I am still working on the weekly news roundup but this news about waste-to-energy keep popping up on my email inbox so we might as well take a brief look and see what's going on in this sector.
I have written an article on ICIS Chemical Business about the waste plastic-to-energy market last year where Dow Chemical is one of the companies looking into the PTF (plastic-to-fuel) technology. Some of the companies involved in this field include Agilyx. Plastic2Oil (JBI) and Nexus Fuels, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
According to a January study prepared by research firm RTI International for the ACC, there are two types of advanced conversion technologies being used in this industry: gasification and pyrolysis. The primary difference between the two is the feedstock used.
Pyrolysis technologies are generally suited to handle feedstock from non-recycled plastics while gasification accepts all municipal solid waste (MSW) including non-recycled plastics.
According to the study, gasification of MSW saves 6.5m to 13m BTU/ton and 0.3-0.6 tons of carbon equivalent emissions per ton compared to landfill disposal. Pyrolysis, which converts plastics to oil or gas, saves 1.8-3.6m BTU/ton and 0.15-0.25 tons of carbon equivalent per ton over landfill disposal.
RTI identified 41 advanced conversion technology facilities that are under development or undergoing demonstration in North America that that will accept MSW or non-recycled plastics as feedstocks.
Vendors of pyrolysis technology includes Agilyx, Envion, Global Climax Energy, JBI. Gasification technology developers include Enerkem, Plasco, Ze-gen, Geoplasma. Most of these companies are definitely new to the blog!
Anyway, just today, US-based industrial gas company Air Products announced that it will build and operate the world's largest renewable energy plant in the UK using the Westinghouse advanced gasification energy-from-waste (EfW) technology provided by AlterNRG.
The Tees Valley plant located near Bilingham, Teesside, will have a capacity of 50MW and is expected to power up to 50,000 homes. According to Air Products, it will divert up to 350,000 tonnes/year of non-recyclable waste from landfill. The facility is expected to start operation in 2014.
Proposed Air Products facility
New companies that caught the blog's attention also includes Nexterra Systems, which just dedicated a biomass gasification energy plant late last month at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ONL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; NY-based ZeroPoint Clean Tech, which already deployed two biomass gasification systems, one in Ireland and the other in Germany; and Covanta Energy, which completed its commercial demonstration testing of its gasification technology in April.
Covanta Energy's gasification unit can process 350 tons/day of post-recycled municipal solid waste which does not have to be pre-treated.
The BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota (BBAM) recently released its Bio-industrial processing roadmap for the advanced biofuels and biobased chemicals industry to provide information for investors, businesses and stakeholders.
According to BBAM's projections, direct and indirect employment in bioindustrial processing companies in Minnesota could total in excess of 13,000 by 2025, up from 2,000 last year. Bioindustrial processing companies in the state include Segetis, BioAmber, XL Terra, Reluceo, Cargill Industrial Oils and Cargill BioH, Butamax, Gevo, NatureWorks, CHS, BioCee, Starch Tech, Natur-tec, EarthClean, Cortec, Lonza, Agristrand Biocomposites, Entropy Solution, Butrolix, and Jet-E.
Other key points the organization wants to put out is existing infrastructure needed for integrated biorefinery development as well as sufficient agricultural and forest resources available for biobased chemicals and advanced biofuels feedstock.
The report includes specific policy recommendations developed to support the development of bioindustrial processing. Of course, a major factor in establishing this type of industry is to ensure availability of funding options for companies interested in "putting roots" in Minnesota.
Financing will be of critical importance to the industry. A full spectrum of investment is needed, from seed and angel funding to venture capital and long-term debt capital.
Tactics include:
• Educating investors and financial institutions about the unique opportunity to develop the bioindustrial processing industry in this region, and
• Ensuring awareness, availability, and access to federal and state financial support to accelerate research and development through full-scale manufacturing
BAM is also holding its Renewable Materials Summit in Fargo, North Dakota, on May 15 to talk more about biorefinery business opportunities.
