Cellulosic ethanol raises bar for biofuels - Novozymes

24 March 2010 23:33  [Source: ICIS news]

SAO PAULO (ICIS news)--Cellulosic ethanol will raise the bar for the use of renewable fuels, an official with Danish biotech firm Novozymes said on Wednesday, touting second-generation ethanol as much more friendly to the environment than conventional biofuels.

Cellulosic ethanol has a promise of 90% in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction from petroleum fuels, said Novozymes development manager Cynthia Bryant, adding that the bar was being set “pretty high” for both corn and sugarcane-based ethanol.

“Biofuels with greater carbon reduction will be favoured in the future,” she said during a presentation at FO Licht's 2010 Sugar and Ethanol Brazil in Sao Paulo.

Corn and to some extent sugarcane ethanol will have handicaps unless their carbon intensity is reduced, Bryant told delegates.

Corn-based ethanol reduces GHG emission by 21% while sugarcane ethanol cuts emissions by 61% from baseline gasoline, according to calculations by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

However, both measurements include indirect land use change (ILUC) emissions, which the biofuels industry claims is based on questionable science and unfairly penalises conventional ethanol.

Without ILUC, corn ethanol is said to reduce emissions by 52%, according to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), the main US ethanol industry group.

Brazilian sugarcane association Unica for its turn has claimed sugarcane-based ethanol can reduce GHG emissions by as much as 90% without ILUC emissions.

While cellulosic ethanol has a leg up on conventional biofuels in GHG reductions, the cost to make the product is still much higher when compared with corn or sugarcane ethanol.

But cellulosic ethanol is expected to play a major role in meeting renewable fuels targets, particularly in the US.

Under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), the US must use 36bn gal of renewable fuels by 2022, nearly half of which, or 16bn gal, will have to be cellulosic biofuels.

The 2010 Sugar and Ethanol Brazil conference opened on Tuesday. The two-day event was organised in partnership with IBC Brasil.

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By: William Lemos
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