Original story

SatWeb, 28.2.2020

Oxymaker - will revolutionary carbon dioxide eating plants save the planet?

The Brazilian Foundation for BioTech Research is currently developing a plant that emits greatly more oxygen into the atmosphere than existing plant species. Some scientists already believe that the Oxymaker could be the eleventh-hour answer to the threat of global warming.

Although there are still problems to be overcome with the breeding of the plant now semi-officially dubbed “Oxymaker”, researchers believe the solution is close at hand. The first Oxymaker plantation is up and running, and it absorbs roughly eight times as much CO2 as normal plants.

The first version of Oxymaker, a genetically spliced hybrid of bamboo and sugar cane, was completed two years ago. The idea was to create a plant that would take up an extremely large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then photosynthesize it under sunlight, thereby releasing large quantities of oxygen back into the atmosphere. If these plants could be grown as extensive forests, the logical conclusion would be that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could at least be slowed, and possibly reversed. In principle, the prototype operated as had been expected, but its ability to bind CO2 was not as great as models had suggested.

Subsequent tests showed that that the cause was that the leaves were not large enough, and their cellular structure - the palisade and spongy mesophyll cells below the upper epidermis - was not designed to take from the atmosphere a sufficient quantity of CO2 for the purpose. Hence the process of genetic combination was extended, this time with genes from the hybrid maple-birch.

A week to full growth

Now the first one-hectare plantation of Oxymaker trees is complete, and it works almost according to computer predictions. The plant can absorb up to eight times the carbon dioxide level of any other plant species over a similar area. According to the developers this figure will only increase, as and when the latest variants reach their full height. The plant is also efficient in that it is capable of photosynthesizing the full complement of CO2 into glucose, alongside the oxygen emitted back into the atmosphere.

Thanks to the bamboo component in the genome, Oxymaker uses a great deal of its sugar energy for growing, and is a prolific plant by any standards. It reaches full height more rapidly than any other plant of similar size, in only slightly more than one week. After this point, the sugar surplus is nevertheless still large, since the plant produces roughly six times as much glucose as a conventional cane plant. The Oxymaker attempts to get rid of the excess glucose in any way it can, and in practice what happens is that narrow slits appear in the stem, from which syrup oozes out. In order to be able to do this, the plant requires a good deal of water, so that the syrup does not become too viscous and interfere with the vascular system in the plant. Consequently, in its present form the Oxymaker is only suitable for cultivation in very humid climates, or areas with extensive irrigation.

Problems with insects

The sugar syrup dripping from the plant stems in turn causes a problem, in that the sweet discharge attracts many insects, particularly wasps and bees. The entire Oxymaker plantation seems to be a seething mass of stinging insects, making it hardly a tourist attraction. In addition, whole armies of other insects have been drawn to the site. Since the plant has no natural pollinizers, the large numbers of insects present produce self-pollination, and prevent the natural reproduction of the plant at the hoped-for rate.

For some of the reasons above, FBR researchers are privately very concerned about the effects of the Oxymaker on the ecology of the immediate area around it. The abundant supply of insects has attracted insect-eating birds, swelling the bird population in the plantation, and this in turn has drawn the attention of some mammals who prey on them. As has already been noted, walking in the plantation is rather hazardous, owing to the wasps and bees. Even with protective clothing, it is hard to make one’s way on foot through the stands of trees, since the ground is covered by a sticky mix of sugar syrup, dead insects, and the pungent-smelling droppings of birds and animals. This could, however, be harvested and used as a fertilizer for other plant species.

Nature knows not waste…

Environmentalists have also expressed doubts about the Oxymaker’s abilities to live in the wild, as it is not the product of natural evolution. Mother Nature, they say, is no waster of resources, and plants will act according to their actual needs, in other words they will photosynthesize only enough energy to satisfy the requirements that the plant has “learnt” it has. Nature does not produce plants that produce energy only to see it go to waste - for example in the form of excess glucose.

One of the challenges that researchers will now have to overcome is how to gather the sugar syrup and put it to some good use at as early a stage as possible, preferably directly on the plant itself. One interesting line of investigation is an attempt to develop a form of fungal yeast that would grow in a symbiotic relationship with the Oxymaker plant, either on the leaves or the stem. If this research thread proves to be a practical one, the result could be a plant that produces alcohol directly from the glucose it generates in the photosynthetic reaction. Quite how such a development would affect the ecology of the Oxymaker plantations remains to be seen and wondered at.

Toteuma-arvio 2026

Toteuma lyhyesti

  • Ilmiön toteuma: 3/5
  • Toteuma viiden vuoden tarkkuudella: kyllä; arviointi-ikkuna on 2015–2025
  • Toteuma väljemmällä aikahorisontilla: kyllä, mutta pilottitasolla
  • Ilmiön ydin: kasveja jalostetaan tai geenimuokataan sitomaan tavallista enemmän hiilidioksidia ilmastoratkaisuksi.

Nopeakasvuisia ja geenimuokattuja puita kehitetään lisäämään hiilensidontaa, ja ensimmäisiä koeviljelmiä on perustettu. Kahdeksankertaista sidontaa tarjoavaa maailmanlaajuista Oxymaker-ratkaisua ei ole, ja pysyvä varastointi vaatii muutakin kuin nopean kasvun.

Johtopäätös: ennuste toteutui tunnistettavana bioteknisenä ilmastoratkaisuna, mutta vaikutus jäi rajalliseksi.