US producers of bio-based products will be happy to know that President Obama signed a presidential memo yesterday that requires the federal government via the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) BioPreferred Program to track and increase its purchases of products made from plants and other renewable agricultural materials.
The memorandum directs federal agencies to take decisive steps (such as small business assistance, increase biobased product categories, education and outreach) to dramatically increase the purchase of biobased products over the next two years. This Memorandum is expected to result in a 50% increase in the number of new products that are designated as biobased within a year.
According to the USDA, this memorandum will expedite job creation in rural part of the US. The USDA's BioPreferred program, which started in 1998, has two major initiatives: certify and award labels to qualifying biobased products, and designate categories of biobased products that are afforded preference by Federal agencies when making purchase decisions.
Here is a short video from USA Today on the news about President Obama's biobased products memo.
At Jim Lunt's bioplastic seminar held on Monday, BioPreferred Program's deputy manager Kate Lewis actually talked about the factors driving growth for biobased products including bioplastics. The BioPreferred program currently has about 9,000 individual products listed on its database under 64 categories that the USDA designated for preferred Federal procurement.
"Consumer preference are clamoring for these types of innovative, more sustainable products although they don't really know what they're asking for and what they're getting. Another reason this market is poised for explosive growth is corporate commitment in reducing greenhouses gases as well as reducing their carbon footprint. They're looking and starting to implement opportunities. Finally, international and national policies, mandates and regulations are supporting and contributing in the forward movement of biobased products." - Lewis
By the way, Lewis noted that federal agencies and the US Department of Defense actually spent about $500bn for their "stuff." She also noted that because of efforts, they know that there are about 25,000 biobased products that are being manufactured at this time and that 10,000 are listed in their database. About 3,100 manufacturers are also listed under the 64 categories of biobased products.
With regards to jobs, Lewis said that in the US, about 100,000 direct new jobs a year were created as a result of biobased product activities (development, science, technology, trade) throughout the value chain.
Another interesting point she noted in her presentation is that only about 1% of corn grown in the US are directly consumed by us and most go to animal feed. Also, 1/3 of every bushel of corn used for ethanol is returned back as animal feed called DDGs (dry distilled grain), which is a byproduct from ethanol production that are high in protein.
"Factors that really drive prices up for commodity products such as food staples is really the increase in demand for fuel and high oil prices. As long as oil stays at $90-100/bbl, that has ripple effects throughout different products and industries. The high costs of fertilizer, energy use for harvesting and delivery is impacting prices - it's not about the use of agriculture for biofuel." - Lewis.
Another big factors are increasing global population which leads to increase in demand for food, energy and other products where resources are not unlimited; uncontrollable weather such as drought, crop failures...
Meanwhile in Europe, the European Commission has actually launched early this month its own bioeconomy roadmap "Innovating for Sustainable Growth: a Bioeconomy for Europe." THe goal focuses on developing new technologies and processes for the bioeconomy; develop market and competitiveness in bioeconomy sectors; and push policymakers and stakeholders to work more closely together.
The Commission defined bioeconomy as an economy using biological resources from the land and sea, as well as waste, as inputs to food and feed, industrial and energy production. It also covers the use of bio-based processes for sustainable industries.
The EU bioeconomy reportedly already has sales of nearly €2 trillion and employs more than 22 million people, 9% of total employment in the EU. It includes agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and pulp and paper production, as well as parts of chemical, biotechnological and energy industries. Each euro invested in EU-funded bioeconomy research and innovation is estimated to trigger €10 of value added in bioeconomy sectors by 2025, according to the Commission's report.
Still, some industry organizations note that the new strategy lacks specific actions to support biobased industries in Europe. While welcoming the EU bioeconomy strategy, the European Bioplastics said it hoped for more specific measures for bioplastics to be integrated into the strategy.
