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Highlights in Photochemistry
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Global artificial photosynthesis: transition from Corporatocene to Sustainocene T. A. Faunce Downloaded by Australian National University on 08/10/2016 07:17:34. Published on 01 September 2016 on http://pubs.rsc.org | doi:10.1039/9781782626954-00261
DOI: 10.1039/9781782626954-00263
It is a profoundly socially transformative idea that in the future, every road and building on the earth’s surface, with the assistance of nanotechnology, will be undertaking photosynthesis. Some direct implications of equitably distributing artificial photosynthetic technology across the globe include removing the need for centralised sources of food or fuel. Other indirect outcomes could include stabilisation of population growth (from increased education in developing nations), reduced opportunities for war or corruption and facilitation of progress towards cultures that encourage human flourishing and mental peace, as well as ecosystem sustainability. This can be characterised as a technologydriven transition from the Corporatocene to Sustainocene epoch. One approach to realising such a transition is a global project on artificial photosynthesis, inspired by other large scale scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project, the Large Hadron Collider, the Hubble Space Telescope. This approach has been the subject of collaborative publications and international conferences. Implicit in the task of creating a Global Project on Artificial Photosynthesis is the need to create a favourable governance framework; one that is predicated on the consistent application of universally applicable principles.
1
Introduction
Imagine that in the future, every road and building on the earth’s surface, with the assistance of nanotechnology, will be undertaking photosynthesis. Some direct implications of distributing artificial photosynthetic technology across the globe could include removing the need for centralised sources of food or fuel. Other indirect outcomes might include stabilisation of population growth (from increased education in developing nations), reduced opportunities for war or corruption and facilitation of progress towards cultures that encourage human flourishing and mental peace, as well as ecosystem sustainability. Alternatively such a global distribution of artificial photosynthetic systems could result in massive profits to a few multinational companies that patent the technology, restriction of the technology to the wealthy, corruption of government schemes to pay royalties so it becomes equitably available and unnecessary destruction of the environment, loss of human life and extinction of species and ecosystems as introduction of the technology is delayed. Which future unfolds for global artificial photosynthesis will depend on the principles governing how it is deployed. One approach to globalising artificial photosynthesis involves establishing is a global research project, inspired by other large scale scientific projects such as the Human Genome Project, the Large Hadron Collider, the Hubble Space Telescope. Australian National University, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and ANU College of Law (joint appointment), Fellows Rd, Acton, Canberra 0200, Australia. E-mail:
[email protected] Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 263 c
The Royal Society of Chemistry 2017
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The idea of a Global Project on Artificial Photosynthesis (‘GAP’) first became the subject of an international conference at Lord Howe Island in August 2011. The aim of this meeting was to popularise the idea amongst major scientists in the field. A second international conference on the theme was held at Chicheley Hall under the auspices of and with funding assistance from the UK Royal Society in 2014. The aim was for major researchers in the field to consider basic governance structures behind a global project on artificial photosynthesis and to receive feedback from representatives of major potential public, philanthropic and private stakeholders in such a project. A third international conference took place in Canberra and Lord Howe Island in 2016. The aim on this occasion was to scope the principles that should underpin the globalisation of artificial photosynthesis in the transition from Corporatocene to Sustainocene. The latter two terms are new to governance theory and science policy and no doubt require some explication. 1.1 Earth system governance from Holocene to Corporatocene The term Holocene (‘‘recent whole’’), devised by Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin’s mentor in 1833, was attached to the post-glacial geological epoch by the International Geological Congress in Bologna in 1885. It is defined as beginning 10 000 years ago. From that time till about 1800 CE, humanity’s activities barely changed the natural systems of this world. Since 1800 with the onset of the industrial revolution, the development of the capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen as a fertilizer, improved sanitation healthcare and transport human population and its impact have dramatically increased including its capacity to extinguish other species, burn photosynthesis fuels archived over millions of years (in the form of coal, oil and natural gas) thereby increasing greenhouse gas concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, as well as destroy and convert land ecosystems to cities of bitumen and asphalt. In the 1920s V. I. Vernadsky, P. Teilhard de Chardin and E. Le Roy devised the term ¨sphere’’ (the world of thought) to emphasise the growing role played ‘‘noo by mankind’s brainpower and technological talents in shaping its own future and environment.1 ¨sphere idea, it has been In what seems to be an extension of the noo argued that human activity has pushed this planet from the Holocene into what has been termed the Anthropocene period, a term coined by Crutzen in 2002.2 ‘Anthropocene’ refers to an epoch when human interference with earth systems (particularly in the form of influences on land use and land cover, coastal and maritime ecosystems, atmospheric composition, riverine flow, nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus cycles, physical climate, food chains, biological diversity and natural resources) have become so pervasive and profound that they are not only becoming the main drivers of natural processes on earth, but are threatening their capacity to sustain life.3 Salutary facts driving academic and policy interest in moving from the Anthropocene to a different type of humancontrolled epoch are not only the anthropogenic greenhouse-gas driven increase in severe weather events, but