Perception of EU citizens on engineered biocatalytic solar fuels

Genetic modification of microorganisms for enhanced metabolic activity shows excellent promise for biotechnological exploitation. The production of solar fuels can be facilitated by novel advances in the metabolic engineering of microalgae and cyanobacteria. Contaminant-free biocatalytic production with high cell densities at a large scale and low costs need to be achieved for commercial application of this innovation from the technical perspective. From a market perspective, possible citizens\u27 concerns towards genetically modified organism and products need to be investigated and addressed before product development and sale. Across EU countries, this paper shows citizens\u27 views on solar fuel produced by genetically engineered microorganism. For the first time, this study investigates the EU citizens\u27 attitudes towards this novel technology and possible relationship to gender, age and education. The results indicate that EU citizens consider engineered biocatalytic solar fuels as environmentally superior to established biofuels. The majority of the respondents (84%) would be their final consumers, and 70% of them are willing to pay a surcharge for them, provided that they have environmental advantages in general and in particular for climate protection. However, compared to electric cars fueled with renewable power, citizens perceive biocatalytic solar fuels as less environmentally friendly

Precision Agriculture. Summary

Precision agriculture (PA) is an innovative information-guided management concept of crop production that builds on various new or further developed technologies - in particular satellite-based positioning and sensor-based recording systems. Small-scale varying soil conditions and plant populations existing within a field can be recorded with the help of PA technology. On the basis of this information, special systems of information evaluation as well as suitable equipment technology can be used to design plant cultivation measures more spatially and quantitatively precise than before. This volume analyses the economic and ecological potential of land management with PA and shows possible courses of action for research and development, for sustainability and impact analyses as well as for the diffusion of PA

Opportunities and challenges facing new energy crops. Summary

In the EU, 20% of primary energy demand is to be covered by renewable energy sources by 2020 in order to reduce emissions of climate-relevant gases and dependence on imports of fossil energy sources. Biomass is the most important renewable energy source in both the European Union and Germany, with a share of around two thirds. Bioenergy sources play a major role in the expansion strategies for renewable energies. Biofuel and biogas production have risen sharply in Germany in recent years due to government subsidies. This part of bioenergy is essentially based on energy crop cultivation (mainly rapeseed and maize). However, with food prices rising sharply worldwide, especially in 2007/2008, the expansion targets for biofuels have been called into question to some extent. There was controversy about the extent to which the increasing production of biofuels had contributed to this price increase. With the financial and economic crisis, agricultural prices then fell significantly, and agriculture is in the midst of a revenue and income crisis in which energy crops can once again gain importance as an income option. Another point of discussion is the extent to which ambitious expansion targets will lead to the import of bioenergy sources and thus trigger an expansion of cultivated areas in tropical exporting countries at the expense of rainforest. In the case of large-scale rainforest clearing, this would even mean increased greenhouse gas emissions instead of their reduction. These rapid changes in the public debate pose particular challenges for scientific policy advice in this topic area. Subject and aim of the study The TA project "Opportunities and challenges of new energy crops" (short title "Energy Crops") was approved by the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment on 27 September 2006. Due to the importance of the very complex topic and the manifold demands on the project, a staged approach was chosen. In the first phase of the project, the focus was on the review and comparative evaluation of existing studies. An overview of the subject area is provided in the basic analyses (TAB Working Report No. 121). The studies in the second project phase concentrated on the in-depth analysis of three topic areas: Expansion of energy crop use and (land) competition nationally and internationally, dimensions of environmentally compatible energy crop production, and certification of biogenic energy sources