"The bioplastics industry is technologically well developed and can demonstrate a wide range of mature applications already today. What we need are strong measures to support the market development of bioplastics products."
Do you know why the blog is interested in this $100m initial public offering (IPO) by America's largest biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group (REG)?
Because aside from biodiesel, REG is also a major producer of crude glycerin, the chemical by-product of biodiesel manufacturing (10:1 ratio meaning a 10 lb biodiesel will yield 1 pound crude glycerin). Crude glycerine is usually used in the animal feed market or can be refined or purified for higher-value applications such as in pharmaceuticals, soaps, cosmetics, food and beverages. In fact there are probably over 1,500 different uses of glycerol, according to industry players.Glycerol is structurally analogous to sugars.
According to the US Department of Energy (DOE) in a 2004 study, glycerol is one of the top 12 building block chemicals from biomass although in REG's case, glycerol is made from natural fats and oils (as we sometimes called it lipids) via the chemical process esterification/transesterification.Crude glycerin has minimum 85% glycerol, with low salts and many organics such as free fatty acids and distillates), according to ICIS.
Within biodiesel production, the purity of biodiesel (and consequently glycerin) depends on the feedstock used. Higher cost virgin vegetable oil feedstocks contain few impurities and are comparatively easy to process while lower cost and unrefined virgin vegetable oil feedstocks generally contain impurities that must be pretreated as part of the production process.
Now the S-1 form filed by REG to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mostly talked about the biodiesel industry, which of course, is still important to the blog. However, I really want to get to know more about the glycerin market here in the US. According to our colleagues at ICIS Pricing, glycerin is actually traded either as crude or refined. Major US producers of refined glycerin include agribusiness Cargill, Procter & Gamble Chemicals, Vantage Oleochemicals, Emery Oleochemicals, VVF and PMC Biogenix. Companies need quite a large capital to build a refining glycerin facility by the way.
Unfortunately, REG's S-1 file did not mention glycerin as much. According to REG, the US biodiesel industry last year was estimated to have produced around 908m gallons, way up from 309m gallons in 2010. So you can do the math if you want to roughly calculate how much crude glycerin was produced last year as well.
REG said it has an aggregate nameplate biodiesel production capacity of 212m gal/year consisting of five wholly-owned facilities and one leased facility. The company has acquired four of its six facilities since 2010. REG primarily produce biodiesel using lower cost feedstock such as inedible animal fat, used cooking oil and inedible corn oil. A small portion of their production uses higher cost virgin vegetable oils.
Now, REG said it also plans to work with technology companies that focus on renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels.
"We are able to offer to co-locate these companies' equipment and production processes at our existing facilities, as well as to offer design-build, operations and management capabilities to accelerate the commercialization of these companies' products." - REG
One such company is REG's relationship with Glycos Biotechnologies, which is developing chemicals such as ethanol, isoprene, acetone, hydrogen, 1,2 propanediol and other organic acids such as lactic acid, succinic acid and formic acid using crude glycerin as feedstock. REG has been collaborating with GlycosBio since 2007.
One of REG's plans is to acquire or invest in biodiesel, renewable chemicals or other advanced biofuel production and distribution assets in select international markets targeting large end-user or large feedstock generating markets. The company also plans to expand into the production of renewable chemicals, additional advanced biofuels, next generation feedstocks, such as algae oil, and related renewable products.
Here is a chart from the DOE's 2004 biomass chemicals study for those who are interested in new glycerin applications:
In fact, my ICIS colleague Judith Taylor recently wrote a story (it's free! Yey!) on new refined glycerin uses. According to her, the exit of ADM from the USP glycerin market this January will take pounds out of the refined glycerin market to be used in the production of monopropylene glycol (MPG). As you know, ADM began operation of its 100,000 tonne/year glycerin-based MPG plant at Decatur, Illinois, in the second quarter last year.
Market participants expected about 5m lb (2,268 tonnes) of refined glycerine to be utilised in the glycol market in 2012, and expected this number to increase by the end of the year.