the projected increase of global human population to around 10 billion by 2050 with associated energy 264 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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consumption rising from E400 EJ per year to over 500 EJ per year beyond the capacity of existing fossil-fuel based power generation.4 The research underpinning the push to develop an environmentally better energy and climate policy also emerged strongly from influential commentaries such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change5 and the Stern Report.6 In the Paris Accord of 2015 governments of most of the world’s nations agreed to (1) a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 1C above pre-industrial levels; (2) to aim to limit the increase to 1.5 1C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change; (3) on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognising that this will take longer for developing countries; (4) to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science.7 But is ‘Anthropocene’ an accurate term? Five features of the Anthropocene epoch are alleged to dominate its policy debates: population; poverty, preparation for war, profits and pollution.8 Of these every one except the first, overpopulation, is a direct outcome of the increasing socio-political influence and desire to maximise shareholder profits and executive remuneration of multinational corporations. It is not the average citizen who is responsible for an oversupply of food that is dumped in one part of the globe while in another part people starve to death. It is likewise not the responsibility of average people but of profitseeking multinational armaments manufacturers that many wars break out and cause such great loss of life. Pollution on a grand scale is more than anything else a problem created by oil and coal and mining companies, plastic manufacturing companies, the global agrifood business. Looked at critically it is more appropriate to term the Anthropocene the Corporatocene. The dominant political and social actor in the Corporatocene remains the multinational corporation. Such artificial human entities significantly erode the sovereignty of the State. They do this by large donations to political parties who in turn ensure a process of turning over public assets to corporate hands (privatisation), preventing the establishment of new public assets (for example through requirements under trade and investment agreements to compensate corporate actors for loss of investment), use of judges, police and military to enforce patents and create wars to maintain profit, facilitate the transfer of money by the wealthy to off-shore tax havens as well as by inhibiting the development of governance arrangements or new technologies that would hamper this process. Humanity in the Corportocene developed the capacity to diagnose what may be termed planetary illness, by robust measures such as biodiversity loss (and species extinction), atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, availability of fresh water.9 Such tests resemble those that allowed medical science to diagnose human illness in the 19th century, a period when few effective remedies were in existence. A terminological revision from Holocene to Corporatocene focuses public awareness and policy attention more precisely on the core of the problem here for democratic governance and environmental sustainability. It also focuses on the need to move to a different type of vision Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 265
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and system- one that reverences all life on earth and in which the major players in political power seek to consistently apply universally applicable principles. It further encourages human innovation to develop technological therapies for the global problems the earth faces. Such a vision is that of the Sustainocene. 1.2 The Sustainocene vision The term ‘Sustainocene’ was coined by the Canberra-based Australian physician Bryan Furnass in 2012.10 It has been described as referring to a period where governance structures and scientific endeavour coordinate to achieve the social virtues of ecological sustainability and environmental integrity as influentially propounded by eco-economists such as the EF Schumacher (with his concept of ‘small (and local) is beautiful’) and Kenneth Boulding (with his idea of ‘Spaceship Earth’ as a closed economy requiring recycling of resources) as well as Herman Daly with his notion of ‘steady state’ economies drawing upon the laws of thermodynamics and the tendency of the universe to greater entropy (dispersal of energy).11 One area of academic research and policy development that fits well with ‘‘Sustainocene’ thinking is that centred on the idea that this planet should be treated not just as a distinct living entity (James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis), but as a patient.12 ‘Planetary medicine’ as this field has become known has become a symbolic rubric focusing not just public and governmental attention on the interaction between human health, technological development and sustainability of the biosphere.13 In this emerging discipline, characteristic features of the Corporatocene epoch such as anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation, as well as gross societal imbalances in poverty as well as lack of necessary fuel, food, medicines, security and access to nature, are targeted as intrinsically global pathologies the resolution of which requires concerted efforts to implement a wide range of not just renewable energy technologies but bioethical principles including those related to protecting the interests of future generations and preservation of biodiversity.14 One of the major differences between the Corporatocene and the Sustainocene may be that in the latter humanity was able to develop a planetary therapeutic: notably global artificial photosynthesis (‘AP’) (See Table 1). 1.3 Sustainocene and global artificial photosynthesis When we travel in aircraft across the world it is easy to see the extent to which human concrete and asphalt structures are proliferating across the face of the planet. Such structures contribute little to the ecosystems around them. They do not enrich the soil or provide oxygen or absorb carbon dioxide. Yet we are almost at the point where nanotechnology and artificial photosynthesis can be engineered into such structures so they can be made to ‘‘pay their way’’ in an ecosystem sense. The material preconditions for offering global artificial photosynthesis as a planetary therapeutic for the Sustainocene are strong. More solar 266 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
View Online Table 1 Comparison of Corporatocene and Sustainocene.
