A field of biobased dreams in Iowa

Towering above the dark green fields of Iowa, a new $360 million factory is challenging the premise that the spandex raw material 1,4-butanediol must be made from fossil fuels.Over a period of about 50 years, companies built plants that make butanediol, which also goes into polyurethanes and many other products, via at least five different synthetic routes. All of them start with coal, oil, or natural gas as their raw material. The Iowa facility starts with dextrose derived from corn.The plant is a joint venture between the agribusiness giant Cargill and the chemical trader Helm. Built at a large Cargill corn-processing complex in Eddyville, it uses genetically modified bacteria to ferment dextrose into as much as 66,000 metric tons (t) of butanediol per year. It is the largest single US investment in biobased chemicals in about 20 years.The venture, called Qore, held a grand opening July 22 under the hot Iowa sun, the kind of day on which farmers say they can hear the corn growing. By getting off the ground, Qore is breaking a string of failed attempts to produce chemicals from agriculture instead of from fossil feedstocks. Still to be determined is whether Qore is a sign of renewal in the business of making chemicals with biology or just an isolated success.Qore’s origins stretch back to 2014, when Christophe Schilling, then the CEO of the industrial biotechnology company Genomatica, met with Jill Zullo, who at the time was vice president of Cargill’s bioindustrial division. Genomatica had genetically engineered