Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com

A lot has been written about the potential for microorganisms – bugs – to create second generation biofuel, so-called cellulosic biofuel made from wood and agricultural waste and ordinary garbage.

But the new CEO of Britain’s privately-held Green Biologics has a different game plan for his bugs. Whether or not he succeeds, Sean Sutcliffe’s plan is worth remembering, because it reinforces how industrial biotech firms aren’t just players in the transportation fuel market. Sutcliffe has his sights on the $2 trillion global chemicals industry. By 2050, Sutcliffe said in an interview with EnergyTechStocks.com, 70% of chemicals will be bio-based, with his company “one to watch” as this transformation unfolds.

Sutcliffe sees bio-based plastics, solvents and related products as having higher value than transportation fuel. He thinks bio-based transportation alternatives such as biobutanol will cost too much to become a mainstream alternative to gasoline, at least in the short run.

Green Biologics’ game plan is simple: turn the lowest cost feedstocks into the highest value products. That means molasses, waste products and eventually food wastes will be the feedstock for what he described as the “library of bacterial strains” that Green Biologics genetically manipulates to increase yields by enabling the microorganisms to operate at higher temperatures.

“Now is the time to step up the pace” on commercialization, he said, although quickly added that while the world would like bio-based chemicals, plastics and transportation fuel to be available immediately, there’s still a “long journey” ahead for companies like Green Biologics.

Started in 2003, Sutcliffe describes Green Biologics as still being a development-stage industrial biotech firm. Its investors include Carbon Trust Investments and Oxford Capital Partners.