change. There are many different opinions on how to do that and how urgent it is, but overall, people do want solutions, and many of these solutions provide other benefits, like cleaner air or more convenience. But it’s important to understand people’s varying preferences and to develop solutions that account for them.

One other thing I want to say is if we’re talking about reducing emissions from transportation, this is a very substantial change: It’s going to require a lot of investment. In this country and a number of others, we need to look at the challenges people face in accessing transportation resources. There are many people who don’t have access at all to a high-quality transportation service. And any time  you’re talking about this major transition, those issues really need to be addressed, because this is going to require such substantial change and investment. I just think we have to remember that transportation is really about providing a service, and right now that service is unevenly available to  people. That needs to be a central part of this overall effort.

 

AW: Could you tell me about the other research you do?

JT: I work across all different energy services, and I look at these questions about how to be deliberate about developing and investing in green technologies. That work involves developing both data-driven models and mechanistic models. And we’re working across industrial energy services, electricity, transportation, and heating, so we’re not just focused on one energy service. Some of the work I do is look at how technologies change over time — the rates of change, the drivers of that change.

 

AW: Could you give an example of these models?

JT: We have something we’ve developed called the Sustainable Energy Systems Model that allows us to look at the electric power system. We use a cost minimization framework to ask the question, if you want to minimize the overall cost of electricity and incorporate renewables, but also reduce emissions and also provide a high-quality service, how much solar and wind capacity might you want, how much storage, and can those options be complemented by other sources of power?

One question of particular interest is the role of hydrogen fuel and the different cost drivers for producing it. We are interested in how to reduce the cost of green hydrogen.