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Corporatocene Sustainocene Powered by ‘old’ photosynthesis fuels (oil, coal, natural gas)
Yes
No
Powered by ‘new’ photosynthesis fuels (via global artificial photosynthesis)
No
Yes
Corporate-led governance (via lobbying, corruption, trade and investment agreements)
Yes
No
Community-led governance (via liquid democracy, rights of ecosystems)
No
Yes
Governance protecting future generations
No
Yes
War, poverty and pollution as strategies for corporate profit Yes
No
Governance applying universally applicable principles consistently in the face of obstacles
Yes
No
energy strikes the Earth’s surface in one hour of each day than the energy used by all human activities in one year.15,16 At present the average daily power consumption required to allow a citizen to flourish with a reasonable standard of living is about 125 kWh day1. Much of this power is devoted to transport (B40 kWh day1), heating (B40 kWh day1) and domestic electrical appliances (B18 kWh day1), with the remainder lost in electricity conversion and distribution.17 Global energy consumption is approximately 450 EJ per year, much less than the solar energy potentially usable at B1.0 kilowatts per square metre of the earth— 3.9106 EJ per year even if we take into the earth’s tilt, diurnal and atmospheric influences on solar intensity.18 The question of how best to use this solar energy remains a major contemporary policy conundrum. Photovoltaic (PV) energy systems (which put solar photons into batteries, or the electricity grid) are improving their efficiencies towards 25%, and the cost of the electricity they produce is nearing or has past grid parity in many nations. The development of ‘‘smart-grid’’ (allowing energy carrying capacity to fluctuate coherently in accord with renewable source input and output) and ‘‘pumped-hydro’’ (using diurnal PV electricity to pump water to high reservoirs so it can be run down through turbines at night) will assist the viability of this as a national energy source. Even large solar farms, however, (for example taking up 200 m2 per person with 10%-efficient solar panels) could produce but B50 kWh per day per person.19 Yet the problem has been solved by plants a billion years ago- to use it to make fuel and food locally in the same organism that captures the light, by drawing upon the resource of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Similarly, there has been much policy interest in developing what is termed the ‘hydrogen economy’ in which hydrogen is used ubiquitously as a carbon-neutral energy vector (for example source of electricity via fuel cells or as a fuel itself when combined with atmospheric nitrogen to form ammonia) and source of fresh water (when combusted). Major policy documents have outlined the case for a hydrogen economy.20–23 Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 267
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Significant scientific challenges here include the need to lower the cost of hydrogen fuel production to that of petrol, the difficulties in creating a sustainable and low carbon dioxide route for the mass production of hydrogen, the need to develop safe and more efficient storage (including the difficulties of compressing and cooling the hydrogen), the need to develop regulations and safety standards at national and international levels as well as the need to develop stable incentive systems for large scale investment in this area that will not fluctuate with oil prices. One of the main problems at present with moving to a global hydrogen economy is the carbon-intensive energy required to produce hydrogen in large quantities by steam reformation of hydrocarbons, generally methane. Hydrogen (H2) on a weight basis has three times the energy content of gasoline. Liquifying H2 requires complex and expensive process in which approx. 35% of H2 energy is lost. Compression of H2 similarly requires considerable external energy and a cylindrical shape.24 This problem may be solved by considering the vast nitrogen resource comprising 78% of the atmosphere. Hydrogen and nitrogen can be combined to make ammonia – a valuable fuel and source of fertilizer. Making a form of hydrogen (ATP) by splitting of water using energy from the sun is the process of photosynthesis by which plants have created the ecosystems of the earth. Photosynthesis (in its traditional form utilising biology) provides the fundamental origin of our oxygen, food and the majority of our present-day fuels; it has been operating on earth for 2.5 billion years.25 The process of doing photosynthesis is know so well understood that it is a feasible scientific challenge to not only replicate it but improve upon it. Photosynthetic organisms absorb photons from a relatively narrow segment of the solar spectrum (B430–700 nm) by so-called ‘antenna’ chlorophyll molecules in thylakoid membranes, or chloroplasts. The absorbed photons’ energy creates unstable spatially separated electron/ hole pairs. The ‘‘holes’’ are captured by the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) in photosystem II (PSII) to oxidise water (H2O) to what can be termed a natural form of hydrogen (protons) and oxygen (O2). This process can be written as the following chemical equation: 2H2O ) 4 photons ) 4e þ 4H1 þ O2. The protons released on water oxidation can be used to make hydrogen according to a chemical process recorded as: 2e þ 2H1 ) H2. The electrons are subsequently captured in chemical bonds by photosystem I (PSI) to reduce NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) to NADPH. Electro-chemical energy stored by the protons produces ATP (adenosine triphosphate). In the relatively less efficient ‘‘dark reaction’’, ATP and NADPH as well as carbon dioxide are used in the Calvin–Benson cycle to make a variety of energy rich chemicals, mainly sucrose and starch via the enzyme RuBisCO (Ribulose-1,5bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase).26 This capacity to store solar energy in transportable chemical bonds is the feature that makes enhanced photosynthesis so intriguing as a form of renewable energy. Photosynthesis can be considered as a process of planetary respiration: breathing in, it creates a global annual CO2 flux27 and on expiration an annual O2 flux.28 In its present nanotechnologically-unenhanced form, 268 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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photosynthesis globally already traps around 4000 EJ per year solar energy in the form of biomass.29 The global biomass energy potential for human use from photosynthesis as it currently operates globally is approximately equal to human energy requirements (450 EJ per year).30–32 Biologic photosynthesis is a research trial that has been successfully conducted by life on earth for billions of years. It would be sensible to consider improving upon it as a likely pathway to energy security and environmental sustainability for humanity. At the same time as the puzzle of how to do photosynthesis most effectively began to exercise the minds of some scientists, humanity developed a revolutionary approach to making things – nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the science of making things from components that are not much bigger than a few atoms, less than 100 nm (a nanometer is a billionth of a metre). The chief policy interest to date with nanotechnology to date has been concerned with ensuring its safety.33 Corporations have focused on making money from nanotechnology through consumer products such as light weight strong sporting goods (carbon fibre golf clubs and racing bikes) and odourless socks and shirts as well as packaging that preserves food as it is flown or containershipped around the world (with nanosilver). Experts, however, have encouraged nanotechnology researchers instead to systematically contribute to achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (as they then were) particularly energy storage, production and conversion, agricultural productivity enhancement, water treatment and remediation.34 Nanotechnology could equally be prioritized to focus on achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals: (1) One in five people still lacks access to modern electricity (2) 3 billion people rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating (3) Energy is the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for around 60 per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions and (4) Reducing the carbon intensity of energy is a key objective in long-term climate goals.35 Yet the case can be made that looked at from an idealistic perspective coherent with basic ethical and human rights principles the moral culmination of nanotechnology should be global artificial photosynthesis (‘GAP’).36 In simple terms ethics is a process of developing principles that can be consistently applied by all rational persons to produce virtue and mutual flourishing. In such basic ethical terms if humanity breathes oxygen its buildings should make oxygen. Ethically, if humanity breaths out carbon dioxide its buildings should resorb from the atmosphere that greenhouse gas. The idea of making the all human structures on the earth’s surface do photosynthesis without biology is an ethical commitment at the core of the vision of a transition to a Sustaincoene epoch. In this way technology operating at a billionth of a metre can improve upon and take some economic pressure off a biological system successfully operating for billions of years. The development of an economy based on practical solar fuels (whether focusing primarily on splitting water to create hydrogen, or also utilising atmospheric nitrogen to make Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 269
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ammonia) will be a major step in shifting the biosphere from what has been termed the Corporatocene to the Sustainocene epoch. Many researchers in the artificial photosynthesis (‘AP’) field will no doubt continue for several decades to consider that genetically modifying or utilising plants can and will stay the best option. They will seek for example to genetically manipulate or even synthetically reproduce photosynthetic plants and bacteria to maximize their light capture and carbon reduction activities.37 This is likely to remain an attractive area because scientists will be able to deliever results in short grant cycles. Yet long term the AP field will begin to shift towards non-biological nanotechnology based AP. This is not simply because the scientific challenge of understanding and replicating natural AP is intriguing but there are significant implications of being able to capture many more photons than natural systems, to use them more efficiently to make fuel and food and fertilizer not only form atmospheric carbon dioxide, but from atmospheric nitrogen. One model of a Sustainocene powered by solar fuels involves biomimetic polymer photovoltaic generators plugged in to the national electricity grid to power (near large sources of seawater, CO2, waste heat, high solar irradiation and proximity to end use facilities) large scale hydrogen fuel and waterless agriculture, chemical feedstocks and polymers for fibre production.38 This model has the advantage of the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ reactions being uncoupled in relation not only to energy/ material flow balance, but also to the requirement to be co-located in space. Yet such a model favours power concentration in the hands of a few and in that sense is less ethical than a model of GAP which emphasizes individual and community involvement in micro or local generation of fuel and food through AP products installed as a policy priority on domestic dwellings and vehicles.39 There is a simple ethical message at the core of the Sustainocene in telling people that nanotechnology will be used to make buildings function like trees. A device that can do this and is available for cheap purchase and installation, like the mobile phone or internet, could rapidly transform society into a place more characterised by virtues like equity and environmental sustainability. Yet if global artificial photosynthesis is to be utilised this way, fleshing out in greater detail the governance and ethical framework in which it develops becomes critical.40,41 Governance issues involved in creating a GAP project will be dealt with first, then the relevant ethical principles; these being broken down into specific areas of application.
2 Governance challenges in artificial photosynthesis going global No matter how significant the vision or advanced the science, the governance challenges of moving to a Global Artificial Photosynthesis Project are considerable.42 AP is largely unknown in energy and climate change policy documents and such a project may not only bring AP scientists together but raise the policy ‘visibility’ of the field. The most compelling reason for global AP project derives from the sheer size of the 270 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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required energy system. A capital investment of 1 trillion dollars will be required to 1% of the world’s energy mix and this can only be achieved through a global effort.43 Yet, it is not enough to say that a Global AP project in any form would raise the public profile of this field of research. How it is structured must reflect a philosophy in tune with its ethical aspirations. Funds will need to be acquired, but (if the ethical vision is to be maintained) without strings attached that prioritise the profit-making of corporate entities. One approach would be to divert funds from a GAP project from a global tax on financial transactions or a small tax on the capital of those persons or entities with over $50 million in assets. Experts will need to be appointed to vet proposals to fund single-PI grants, multi PI grants and centres of excellence. The single-PI grants would be distributed to fund focused research on the individual components using specific approaches to capitalize on the recognised expertise of individual PIs and their labs. The multi-PI grants would fund efforts at the interface between these areas, for example testing compatibility between the modules of AP research and testing performance. Feedback modifications towards practical device development would be coordinated in centres of excellence that organised sources of specialized equipment, technical expertise, benchmarking, testing product development strategies and scale up of the most successful systems for AP that arise form the multiPI efforts. The centres of excellence would hold an annual conference for current PIs and other interested researchers and policy makers.44 A global AP project thus would need to engage ethicists, policy makers and analysts. It should incorporate programs of education for young scientists, the public and policy makers. It would need to connect with and be supported by high profile philanthropic and international organisations as well as governments. Some considered that the role of private corporations in a global AP project would be problematic initially if there was a rigid insistence on intellectual property rights (which may slow collaboration and innovation) as a condition for investment. Factors likely to be critical to global uptake of AP technology include (1) strong institutional capacity (2) political commitment (3) favourable legal and regulatory frameworks, (4) competitive installation financing (5) mechanisms for information and feedback (6) access to financing (7) prolific community and/or individual ownership and use (8) participatory project siting and (9) recognition of externalities or positive public image.45 Funding criteria would include principles such as diversity, quality of science and equity (socio-political context) so that the taxpayers who were the ultimate source of such funds could expect a direct benefit to their region as well as to humanity and the environment in general. Criteria would also encourage collaboration and rapid development of functional systems rather than decades long study of a single, isolated component. Hence the single PI grants would be for limited time periods (i.e., three years) with one renewal after which only multi-PI grants could be accessed. This would encourage individual PIs to coalesce their AP research projects in order to maintain funding. Special attention would Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 271
