Advanced BioFuels USA

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Patiently, assuredly, one cluster at a time, Canada has amassed a potent armory of renewable fuel and biobased technologies, people and clusters of activity.  Where’s it going? The Digest looks at a whole slew of workshops north of the border and south of the North Pole.

In Vancouver last week, it fell to established industry sage Murray McLaughlin to sum up the appeal of Canada in the renewable movement: “Biomass is the key ingredient, and Canada has large amounts.”

But the long-time director of what is now known as BioIndustrial Innovation Canada coupled that with a cautionary note. “We need bold approaches, Just improving old technologies will not be enough. And he approvingly quoted long-time Shell guru and business theorist Arie de Geus, who once wrote that “The ability to learn faster tha the competition is often the only sustainable competitive edge a company can have.”

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The trends?

#1. Clusters and co-operatives.

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Also, there’s some vision.

Take for example a plan to build a cellulosic sugars refinery, plainly attractive to any company looking for fermentable sugars or to use sugars as a platform for green chemistry.

To that end, Bioindustrial Innovation Canada has completed phase 1 of a project to assess the economic viability of the agricultural biomass to cellulosic sugar (C5s and C6s) value chain in Canada.

It’s called the Cellulosic Sugar Production Project — and it’s designed to evaluate, develop and physically validate agricultural biomass to sugars and co-products conversion technologies for commercial scale-up application.  Currently in Phase 2, the remaining technology providers (representing unique technologies) will produce sugar and co-products from local agricultural biomass.

The ultimate objective is to establish an economically viable, full-scale, commercial cellulosic sugar plant (~125,000 dry tonnes/year cellulosic mixed sugars) in Southern Ontario by 2018. This is expected to require a biomass conversion facility handling up to 250,000 dry tonnes/year of biomass.

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#2. The Elections

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The extent to which a Trudeau government will focus on transport and alternative fuels — as opposed to power generation — is as yet unclear. But the incoming government’s pledge to introduce a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions suggests that transport may be on the table — especially in that the party platform states that a Canadian cap-and-trade system must “cover all industries with no exceptions.”

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#3 Aviation

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#4 Bioproducts

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#5 Chemicals, chemical, chemicals

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#6 SDTC funding

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#7 Technologies at scale

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#8 Broad public support

In July, we reported that a new, national survey, more than three quarters (88%) of Canadians believe more renewable fuels should be produced in Canada and that government should do more to promote the industry. The poll of 1,750 Canadians aged 18 and over showed that 85% of respondents feel pride in Canada’s biofuels industry.

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#9 New technologies heading from pilot to player

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#10 Overdelivering on mandates

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