TECH TITANS: Obama's biofuel briefers

Barack Obama probably talks with billionaires on a weekly basis, if not daily. But there are few instances in history where a leader of any country has sat down privately with a group of people that will shape the world more noticeably than this lot.

There's a reason this photo is iconic.

At the Californian home of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers venture capitalist John Doerr, Obama was looking to Silicon Valley for ideas about how to use the technology industry to generate jobs growth from the struggling US economy. In doing so, the American president unmistakably acknowledged that his country's economic recovery and long-term relevance hinge on this group more than almost any other.

Beyond the companies they represent, there's very little that's immediately apparent about this crucial group of tech billionaires, apart from the obvious fact that the glass ceiling prevails even here with only Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz flying the flag for women at the top of the table, next to Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo – the woman to the right of Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is Doerr's wife. Perhaps if the media has been willing to look beyond speculation about whether Steve Jobs looks thinner from behind or not, they might have found something worthwhile.

Starting off with these tech titans, this column will closely follow the movements of crucial figures in the technology industry and examine how they use their vast wealth and knowledge to position themselves for the next industry breakthrough, or to venture outside to other sectors.

Like synthetic biology for example, with three of these people having a direct link to one relatively unknown company – Amyris Biotechnologies.

While Amyris only has a market capitalisation of $1.1 billion (modest compared to the net worth of any one of the individuals above, except the president of course) it boasts two of these tech titans on its board, venture capitalist John Doerr and Gementech chairman Art Levinson.

Additionally, another venture capitalist Steve Westly – a former eBay executive and Californian politician sitting to the left of Jobs – only recently exited his stake in Amyris through his firm Westly Group. His company has hardly gone cold on biotechnology, closing the first $50 million of a new $175 million cleantech fund on Wednesday.

Just two weeks ago, Amyris completed works on a new factory in Brazil where it can use the huge local sugar cane crops to put its greatest creation to work. Amyris has conjured a genetically modified yeast that turns sugar cane syrup into hydrocarbons through fermentation – normal yeast makes alcohol.

Its base hydrocarbon is called Biofene – described as a renewable version of farnesene, which appears in various essential oils – which Amyris can then onsell unaltered or add molecules to convert it to diesel. You can bet your bottom dollar the tech titans aren't interested in selling renewable forms of essential oils.

Amyris has two fermenters at its site in Brazil with a 100,000 litre capacity which they want to expand to 600,000 litres in 2012. With that extra production the company also intends on expanding its family of hydrocarbons with an eye on jet fuels.

That's the 'Holy Grail' for Amyril, the financially sustainable production of renewable jet fuel on a mass scale. While Amyris says that strategy is 'one step at a time', it's already a member of the Brazilian Alliance for Aviation Biofuels.

Tech titans are hardly the only wealthy players circling the biofuels market looking for a breakthrough; the strategy is compelling. While technology is a growth industry by design, it is necessarily a stakeholder in the development of sustainable energy because without it, power bills will become more and more expensive for an industry with an increasing appetite for energy.

The biofuels industry is also experiencing a big comeback after the global financial crisis cut off enthusiasm for funding thanks to the plunging oil price which made investigations into the technology  unviable.

Now the oil price is 72 per cent off its lows and nations around the world are looking for ways to simultaneously reduce their carbon emissions and lower their energy costs, particularly for America, the world's largest energy consumer.

The biofuels industry should therefore count itself lucky that Boerr doesn't just command a seat at Obama's one-off Silicon Valley meeting, but a spot on his economic advisory team.