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be paid for grants to projects that sought to link the various components of a fully functional AP system together: renewable ammonia (NH3) fertilizer, a hydrogen storage and carrier system and combustion source for transportation, domestic and industrial fuel as well as basic starch production. A global AP project needs defined challenges at the levels of fundamental science and benchmarking, as well as a realistic time line for its achievement. Benchmarking in this context should include not just technological efficiency and competitive advantage, but precautionary life cycle risk analysis and cost-effectiveness assessment. In terms of building such a global AP project it was suggested that initial involvement of smaller organisations with greater flexibility in terms of financially supporting visionary ideas could leverage subsequent involvement of larger stakeholders.46 Establishing a global AP project should be planned to become a focus for a new way of thinking about how as a species we plan to survive on earth. It could take the lead, for example, in developing complex policy options about long term energy and resource production and allocation, food security and eco-systems preservation. Without such an initiative, massively increased urbanisation with attendant pollution, environmental degradation and mass exploitation of animals for food is likely to replicate the destruction of civilisations and has so often happened previously when humans failed to respect environmental sustainability.47
3 Ethical foundations of a global project on artificial photosynthesis Claiming that globalised artificial photosynthetic technology will lead to a Sustainocene epoch of abundant food, fuel and fertilizer does not of itself make such a project ethical. Such a project will only be ethical if from its inception and throughout its progress, those steering its decisions have a commitment to develop personal and social virtues through consistent application of universally applicable principles in the face of obstacles. A GAP project, in other words, should support humanity acting as ecosystem steward consistently applying principles that reinforce not only traditional social virtues such as justice, equity, but also non-anthropocentric social virtues such as environmental sustainability.48 Creating such an ethical framework is important to the task of making the activities of such a global AP project express a narrative relevant to the concerns of the general populace in both developed and developing nations. On one such ethical approach, the global AP-supported Sustainocene would be a world where enforceable rights of nature are recognised by legal systems, where people work according to principles that encouraged all to flourish and create the material conditions whereby themselves, their families and communities can construct lives the lead to happiness and peace of mind. An equitable globalisation of artificial photosynthesis may represent an instance of technology driving an expansion of human 272 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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sympathy towards recognition of the intrinsic dignity of all life on earth, akin to the moral revolutions that led to the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women, or the eradication of smallpox or may in time result in the elimination of nuclear weapons, poverty, torture or war in general. The case was made that the developing world which comparatively lacks electricity and energy production and storage capacity may be more likely to understand the advantages of a global AP initiative. It was also argued that a global AP project could have different goals – with mature AP technology deployed at community level or ‘fully distributed’ and servicing individual homes. Correspondingly, the energy storage issue could be a major point of policy leverage for a global AP project in the developed world. The basic ethical proposition to emerge from the Chicheley Hall meeting was that ‘‘Our goal is to work cooperatively and with respect for basic ethical principles to produce the scientific breakthroughs that allow development and deployment of an affordable, equitably accessed, economically and environmentally sustainable, non-polluting global energy and food system that also contributes positively to our biosphere.’’ Various components and implications of this pledge will now be examined. 3.1 Patents over artificial photosynthesis and justice Research in artificial photosynthesis is only likely to end up producing a safe, inexpensive and practical device for personalized energy that can be made equitably available to citizens, if researchers themselves remain committed to universally applicable principles throughout that process. If they do not, for example, then they will not resist selling the patent for their breakthrough invention to a corporate troll for the fossil fuel industry who simply plans to keep it form being utilised. Likewise, after the development of a deployable AP device; the capacity of governments to promote and/or subsidize or for industry to invest in this field may depend to a large extent on the outcomes of debates about how domestic and international environmental and human rights law should interact with trade and investment law. Whether environmental sustainability comes to be recognized as equally important with distributive justice as a foundational social virtue underpinning such normative systems is likely to be central to how such debates are resolved. A critical aspect of this interaction is likely to involve the property rights regime and specifically patents, either over core aspects of the photosynthetic process or over central components of a successful artificial photosynthetic system. Enforceable patent rights undoubtedly will determine the trend towards innovation in this field and many large corporations seeking to invest in it will not risk doing so without a portfolio of hundreds of patents. Unless appropriately regulated, the patent system may have a negative impact on scientific collaboration, as appears to have occurred with patent over synthetic organisms and proteins.49 Patents over the key components of artificial photosynthesis technology, such as antenna systems, reaction centers, water catalysts, carbon Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 273