Here are some other news that the blog posted last year on glycerin:
I hope everybody had a great holiday weekend and for those who are still on vacation (like me!!), enjoy the brief rest.
The blog is working on a list of top posts of 2011 but it might take awhile given that the blog had almost 200 posts to look into. In the meantime, let's look at the longer-term future of the industry.
The blog had gathered several consulting reports about the bio-based chemicals sector and it seems all are in agreement that this industry will remain strong and that no bubble bursting are seen on the short-to-mid-term horizon (we hope so!)
According to Lux Research's recent report on bio-based chemicals and materials, this industry is expected to grow to $19.7bn in 2016 as its global capacity jumps 140%. Lux Research said that it has listed down 151 global facilities and their intended operational dates, products and capacities. These capacities are expected to climb to 9.2m tons in the next five years.
Some of Lux Research's key findings include:
Bioplastics will slow down in terms of expansion though capacity is still expected to grow 57% from 2011 to 2016. From 2006 to 2011, bioplastics have experienced explosive growth of 1,500% to a current aggregate capacity of 470,000 tons, and a 10.9% share of all bio-based materials.
Cellulose polymers and starch-based plastics remain dominant but their share of total capacity will slide from 45% in 2011 to 21% in 2016. Cellulose polymers and starch-derived materials still rule because they are durable, strong and easily biodegradable: They've been widely used in high-performance plastic coatings, buttons and yarns, and even early LEGO bricks.
By 2016, there will be consolidation - both within sectors of bio-based materials manufacturing, and regionally, as leaders buy up technologies and access to feedstock. Momentum derived from existing capacity -- ethanol from sugarcane ethanol being converted to ethylene and propylene, for instance -- will influence regional specialization.
Pike Research, meanwhile, reported that the use of green chemistry is expected to save the chemical industry $65.5bn by 2020. Pike Research included in their definition of green chemistry pathways and industrial activities such as waste minimization in the chemical production process, replacement of existing products with less toxic alternatives, and the shift to renewable, non-petroleum based feedstocks.
Green chemistry markets, according to Pike Research, represents a market opportunity of $2.8bn in 2011 reaching to $98.5bn by 2020. By 2020, Pike Research expects that the total chemical industry will expand to $5.3 trillion in annual revenues.
In July, BCC Research reported the global market for green technologies is expected to be worth $312bn in 2015 from $200bn in 2010, showing a growth rate of 9.2%/year. The market research firm broke down green technologies into nine segments - combined heat and power, windows, insulation, hybrid vehicles, waste-to-energy, lighting, ground-source heat pumps, biomass and smart meters.
According to BCC Research, green technology is often referred to as "energy efficiency defined as an energy converting device undergoing a technological change that enables it to provide the same service while using less energy."
It seems like almost every week I've been seeing news about the use of biofuel in commercial airlines and I've even wrote a story about it on ICIS Chemical Business (link for subscribers only) when United Airlines announced its commercial demonstration flight from Texas to Chicago using 40% algae-derived jet fuel developed by Solazyme and refined by Honeywell's UOP.
According to RenewableJetFuels.org, the first top five renewable jet fuel supply chain companies in terms of economic viability, scalability, and sustainability are as follows:
According to the group, some renewable jet fuel companies could be producing enough renewable fuel to replace 10-20% of the fuel of a typical mid-sized airline in the next five years in their current state. As of the posting of this blog, about 45m liters of renewable jet fuel worldwide has been produced, the group said.
Elsevier, the science division of ICIS' parent company Reed Elsevier, is said to have developed a database tool called Biofuel Techselect which is composed of 2,000 bioenergy supply chain companies, incorporating a range of technologies including waste-to-energy and algae. The green blogger's next move is to go downstairs on the Elsevier floor and do some snooping. Maybe I'll try to crash their Christmas party instead ;-).
