The GM tree plantations bred to satisfy the world's energy needs
Israeli biotech firm says its modified eucalyptus trees can displace the fossil fuel industry
GM eucalyptus trees at 5 and a half years old, grown in a field trial.
FutureGene claims GM species grow thicker and faster than the natural
plant, making it possible to be grown for energy generation.
Public Domain
It's a timber company's dream but a horrific industrial vision for
others: massive plantations of densely planted GM eucalyptus trees
stretching across Brazil,
South Africa, Indonesia and China, engineered to grow 40% faster for
use as paper, as pellets for power stations and as fuel for cars.
The prospect is close, says Stanley Hirsch, chief executive of the Israeli biotech company FuturaGene.
All that is missing, he says, are permissions from governments for the
trees to be grown commercially, and backing from conservation groups and
certification bodies.
FuturaGene has spent 11 years trialling thousands of GM
eucalyptus and poplar trees on 100-hectare plots in Israel, China and
outside São Paulo in Brazil, and is now at the last stages of the
Brazilian regulatory process for commercial planting. Thanks to a gene
taken from the common, fast-growing Arabidopsis weed, the
company has found a way to alter the structure of plant cell walls to
stimulate the natural growth process. The company says its modified
eucalyptus trees can grow 5 metres (16ft) a year, with 20%-30% more mass
than a normal eucalyptus. In just five and a half years they are 27
metres high.
Hirsch claims the gene-altering technique is an industrial "game-changer" and integral to the UN's vision of a future "global green economy".
"Our trees grow faster and thicker. We are ahead of everyone. We have
shown we can increase the yields and growth rates of trees more than
anything grown by traditional breeding. Potentially, we believe this
[development] can displace the whole fossil fuel industry. The
technology can be adapted to any trees. We can have a whole new supply
of fuel. Yes, I do want to save the world."
GM trees have been grown experimentally since 1986 but despite more
than 700 field trials, mainly in the US on eucalypts, pines, poplars and
fruit trees, European and US legislation has delayed permissions and
very few have ever reached the market. Papaya, a few plums and some pine
trees with genetically engineered viral resistance have been approved
in the US, but only China, which has planted more than 1m GM pines, has
given permission for them to be grown on any scale.
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