Opening Plenary – “Industry Perspectives on Bioenergy”: The Future Biobased Economy
by Matt Carr (Biotechnology Industry Organization). Matt Carr, Managing Director or BIO notes that in 2011, biofuels comprise about 10% of the US transportation fuel market; in 2025, biofuels will consist of around 25% of that market. Renewable chemicals and biobased products in 2011 comprise around 3-4% of chemicals sales. In 2025 that will grow to over 20%. Purpose-grown energy crops, such as commercial switchgrass seeds are on the market and a variety of short rotation woody crops are under development.
New technology, cellulose enzymes development, dramatically reduces the cost. Novozymes and Genecor achieved 80% reduction in enzyme costs compared to 2008. Forecast cellulosic ethanol production cost is under $2.00/ gal by 2011. Technologies for algal biofuels are rapidly evolving and multiple developers are moving into commercial demonstration. In North America there are over 50 planned cellulosic and Algae biofuel production facilities under construction. Higher value renewable chemicals and biobased products are getting more attention. These products are included in bio-butanol, bio-polyethlene, bio-succinic acid, bio-isoprene, bio-acrylic acid, bio-butanediol and bio-isobutene and jet fuel. They will have tremendous promise in the near future.
The challenges of a biobased economy are policy instability, market and regulatory barriers, financing access to first commercial biorefineries and establishing next-gen feedstock supplies.
Keyword: biobased, commercial, fuel, RFS, renewable fuel standard, cellulose, enzymes READ MORE