Meanwhile, in recent news, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) via the US Department of Transportation's Volpe Center has actually awarded $7.7m to eight companies that include, among others, LanzaTech ($3m), Virent ($1.5m), and Honeywell's UOP ($1.1m). The companies selected will help the FAA develop and approve alternative, sustainably-sourced "drop in" jet fuels that can be used without changing aircraft engine systems or airport fueling infrastructure.
For LanzaTech, the company said it is working on producing alcohols from waste gas and then its partner Swedish Biofuels will convert the alcohols to jet fuel.A key goal of the project is to produce 100+ gallons of alternative jet fuel for testing by the US Air Force Research Laboratory as part of the certification process for alcohol to jet (ATJ) fuels.
Virent said it intends to demonstrate its expertise in converting a wide variety of conventional sugars and lignocellulosic biomass to jet fuel, while UOP is working with Gevo on converting isobutanol into jet fuel. UOP will deliver 100 gallons of isobutanol-based renewable jet fuel to the government in 2012, which will then be evaluated to ensure it is compatible with aircraft engines and that it meets specification for flight.
Okay, let's start with this one after numerous "green chemical-related" press releases (and webcasts) came out and still coming out this week - at a critical time when I'm chained to deadlines for ICIS Chemical Business (ICB)...such is life.
Amyris is on fire as usual with various collaboration announcement but this one to me is big news in the industrial commodity chemicals sector especially if a well-known rubber tire manufacturer such as Europe-based Michelin is involved.
The companies said they are working to develop the use of Amyris' farnesene-based isoprene (under the trademark No Compromise®) for the production of renewable-based rubber tires and other rubber-based products such as adhesives, coatings and sealants. Both companies will contribute funding and technical resources although no financial details were disclosed.
Amyris expects to to begin commercialization of the bio-isoprene to other customers in 2015, while Michelin is reportedly committing off-take volumes on a ten years basis.
Amyris also announced in August its collaboration with Japanese chemical firm Kuraray to develop high-performance polymers by replacing petroleum-based butadiene and isoprene feedstock with Amyris' farnesene molecule.
New sources of isoprene as well as other rubber materials such as butadiene are becoming critical as according to our ICIS colleagues who cover the rubber chemicals industry, the trend towards cracking lighter feedstocks with the advent of North American shale gas is limiting production of these chemicals. Isoprene has traditionally been produced as a byproduct of the thermal cracking of naptha to produce ethylene or via C4 refinery stream synthesis.
Going back to a bio-rubber chemicals article I wrote for ICB in July (it's free access!), I noted back then some of the developers within the bio-isoprene area such as Goodyear in partnership Genencor (now owned by DuPont), and GlycosBio's glycerin-based isoprene.
The blog has not yet heard any recent updates from Genencor/Goodyear on their bio-isoprene. Genencor initially said early this year that the company is exploring a pilot bio-isoprene plant that could be built next year in Iowa.
GlycosBio, meanwhile, has been busy in Malaysia collaborating with Bio-XCell to construct GlycosBio's first commercial plant within Bio-XCell's industrial park.GlycosBio expects construction of its plant to start in the fourth quarter this year with completion in Q4 2012.
Other recent biobased rubber chemicals development announcements include:
Lanxess' planned bio-EPDM (ethylene-propylene-diene) monomer production in Brazil as well as the company's collaboration progress with Gevo on bio-isobutene;
Genomatica's milestone in producing pound quantities of bio-butadiene
France-based Global Bioenergies' partnership with Polish rubber manufacturer Synthos to develop a new process for renewable-based butadiene
Elevance's collaboration with Hutchinson Worldwide to evaluate the use of renewable products as processing aids in Hutchinson's rubber compounds;
Ford has teamed up with Recycled Polymeric Materials (RPM) for the use of gaskets and seals made from 25% post-consumer particulate from recycled tires and 17% soybean-based materials on Ford's 2011 model vehicles such as F-150, Escape, Mustang, Focus and Fiesta.
