Solar-to-X webinar I: Waste carbon as a resource
- C5
- Jun 1
- 2 min read
27 May 2026
Dr. Michael Koepke, Chief Innovation Officer at LanzaTech, opened the first session of the EC Solar-to-X for You seminar series with an inspiring account of how gas fermentation technology is reshaping the circular carbon economy.
For the inaugural session of the EC Solar-to-X for You seminar series, the C5 consortium welcomed Dr. Michael Koepke, Chief Innovation Officer at LanzaTech — a company that has spent twenty years proving that waste industrial gases can be transformed into fuels, chemicals, and materials using biology alone. Nearly fifty participants from industry, academia, and research institutions joined the session, reflecting the broad interest in scalable solutions for the circular carbon economy. While LanzaTech’s process relies on waste carbon rather than sunlight directly, the underlying ambition is deeply aligned with the Solar-to-X vision: harnessing biology to convert abundant, low-value carbon streams into products with real economic and social relevance.
“Carbon is too valuable to burn. The question is how we keep it in circulation rather than adding fossil carbon to the pool.”
Michael Koepke
With six commercial plants operating across three continents, over 150 million gallons of ethanol produced to date, and recycled-carbon products already on consumer shelves worldwide, LanzaTech stands as one of the clearest examples of deep-tech biology reaching genuine industrial impact. Dr. Koepke walked attendees through the company’s journey — from an ancient anaerobic metabolic pathway to half-million-litre bioreactors — making a compelling case that the path from breakthrough research to real-world scale, though long, is navigable.
A lively exchange on policy, feedstocks, and the road ahead
The Q&A session drew equally engaged participation. On feedstock scalability, he noted that industrial off-gases alone could yield tens of billions of gallons of sustainable aviation fuel annually, with municipal solid waste and biomass adding further capacity well beyond current mandate targets.
The European regulatory landscape prompted some of the session’s most candid remarks. Dr. Koepke expressed a clear preference for technology-neutral, outcome-based regulations — mandating a level of carbon reduction, for instance, rather than prescribing a specific technology. He pointed out that some current EU recycling mandates still exclusively recognise mechanical recycling, leaving biological and chemical routes outside their scope. Gas fermentation, he recalled, was simply not on policymakers’ radar when many of these frameworks were drafted, and the industry has had to work actively to be included. More broadly, he was optimistic about Europe’s trajectory, citing strong sustainability commitments.
The discussion highlighted the growing interest in scalable biological solutions for carbon utilisation and demonstrated the value of connecting researchers, innovators, and industrial actors across the Solar-to-X community.
The Solar-to-X Webinar Series is organised within the European Solar-to-X Pathfinder portfolio, which brings together projects developing breakthrough technologies that directly convert sunlight, water, and carbon oxides into fuels, chemicals, and materials.
Learn more about the C5 project at:
