Description:
Under the label "white biotechnology" industrial biotechnology is being heralded as a new key technology. It is thought to be superior for ecological as well as economic reasons. By substituting complex chemical processes with microbiological procedures, the impact on the environment is minimised. Moreover, these procedures use renewable resources thereby reducing the consumption of scarce and expensive fossil resources. Almost a hundred years ago, biotechnology was initially praised as the technology of the future. But those high hopes of the early twentieth century were frustrated. Instead of engaging in extensive biotechnology research and development, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries decided to follow the path of chemical synthesis. As a consequence, biotechnology was marginalised as a niche technology and its development was retarded. This article presents the central features of this historical development and concludes that, over the past century, the prospects of biotechnological procedures have improved to a large extent. On the one hand, increasing scarcity and expanding costs of resources as well as ecological constraints (like the Framework Convention on Climate Change) have paved the way for economically more efficient applications. On the other hand, biotechnology has become theoretically and procedurally more mature and can therefore better connect with the established strategies of innovation in industry. Biotechnologische Verfahren basieren auf nachwachsenden Rohstoffen und sind CO2-neutral. Mit Rohstoffverknappung und Klimawandel rückt daher vor allem die weiße Biotechnologie mehr und mehr in den Blick. Das war nicht immer so – lange galt sie als Nischentechnologie.