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dioxide reduction and nitrogen fixation components, will overlap, be hard to identify, fragmented in ownership, and will be tactically broad.50 Patent litigation will almost certainly result, especially as commercial competitors will require access to each other’s technology and ‘‘patent trolls’’ will seek to capitalize on uncertainty as they have in the field of biotechnology, tactically acquiring patents to profit from evolving research needs.51 The patenting of photosynthesis is likely to be as controversial as the patenting of genes, as it is a process essential to life on earth.52 There will be uncertainty as to whether patents will encompass the products of artificial photosynthesis in addition to the processes and mechanisms.53 A ‘‘patent thicket’’ may emerge if the IP landscape of artificial photosynthesis become fragmented amongst multiple patent holders and research may be hindered by the high cost of negotiating multiple licences, especially as each patent holder with seek to maximize the profitability of licensing access.54 One model for consideration in terms of enhancing distributive justice and environmental sustainability as a balance to corporate monopoly rights in this area involves the Open Innovation Network which purchases patents related to the computer operating system Linux to ensure that they are not exploited. Another option promoting longer-term environmental sustainability as a goal of innovation involves investing the core IP in a single patent pool to which all competitors could access. Patent pools may be utilized to overcome the problem of fragmented IP, but it is important that they don’t exclude parties or they risk acting as cartels and violating anti-monopoly laws.55 An open source model for a publicly funded Global Artificial Photosynthesis (GAP) project may be used to drive efficient outcomes. Publicly funded researchers could deposit their IP in an openly accessible repository to which private concerns could gain access in exchange for making their own IP accessible. Calls for public–private linkage grants could require private firms to specify the duration for which they would keep their IP closed, creating a bidding process were competing firms would lower that duration in order to gain access to linkage project materials. Open source models include the Cambia’s BiOS (Biological Open Source) initiative, the Initiative for Open Innovation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lemelson Foundation, and the BioBricks Foundation.56 Yet, it is unclear whether positing environmental sustainability as a foundational virtue for global health law would itself promote such endeavors to any greater or lesser extent than would reliance on distributive justice. 3.2 Artificial photosynthesis, international law and trade and investment agreements Corporations making profits from oil, coal and natural gas may utilise damages claims under trade and investment agreements as a means of inhibiting government policy that attempts to support equitable global deployment of artificial photosynthesis. In 2011, Texas-based Mesa Power Group LLC, for example, a served Canada with an ISDS claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) Chapter 11 274 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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in connection with Ontario’s solar feed-in tariff (FiT) program. Ontario’s FiT program has also been challenged by Japan and the European Union under Article 2.1 of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs Agreement), which restricts states’ freedom to impose domestic content performance requirements despite exceptions relevant to the protection of the environment in paragraphs (b) and (g) of Article XX of GATT 1994.57,58 The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) Signed in Lisbon in December 1994 with a Protocol on Energy Efficiency and Related Environmental Aspects (PEEREA) (both in force April 1998). The ECT was designed for protection of foreign investments (national treatment or most-favoured nation treatment). ECT designed for non-discriminatory conditions for trade in energy materials, products and energy-related equipment based on WTO rules and to ensure reliable cross-border energy transit flows through pipelines, grids and other means of transportation. It too could well be at the forefront of efforts by multinational corporations with substantial investments in the electricity grid, in centralized ‘ancient photosynthesis’ fuel supplies (coal, oil and natural gas) to impede the development of competitive solar fuels technologies. A claim has already been brought against Spain, for example, under the ECT by a group of fourteen investors over that nation’s retrospective cuts to solar energy tariffs. Foreign investors are also challenging under the ECT or bilateral investment treaties (BITs) the Italian government, over its efforts to roll back FiTs in the country’s booming solar energy sector.59 Article 15 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICESCR) should inhibit the capacity of such corporations to try in this way to inhibit the global deployment of artificial photosynthesis. It sets out the right to enjoy the benefit of scientific progress and its applications (REBSPA). It provides: 1. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone: (a) To take part in cultural life; (b) To enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications; (c) To benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. 2. The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for the conservation, the development and the diffusion of science and culture. 3. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity. 4. The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the benefits to be derived from the encouragement and development of international contacts and co-operation in the scientific and cultural fields. Such obligations could, for example, justify flexibilities to World Trade Organisation (WTO), bilateral and regional trade agreements IMP provisions or a 0.05% tax on global financial transactions to fund a GAP Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 275
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project. A major challenge to interpreting this right involves defining its core components. On one approach the core component of the REBSPA aims to protect, fulfil and respect the scientific enterprise insofar as it contributes to achieving human rights obligations. It aims to protect the capacity of the scientific enterprise to bring benefits to everyone through encouraging measures that permit critical analysis, honesty and objectivity amongst scientific researchers and their employers, facilitate government regulatory systems based on scientific evaluation of the risks, benefits and cost effectiveness of new technologies. The right may be viewed as seeking to support mechanisms whereby traditional knowledge may be incorporated into the scientific enterprise according to standards supported by international human rights. For the purposes of this right it is expected that states have an obligation to ensure that science conducted within their boundaries is coherent with international human rights. Article 15 (2) refers to ‘conservation, development and diffusion’ of science as amongst the steps to be taken by States Parties to achieve full realization of the right. Challenges to interpretation of the right in this context include the extent to which ‘conservation’ refers to measures to prevent loss of scientific expertise and infrastructure particularly in developing nations. Measures for consideration here include how policies of developing nations to retain scientific expertise relate to WTO GATS obligations. Challenges with respect to ‘development’ of science include reporting obligations on investments by State Parties in science education, grant funding and science infrastructure. Challenges with respect to ‘diffusion’ include responsibilities of States Parties to facilitate community access to scientific information, fostering of open scientific debate and appropriate use of science in regulatory processes. Amongst the challenges to be addressed here include the creation of mechanisms whereby public-funded research can recoup a reasonable percentage of profits ultimately produced by private sector involvement in research development, maintenance of the ‘research-use’ exemption for public funded universities, and measures to prevent any systematic inhibition, misrepresentation or concealment of scientific data by private or public research organisations (Table 2).
