Wassup, EU? The Top 10 Trends in Europe’s Advanced Bioeconomy

#9 Exporting fuels and tech

Not all the developments were near Europe’s shores. Last month, we reported that testing on Clariant’s sunliquid technology confirmed that the cost per liter of cellulosic ethanol can achieve price competitiveness with sugarcane ethanol prices in Brazil. Clariant’s testing evaluated over 40 containers of sugarcane bagasse and tops & leaves from Brazil at its pilot and precommercial facilities in Germany, and achieved a yield of up to 300 Liters of ethanol per ton of dry bagasse during extended performance runs.

Another project offshore using EU tech is the €110 million joint venture cellulosic ethanol project  of Chempolis Ltd and Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) is moving towards construction after getting approval from NRL’s board. The project is expected to come online by 2019. The bamboo-based facility will be located in Assam, producing 49,000 metric tons of ethanol annually (15 million US gallons per year, or 56 million liters) for supply to the country’s Eastern and Northeastern markets that are not so easily supplied by sugarcane mills.

Meanwhile, exports are healthy. UFOP reports that German 2015 biodiesel exports amounted to just over 1.43 million tonnes. Just under 90 per cent of deliveries traditionally went to EU member states. Above all, the Czech Republic and Sweden ordered more than usual, whereas top recipients such as the Netherlands, Poland and France imported less.