This is an article from ICIS Chemical Business published on May 16 and written by ICIS colleague Brian Balboa. Brian handles the ICIS pricing report on US butanediol (BDO) and he was able to talk to his contacts in the industry about bio-BDO and what they think about its developments.
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The debate over bio-BDO is likely to continue for some time yet
One of the biggest questions coming out of the NPRA International Petrochemical Conference (IPC) in March this year was from the butanediol (BDO) market, regarding the emerging bio-BDO sector: "Is bio-BDO for real?" asked a BDO consumer on the sidelines of the IPC.
Although the development of a commercial-scale bio-BDO plant is still in the works, trade participants are still skeptical, and remain interested in how this may impact the market. "Would consumers be willing to pay a premium for bio-BDO?" one major BDO producer asked. A consumer reckoned no-one, "unless there was a directive to go green."
The consumer added if the specifications for a petrochemical-based BDO and a bio-based BDO were similar or equal, then bio-BDO may be a good alternative feedstock source - especially if supply in the market remained tight. But some have said bio-BDO may not necessarily be more expensive than petrochemical-based BDO.
"I don't see that there will be a cost delta between hydrocarbon-based BDO and bio-based BDO," another North American consumer said. "Bio-based producers are approaching the market at par with their competition."
The consumer also said some producers are savvier about the demand and opportunity than others, and expects there to be more announcements about that in the coming months.
Market participants have described the current BDO market as globally tight, with strong demand in all regions.
In North America, suppliers said during the first quarter that demand was so strong they declined requests for extra volume outside of contractual obligations. This year, there have been some major announcements about the development of bio-BDO - and its potential impact on the BDO market.
One company at the forefront of this is US biochemical company Genomatica.
Myriant Technologies and Davy Process Technology also announced in February that they signed a memorandum of understanding covering the use of succinic acid as a bio-derived feedstock for the production of BDO, tetrahydrofuran (THF) and gamma-butyrolactone.
On April 28, Genomatica signed a broad memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi Chemical, outlining multiple potential areas of collaboration.
This includes the study of a joint venture for bio-BDO production in Asia, by building the first commercial plant in the region using the Genomatica's direct, one-step technology and Mitsubishi's BDO applications and business knowledge.
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There had been a lot of announcements since this was published in May.
Metabolix announced its joint development deal for its polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA)-based C4 chemicals -- initially BDO, tetrahydrofuran (THF), gamma butyrolactone (GBL) and polyester engineering resins (PBT) -- with Korea-based industrial biotechnology company CJ CheilJedang.
BASF and Purac formed a bio-succinic acid JV and reportedly aiming to be the first commercial bio-succinic acid producer in the market with a 25,000 tons/year capacity that will be located in Purac's site near Barcelona, Spain.
BioAmber announced new biosuccinic acid and bio-BDO plants in Ontario, Canada, and in Rayong, Thailand.
Consulting firm Nexant is actually working on a study this year to analyze various bio-BDO technologies. The report will provide comparison of the technology, economics and potential markets for bio-BDO.
I previously mentioned the US government's plan to invest up to $510m within the next three years as well as to partner with the private sector in producing advanced biofuels for use in military and commercial transportation.The Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Navy will collaborate with private firms to construct or retrofit several drop-in biofuel plants and refineries.
The agencies said the facilities will be located in geographically diverse locations ready for market access. The biofuels should also meet military specifications and that it will not have any significant impact on food-based agricultural commodity supply.
The three agencies are currently seeking input from the private sector towards the creation of a public-private partnership in developing drop-in advanced biofuels.
There had been several economic/market study reports that came out recently on biofuels. One is from the Worldwatch Institute which said that global biofuels production increased 17% last year at an all time-high of 105bn liters (vs 90bn liters in 2009) mostly driven by high oil prices, global economic rebound (this one is a hmmm), and new laws and mandates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China and the US.