3.3 Global artificial photosynthesis as common heritage of humanity Now that the molecular structure of natural photosynthesis is almost fully revealed, excessive patenting and its restrictions of access to information are imminent. This could be the right time ethically to declare the molecular structure of photosynthesis ‘Common Heritage of Humanity’ under public international law. The class of United Nations treaties involved with protecting the common heritage of humanity cover outer space,60 the moon,61 deep sea bed,62 Antarctica63 and world natural heritage sites.64 Probably the closest analogies to photosynthesis as common heritage of humanity involve claims that genetic diversity of agricultural crops,65 plant genetic resources in general,66 biodiversity67 or the atmosphere 68 should be 276 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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Table 2 International legal governance of global artificial photosynthesis. GAP coherent
Incl. GAP policy
ICESCR Article 15(2) ‘conservation, development and diffusion’ of science ICESCR Article 12 ‘right to health’ UNESCO UDBHR Article 14 World Bank Policies
Yes
No
Yes Yes No
No No No
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Yes
No
World Trade Organisation, Bilateral or Multilateral trade and investment agreements
No
No
UN
Yes
No
UNESCO Declaration on Photosynthesis as Common Heritage (proposed)
Yes
Yes
treated as not just areas of common concern but subject to common heritage requirements under international law. If so, there would be five major implications. First, artificial photosynthesis could not be legally owned and could not be appropriated by public or private concerns. Second, representatives of all nations would have to manage artificial photosynthesis on behalf of all. Third, all nations must share with each other the benefits of exploiting artificial photosynthesis, restraining the extent it can be exploited for profit given the techniques status a global public good. Fourth, no weaponry could be developed employing artificial photosynthesis technology. Fifth, artificial photosynthesis would have to be preserved for the benefit of future generations. Traditionally the concept of ‘common heritage’ attached to a physical domain, a patch of wilderness or a cultural artifact that could be physically or materially degraded, whereas the core component of artificial photosynthesis is likely to be knowledge. An international body could be established to ensure that the relevant knowledge was available to all and was preserved for future generations and their scientists. That same body may work to ensure that artificial photosynthesis technology is not being integrated into military platforms or interfered with as part of military operations. As with the human genome, common heritage status would not halt the application of all patents in this field, for example those that enhance the dissemination and improvement of the technology. One illustrative possibility is that the most successful version of artificial photosynthesis may rely upon a finite stock of a particular natural resource, perhaps as a key water-splitting catalyst. Sustainable management of that resource for future generations would then become the concern of the international governing body. Establishing artificial photosynthesis as the common heritage of humanity might be analogous to existing claims seeking common heritage status for the genetic diversity of agricultural crops, biodiversity, or the atmosphere.69 These claims are hard to establish. Article 1 of the Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 277
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UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights, is limited in the extent to which it claims common heritage status for the human genome, stating ‘‘(t)he human genome underlies the fundamental unity of all members of the human family, as well as the recognition of their inherent dignity and diversity. In a symbolic sense, it is the heritage of humanity.’’70 Only Article 4 gives the human genome common heritage like status, stating: ‘‘(t)he human genome in its natural state shall not give rise to financial gains’’. As an alternative to common heritage status, artificial photosynthesis technology may be declared a global public good. A statement in such a UNESCO Declaration that photosynthesis (in ether its natural or artificial forms) was the common heritage of humanity could be important in wider governance moves to restrict corporate ownership through intellectual property rights or misuse by nation states for strategic or military purposes. Other questions may involve developing specific principles by which artificial photosynthesis technology can best address within defined time pressures critical problems of global poverty and environmental degradation.71,72 3.4 Relationship of global solar fuels to a global carbon price Because the sunk and switching costs to alternatives such as AP technology are enormous, states have become practically unable to escape their commitment to fossil fuel systems.73 Fossil fuel technologies, exploited in the personal transport and energy generation sectors have enjoyed the benefits of a long history of state investment and regulatory preferences.74 This makes them likely to potentially resist the globalisation of AP technology.75 This position that can be alleviated, however they maintain, through strategies in competition law. Some relevant legal and policy strategies in this context include a global price on the use of carbon-based fuels that heat and pollute the atmosphere, greater citizenconsumer involvement in shaping market values, legal requirements to factor services from the natural environment (i.e., provision of clean air, water, soil pollution degradation) into corporate costs, reform of corporate taxation and requirements to balance maximisation of shareholder profit with contribution to a nominated public good, a global financial transactions tax, prohibiting horizontal cartels, vertical agreements and unilateral misuse of market power. One key area of international governance a GAP project is likely to have to interact with is a global carbon price. The European Union (EU) Energy and Climate Policy aims to reduce GHG emissions by 20% and increase renewable energy by 20% by 2020. The EU Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) aims to accelerate development of low carbon technologies and ensure their widespread market take up. The European Industrial Initiative on Electricity Grid-aims to enable 35% EU electricity from dispersed and concentrated renewable sources by 2020 and completely decarbonised electricity production