World Biofuels Market – 2013 preview
Today in the Netherlands, World Biofuels Markets kicks off again as Rotterdam becomes, for the next three days, the epicenter of the global bioenergy business. The streaming in of bioenergy’s global leadership — and the mass of industry suppliers joining in — assured that the papal conclave would have a little competition this week for attention from the renewables sector.
Though, no-one in the biofuels industry has yet come up with anything to compete with the scarlet robes and skull caps of the Catholic prelates — and, though its a fine facility, Rotterdam’s convention center pales just a little bit in comparison to the Sistene Chapel.
The advanced biofuels sessions will take place on the opening two days of WBM, after the conclusion of the plenary addresses that dominate the early morning sessions.
Today in the Digest, we preview the latest from the companies that will be presenting on the WBM advanced biofuels stage on the opening day of WBM.
Butamax
Butamax CEO Paul Beckwith will be on stage in the opening session on Tuesday. We’ll be looking forward to a commercial update on timeline — last the company was in the news, the USPTO hd granted Butamax Patent Number 8,273,558 (‘558 patent). The innovative ‘558 patent technology provides a path to commercial production volumes of biobutanol for the global biofuel and other markets. Butamax has specifically designed its microorganism to be cost-effective for all markets, but particularly for biofuel blending.
Of course, many minds will be on the Gevo-Butamax patent trial, which kicks off at the beginning of next month and is expected to wrap by the end of April.
Neste Oil
Kaisa Hietala, Vice President, Renewable Fuels, will be on hand for Neste Oil during the opneing policy session. Hietala is expected to survey the current challenges in EU member states and in the USA for drop-in and advanced biofuels. Especially in EU, the member state legislations have turned out be protectionist even though the EU level policy is trying to create a level playing field. Certainly there are lessons to be learned for the future policies — which Hietala will explore.
UPM Biofuels
After the conclusion of the policy session, Sari Mannonen, Director, Business Relations & Marketing, UPM Biofuels will go on stage to look at advanced biofuels From wood-based raw materials. “UPM plans to become a major player in high quality, advanced biofuels for transport,” Mannonen told the DIgest. “The first investment of 150 mEur has been made to Lappeenranta, Finland. The biorefinery will produce 100.000 tons of renewable diesel from tall oil when ready in 2014. The innovative wood-based biofuels developed by the company are part of the sustainable future. UPM’s biofuels are frontrunners in quality, usability and sustainability. They will significantly decrease the greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossils fuels.
As confirmation of UPM’s promise, the European Commission has awarded UPM a grant of €170M for solid wood-based biorefinery (BTL) project in Strasbourg, France. The company will continue to clarify the investment prerequisites in Strasbourg — and the final assessment on the investment will be made within 12-18 months.
Clariant
Following lunch, a number of speakers come on stage to address the topic of cellulosic ethanol. First up. Paolo Corvo, Business Development Manager Europe, for Clariant.
Since 2009 the company has successfully been testing the technology in pilot scale. In July 2012, Clariant has started operating a demonstration plant for the sustainable and economic production of cellulosic ethanol via its sunliquid process. The plant has a capacity of 1000 tons of ethanol per year and processes about 4500 tons of wheat straw or other agricultural residues. This plant constitutes the last step before the realization of large scale industrial plants which are aimed for in 2014/2015.
Biogasol
Next, Rune Skovgaard Petersen, Director, Engineering and Design, BioGasol will come on stage.
Recently, BioGasol announced the completion of the first sale of its Carbofrac 400 pretreatment reactor to Sweetwater Energy. The Rochester, NY-based cellulosic sugar producer will use the reactor, designed to treat lignocellulosic feedstock before fermentation, as part of a decentralised sugar manufacturing unit for use by Ace Ethanol, a Stanley, WI-based corn ethanol producer. The combined unit will generate fermentable sugars for cellulosic ethanol at Ace’s plant for up to 16 years.
The Carbofrac 400 reactor is the mid-range model in BioGasol’s product line-up and, as part of Sweetwater’s production line, it enables the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstock to highly fermentable sugars suitable for producing bioethanol, bioplastics and biochemicals.
Inbicon
Also, Inbicon CTO Niels Henriksen will be on stage to look at the Danish technology expected to make more than one commercialization partnership announcement this year.
Inbicon opened its 1.3 Mgy pilot plant in Kalundborg, Denmark in 12/2009, and commenced shipping cellulosic ethanol to Statoil. In 2012, Inbicon and Novozymes have become associated with the Maabjerg Energy Concept, a highly ambitious effort to produce cellulosic ethanol, biogas, district heat, power, and a small amount of industrial CO2.
At Biofuels International Canada in 2011, Inbicon VP Paul Kamp said that his company could produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.84 per gallon on an operating basis, based on expected conditions in Alberta, creating a substantial margin compared to conventional ethanol production, and could work creatively with partners on financing options through tax credits and incentives to limit the impact of higher capital expenditures compared to first-gen fuels.
LanzaTech
Following the afternoon networking break, LanzaTech CEO and indefatigable world traveler Jennifer Holmgren will be on stage to profile the latest with biofuels #3 Hottest Company.
“Three themes define LanzaTech in 2013,” Holmgren told the DIgest. ” commercializing our core technology; diversifying our input gas streams and product portfolio; and developing our partner network. Having built and operated two 100,000 gallon/year demo facilities in China, we now have multiple commercial units in design that will convert CO from a variety of sources into ethanol.
“Our core gas fermentation technology has developed to include CO2 from waste streams, producing new products like acetic acid, which can be further processed into jet fuel. We’re also extending our chemicals portfolio with production of butadiene, a pre-cursor to nylon, rubber and other products.
“We continue to build and strengthen our global partnerships with Baosteel, Capital Steel, INVISTA, Petronas, Virgin Atlantic and many others,” Holmgren noted.
LS9
Next, LS9 CEO Tjerk de Ruiter will address the WBM delegations on the industry challenges of the commercialization of technology, acquisition of funding and intellectual property. With imminent plans for the deployment of alcohol technology from sugar cane in Brazil and the deployment of ester/alcohol technology from glycerin in US and Europe, LS9 in poised to commercialize the first two product families using its simple, scalable process for the production of sustainable chemicals from living biocatalysts.
In December, LS9 received a Biofuels Digest Award for its acquisition of fermentation technology in Florida and conversion to its e.coli-based one-step biofuels production process. In the end, between various incentives and the fact that they bought it as a distressed facility, they picked it the plant for almost nothing, and spending has focused on retrofitting the 12 million gallon facility to the LS9 process – for now, at the demonstration level rather than utilizing the full facility. Next stop for LS9 is probably Brazil, but if the company could source affordable sugars in the US, there could be a big future for the technology closer to its San Francisco home.
Sulzer Chemtech
Next, Thomas Raiser, Senior Application Manager, Process Technology, for Swiss chemical giant Sulzer will join the stage to highlight Sulzer’s portfolio of technologies in cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol and biochemicals and organic acids. According to Sulzer, the company is now able to customize downstream processes for different cellulosic materials, and combine and leverage upstream and downstream technologies and processes.
In biobutanol, its customized concept developments include continuous removal of butanol, acetone and ethanol — and Sulzer has ethanol p[ant conversion technologies in development. On the renewable chemicals front, hybrid processes such as combination of distillation and crystallization are expected to enable optimized process routes and higher grade products.
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