Advanced biofuels coming of age
UK-based BP Biofuels has outlined four criteria for successful sugar-based biofuels.
Speaking at the International Sugar Organisation meeting in London on 26 November, Phil New, head of BP Biofuels, explains that, for one, it needs to be low in cost. In order to compete with oil priced at between $40 and $50 (€30.4 and €38) a barrel, the biofuel must be $1 a gallon.
It must also be low in carbon with the ability to be scaled up. Scalability is key because, as New explains, ‘Only mass production and mass distribution can turn the dial.’
The fourth criteria states that advanced biofuels must be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.
Following these criteria has seen BP Biofuels invest heavily in three main areas: producing biofuels from Brazilian sugarcane, preparing to produce cellulosic biofuels from dedicated energy grasses in the US, and developing advanced molecules – biobutanol and diesel from sugar – than can be deployed in existing and new ethanol production units.
Manufacturing advanced biofuels which meet the four criteria requires a ‘unique combination in capabilities and skills’. It is for this reason that New believes partnerships are the answer moving forward. A combination of large-scale companies which have the capital required to develop complex projects, players familiar with industrial scale farming and skilled in the husbanding of the vast tracts of marginal land required to bring on new energy crops, and those involved in the development of state-of-the-art technology is, in New’s eyes, a winning formula.
However the industry is currently facing some challenges, namely the limited percentage of biofuels which can be blended with conventional vehicle fuels. According to New the ‘blend wall’ needs to increase to allow for accelerated deployment of drop-in biofuels like biobutanol that can be used at higher percentages in existing vehicles.
And, following the food crisis in 2008 and the issues surrounding indirect land use, sustainability is another barrier which we must face. As New explains: ‘Sustainability is quite simply our license to operate. If you can’t make biofuels that genuinely lower emissions without unacceptable tradeoffs to the food chain or habitats, then it would be better not to make them at all.’
Speaking at the International Sugar Organisation meeting in London on 26 November, Phil New, head of BP Biofuels, explains that, for one, it needs to be low in cost. In order to compete with oil priced at between $40 and $50 (€30.4 and €38) a barrel, the biofuel must be $1 a gallon.
It must also be low in carbon with the ability to be scaled up. Scalability is key because, as New explains, ‘Only mass production and mass distribution can turn the dial.’
The fourth criteria states that advanced biofuels must be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable.
Following these criteria has seen BP Biofuels invest heavily in three main areas: producing biofuels from Brazilian sugarcane, preparing to produce cellulosic biofuels from dedicated energy grasses in the US, and developing advanced molecules – biobutanol and diesel from sugar – than can be deployed in existing and new ethanol production units.
Manufacturing advanced biofuels which meet the four criteria requires a ‘unique combination in capabilities and skills’. It is for this reason that New believes partnerships are the answer moving forward. A combination of large-scale companies which have the capital required to develop complex projects, players familiar with industrial scale farming and skilled in the husbanding of the vast tracts of marginal land required to bring on new energy crops, and those involved in the development of state-of-the-art technology is, in New’s eyes, a winning formula.
However the industry is currently facing some challenges, namely the limited percentage of biofuels which can be blended with conventional vehicle fuels. According to New the ‘blend wall’ needs to increase to allow for accelerated deployment of drop-in biofuels like biobutanol that can be used at higher percentages in existing vehicles.
And, following the food crisis in 2008 and the issues surrounding indirect land use, sustainability is another barrier which we must face. As New explains: ‘Sustainability is quite simply our license to operate. If you can’t make biofuels that genuinely lower emissions without unacceptable tradeoffs to the food chain or habitats, then it would be better not to make them at all.’
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