by 2050. The American Clean Energy and Security Act 2009 (Waxman–Markey Bill) has passed the US federal House of Representatives but is stalled in the Senate. It aims for a 17% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% 278 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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by 2050 and 20% increase in renewables by 2020. It provides extra funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy-US$90 billion by 2025, and basic scientific R&D by US$20 billion. Likewise the Save Our Climate Act (HR 3242) Rep Stark (D-CA) seeks to impose a tax on carbon dioxide at well, mine, port of entry at $10 per ton rising by $10 per ton per year-proceeds to deficit reduction. One problem with a global carbon price is that if the carbon price is not high enough it will not incentivize GAP effectively. Substantial linking with overseas carbon markets means carbon price may be set overseas, threatening national sovereignty is some policy maker’s views. It may be cheaper for some polluters to buy permits offshore. Although such a scheme may drive massive investment in renewable energy, continuous technological improvements will require stable and certain GAP incentive laws. 3.5 GAP and safe planetary boundaries Global AP could also assist nation states with fulfilling enforceable obligations (for example under an international convention) concerning ‘safe’ planetary boundaries concerning change in land use and land cover, coastal and maritime ecosystems, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, atmospheric aerosol loading, riverine flow, interference with nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus cycles, climate change, global freshwater use and biological diversity loss (terrestrial and marine).76 The role of global AP (engineered into all human structures) could be to technologically ease the pressure on natural systems to be vital contributors to our economy, allowing policy makers the space to grant such ecosystems protected status. This approach to the development of global health law may be said to rest on differing branches of scientific enquiry related to environmental sustainability. These include ecological economics, global change research and sustainability science as well as research into resilience and its links to complex dynamics and self-regulation of living systems, emphasizing thresholds and shifts between states. The calls for such global environmental sustainability parameters to become legal boundaries parallels the movement to grant enforceable rights (through human guardians) to ecosystems.77 Shaping such planet physiological boundaries of environmental sustainability into enforceable norms of global health law to which Global AP is addressed will be complicated, however, by many factors including that not all processes or subsystems on Earth have well-defined thresholds. Further, human actions that undermine the resilience of such processes or subsystems—for example, land and water degradation—can increase the risk that thresholds will also be crossed in other processes, such as the climate system.78 Other international law concepts that could be influential in fleshing out governance-wise the concept of planetary nanomedicine are those that may declare Global Artificial Photosynthesis a global public good,79 Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284 | 279
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an aspect of technology sharing obligations, or those arising under the international right to health (set out for example in article 12 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).81 The UNESCO Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations Towards Future Generations expresses a concept of planetary common heritage in article 4: ‘‘The present generations have the responsibility to bequeath to future generations an Earth which will not one day be irreversibly damaged by human activity. Each generation inheriting the Earth temporarily should take care to use natural resources reasonably and ensure that life is not prejudiced by harmful modifications of the ecosystems and that scientific and technological progress in all fields does not harm life on Earth.’’82 A larger issue for such governance approaches is that nanotechnology, despite its great scientific novelty and promise, still has a problematic place in the popular imagination owing to unresolved safety issues.83 A macroscience project to promote equitable global use of artificial photosynthesis therefore represents an excellent opportunity to create a high profile awareness of nanotechnology as a positive contributor to overcoming major contemporary public health and environmental problems. Provided an appropriate ethical regulatory structure was in place, such a project could well be promoted through domestic and international media as a defining symbolic endeavour of planetary nanomedicine.84,85
4 Conclusion It is doubtful whether even the most greedy CEO of a multinational oil, coal or armaments corporation wishes to see the intricate ecosystems of the earth destroyed. The free market ideology such persons are required to follow in such a role with its preconceptions of indefinite economic growth, corporate capital growth and profits is undoubtedly responsible for holding back forms of planetary medicine such as global artificial photosynthesis. Uncritical acceptance of such a dangerously unscientific ideology is in effect prolonging the damage of the Corporatocene and delaying transition to the Sustainocene. One motive for a global project on AP is the view point that, at this perilous point in human history, such a scientific quest would represent a noble aspiration of the human spirit to dedicate its ingenuity and resources to saving the ecosystems of this planet for future generations. One aspect of this line of thinking is that the moral culmination of nanotechnology (nanotechnology considered as the ethicist Spinoza might put it, in the context of eternity) is in fact global artificial photosynthesis.86 It is coherent with the spirit of such a realisation that the natural process of photosynthesis should be declared ‘common heritage’ not just of humanity but of life on Earth so as to ensure that unravelling 280 | Photochemistry, 2017, 44, 261–284
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its details primarily should be a gift to all life on this planet rather than a source of profit to a wealthy minority.87
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Acknowledgements Support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant DP140100566 is acknowledged.
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