The US and Brazil remain the two largest ethanol producers with 49bn liters (57% of global output) and 28bn liters (33%), respectively. The European Union is the largest biodiesel producer occupying 53% of total global output in 2010. According to the report, some European countries are switching to ethanol from biodiesel because of a recent study from the European Commission that ethanol crops have higher energy content than biodiesel crops.
In the US, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) put out its latest production statistics last month and reported that despite the weak economy, the biodiesel industry is on track to produce at least 800m gal/year for 2011, more than double that of the biodiesel production at 315m gallons last year. Of course last year, the biodiesel industry was greatly impacted when a $1/gal tax incentive was not extended when it expired in December 2009.
The tax incentive reinstated in December 2010 is slated to expire this year.
Meanwhile, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) recently published its 2011-2020 Biofuels Outlook and projected that the US will remain the largest ethanol producer and consumer while the European Union is expected to still be the major producer and user of biodiesel.
The share of corn-based ethanol over total ethanol produced in developed countries is expected to decrease from 89% over the 2008-2010 period to 78% in 2020. Cellulosic ethanol production is expected to rise representing about 8% of total ethanol production by 2020.
By 2020, FAO projected global energy share of ethanol in gasoline type fuel use at 8.8% compared to 5.3% average within 2008-2010 period. Volume of ethanol share in gasoline type fuel is expected to rise from 7.7% average in the 2008-2010 time frame to 12.6% by 2020.
Global ethanol production is projected to rise to 155bn liters in 2020 with a rate of 4% growth within the 2011-2020 period. Global biodiesel growth for the same period is projected at 6%. Projected global biodiesel production is 42bn liters by 2020 compared to the average 17.6bn liters within 2008-2010 time frame.
Global share of biodiesel in diesel type fuel will rise to 3.8% in 2020 compared to the average 2% in 2008-2010 estimate. Biodiesel volume share is expected at 5% in 2020 compared to the average 2.5% in 2008-2010.
The Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership contacted me if I know any consultants out there that are interested in their project below. The truth is I don't really know who to recommend so I'm going to give everybody their chance to contact the group -- just don't contact me on this unless you want to say thanks =).
----------------- We are looking for a consultant that can undertake a review of our current marketing strategy in support of the biohybrid chemistry cluster.
The Economic Partnership is the regional economic development agency for the region of Sarnia-Lambton in Ontario Canada. Traditionally, Sarnia-Lambton has been a North American Cluster for traditional petrochemical and refining activities. During the past six years, working with our regional partners, we have made considerable progress in establishing the region as an emerging bio-hybrid cluster. Our partners include the Sustainable Chemistry Alliance, the Bioindustrial Innovation Centre, the LANXESS Bioindustrial Park Sarnia, the University of Western Ontario Research Park and Lambton College.
The Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership is seeking the services of a consultant with expertise in contemporary economic development marketing together with an understanding of the emerging biochemicals sector. The consultant will also have practical working knowledge of the site location process
It should be noted that submissions will be accepted from consultant teams, where two or more firms collaborate on the project.
The consultant will perform the following services:
1. Document and assess the Sarnia-Lambton Biohybrid Chemistry Cluster's strengths and weaknesses in relation to the key site location requirements for the attraction of commercial scale next generation biochemical investment.
2. Perform an analysis of the Sarnia-Lambton Biohybrid Chemistry Cluster's marketing strategy and related programs for the attraction of commercial scale next generation biochemical investment
3. Create a refined value proposition to improve the effectiveness of strategic attraction activities pertaining to next generation biochemical investment
4. Development of a tactical marketing plan
Depending on the consultant, there could be some flexibility in the required services. Attached is a copy of the RFP for the project.
CONTACT: Mike Ireland
Senior Development Consultant
Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership
1086 Modeland Road
Building 1050, Suite 100
The University of Western Ontario Research Park
Sarnia-Lambton Campus
Sarnia, Ontario N7S 6L2
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