A Looming Cellulosic Feedstock Shortage?

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) As the first wave of cellulosic biorefineries launch — is there really enough affordable feedstock for the next wave? Can growers make enough money to justify the switch…and risk?
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It’s not all that different with the first advanced biorefineries — being built by in this first wave by the technology developers like Beta Renewables, DuPont, Abengoa and Poet-DSM. With the first locations they have chosen — in places like Crescentino, Italy; Nevada, IA; Hugoton, KS and Emmetsburg, IA — the feedstock supply and economics look good. Grower relations look excellent.
According to Deputy Under-Secretary for Science and Energy Dr. Michael Knotek, “we need 1000 of these”. And, true, one thousand of the POET-DSM-sized facilities would generate 20 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuels, and cover the spread between production today and Renewable Fuel Standard targets for 2022. That’s a lot of feedstock. IS there enough?
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The DOE has assessed feedstock availability in The Billion Ton Study and Son of Billion Ton — bottom line conclusion, not much to worry about in terms of land availability, as a billion tons would cover 1000 biorefineries three times over, or more.
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Stover economics work well in selected areas like Iowa — but it’s far from universal. Roughly 6 million acres have the optimal economics (7 percent of 93 million acres) — enough for 25 biorefineries of the current standard size, or about 500 million gallons. And that’s assuming that all of the optimized growers are within 30 miles of one of these biorefineries. As it happens, areas with high corn yields such as the Midwest have lagging rates of no-till farming, according to USDA.
Where corn yields drop below 70 bushels per acre, switchgrass economics are fine, says Genera. For high-yielding land using continuous corn, and no-till — stover pick-up looks great. But there’s a lot of acreage in the middle where corn is going to continue to be the crop of coice, but stover is less likely to work.
For the rest, it is going to be about producing energy crops — and we are looking at several years to establish those at sufficient scale to support a biorefinery.
All of which suggests that building out cellulosic biofuels is going to be a lengthy process, stretching well into the 2020s if these numbers hold up. READ MORE