Perception of EU citizens on engineered biocatalytic solar fuels

Genetic modification of microorganisms for enhanced metabolic activity shows excellent promise for biotechnological exploitation. The production of solar fuels can be facilitated by novel advances in the metabolic engineering of microalgae and cyanobacteria. Contaminant-free biocatalytic production with high cell densities at a large scale and low costs need to be achieved for commercial application of this innovation from the technical perspective. From a market perspective, possible citizens' concerns towards genetically modified organism and products need to be investigated and addressed before product development and sale. Across EU countries, this paper shows citizens' views on solar fuel produced by genetically engineered microorganism. For the first time, this study investigates the EU citizens' attitudes towards this novel technology and possible relationship to gender, age and education. The results indicate that EU citizens consider engineered biocatalytic solar fuels as environmentally superior to established biofuels. The majority of the respondents (84%) would be their final consumers, and 70% of them are willing to pay a surcharge for them, provided that they have environmental advantages in general and in particular for climate protection. ... mehrHowever, compared to electric cars fueled with renewable power, citizens perceive biocatalytic solar fuels as less environmentally friendly.