US forecast for cellulose ethanol too low - BIO

08 December 2006 17:45  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Projections for ethanol production from cellulose by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) are too low, a top industry association said on Friday.

 

The EIA's outlook, issued earlier this week, projects very slow growth in the production of ethanol from cellulose, reaching only 300m gal/year by 2030, Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) said.

 

BIO projected that production of cellulose ethanol could reach 14bn gal/year as early as 2015, BIO spokesman Paul Winters said in a telephone interview.

 

The EIA’s projections fail to properly take into account recent technological developments in the ethanol industry and the available feedstock potential that will sharply increase ethanol production from cellulose, according to BIO.

 

Winters pointed to an earlier report by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, which projected cellulose-based ethanol production of 47bn gal/year by 2030. "That's a figure we [BIO] support," he said.

By: Stefan Baumgarten
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