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Cellulosic Ethanol Production Future Projections
New cellulosic ethanol plants are expected to start operations by 2012, denoting a steady increase in the industry’s capacity. This is typical because as an industry progresses up the learning curve, investors become more confident and would fund larger, more efficient plants.
A study of the next-generation biofuels in Europe, by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, estimated that cellulosic ethanol supply could grow from 63bn litres in 2015 to 75bn litres in 2020 (under base case scenario) and from 73bn litres in 2015 to 90bn litres in 2020 (bull case scenario). The top EU countries for next-generation ethanol supply are identified in order as France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy and Poland. Conservatively, France was identified as having the potential to produce 15 billion liters of ethanol from biomass by 2020.
The Renewable Energy Directive in Europe does mandate the consumption of next-generation biofuels; however, the mandate is very small compared to the Renewable Fuel Standard’s (RFS2) mandate in the U.S.
United States RFS estimated the cellulosic ethanol production to increase from 3 billion gallons from 2015 to 10.5 billion gallons in 2020.
Among other countries, Brazil and China will represent great production and marketable areas for biofuels from non-food raw materials. India and South Africa are starting to look into ethanol as an option to reduce their energy dependence.
Recent predictions of cellulosic ethanol industry are as follows:
- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that research breakthroughs in cellulosic conversion technology could reduce the cost of ethanol production by 60 cents per gallon by 2015.
- USDA projects fuel ethanol to be by far the fastest growing demand for corn grain to the year 2015.
- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has predicted the growth of the cellulosic ethanol industry for the next two decades. NREL pointed out that approximately 50 billion gallons of Cellulosic ethanol would be required to supply 30% of U.S gasoline demand by 2030.
- BP believes that cellulosic ethanol could account for up to 20 percent of the world's transport fuel market by 2030.
- The U.S government expects 220 cellulosic biofuel plants to be built by 2020, representing about $100 billion over the next decade. Europe, Brazil, and other highly developed countries will also continue to drive demand for cellulosic biofuels. These estimates highlight the enormous opportunity for cellulosic biofuels to become one of the most important sources of fuel.
While there are aggressive targets and projections for producing ethanol using cellulosic biomass, the complete costs of production need to be fully assessed, including non-production costs such as the impacts of harvesting grasses, trees, and crop residues on the erodibility and fertility of land resources. There are also questions regarding the upstream logistical and environmental costs of harvesting, transporting, and storing large volumes of bulky feedstock used in processing.
References:
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/420d09001.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/air/caaac/mstrs/sept2007/standlee.pdf
Related Links:
- Ethanol as Biofuels
- What are feedstocks?
- Properties of Feedstocks for ethanol production
- Yield of Biomass for Various Feedstocks
- Feedstocks used by Various Companies
- Why Cellulosic Ethanol?
- Cellulosic Ethanol Production
- Cellulosic Ethanol Production Value Chain
- Ethanol production methods
- Latest Discoveries and Breakthroughs
- R & D Roadmap in Cellulosic Ethanol
- Future projections
- Companies Involved in Producing Cellulosic Ethanol
- Investments & Funding
- Challenges & Barriers in the commercialization process
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