- 1. Ethanol Fuel Programs: Sustainable Development or just
another Farm Subsidy Program?
2. Topics
- Review of US & Brazilian Ethanol Programs
- Ezymatic Hydrolysis: The Way Forward
3. The Story-line
- Current Biomass-to-Energy Conversion technologies in use
-
- Enzymatic conversion of feed grains, sugar and other starches
into ethanol
-
- Convert fats and specialty crops into bio-diesel
-
- Convert ligno-cellulosic (LC) wastes into electricity &
heat
- Current methods of producing ethanol are costly and as scale of
programs increase raise serious social issues such as Food vs. Fuel
trade-offs
- Advances in enzymatic hydrolysis technology may soon allow the
economic conversion of LC wastes into ethanol and over come some of
these barriers to traditional ethanol programs.
- Remaining commercial barriers
-
- High costs of cellulase enzymes
-
- High costs of collecting and transporting agricultural
wastes
-
- Seasonal nature of agricultural waste production.
4. Top Ten Ethanol Producers, 2004 Source: F.O. Lichts, Annual
World Ethanol Production by Country, (Millions of Gallons, All
Grades), http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#E 219 3972
3,535 964 462 198 110 106 79 79 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000
3,500 4,000 4,500 Brazil U.S.A. China India France Russia South
Africa U.K. Saudi Arabia Spain Million of gallons 5. A Tale of Two
Ethanol IndustriesUS vs. Brazil
- US is now the largest producer of fuel ethanol (EtOH)
- Output has almost quadrupled from 4,180 million liters in 1996
to 16,195 million liters (ML) in 2005
- 2005 EtOH output equals around 3% of US motor gasoline usage by
volume; 2% by energy content
- By 2008, USDA and RFA forecast that US EtOH output will
increase to 30,000 ML
- 9O% of US EtOH is produced from corn using 13% of total 2005 US
corn output
- EtOH plants are located largely in mid-west corn belt
- Preferred technology: Dry milling, which produces distillers
dry feed grains as a by-product
- Brazil was once the worlds largest EtOH producer; now is
running a close second to US at 16,000 MLin 2005
- Brazil produces all of its EtOH from sugar cane using straight
sugar cane juice plus some from molasses
- Plants located in southern & central parts of Brazil
- Considered lowest cost producer of EtOH in the world.
6. Figure 1 Brazil has the lowest cost of ethanol
production.Brazils unsubsidized price for EtOH is currently lower
than the cost of petrol Sugar Cane Source: Michael Wang. ANL, March
2006, Bangkok Conference on Alternative Fuel for the Transport
Sector Sugar Production Cost Estimated Cost (US$/Ton in Dec/00)
Production (Mt) 2002 22,7 5,4 2,6 19,0 2,3 6,6 5,1 7,3 10,3 1,5 1,5
0,9 7. A Tale of Two Ethanol Industries (cont.)
- Cost of producing EtOH in US is very high
- US EtOH Industry can only survive with substantial help from
Government:
-
- Renewable fuels standard requires U.S. refineries and filling
stations to use 28,500 ML/yr of bio-fuels by 2015 with1,000 ML
coming from cellulose.
-
- Duty on imported EtOH: $0.14/liter
-
- EtOH exempted from Gasoline Tax in many States
-
- EtOH Excise Tax Exemption - $0.13/liter
-
- Other state and Federal subsidies.
- Inefficient way to produce transport fuels
-
- Pimentel and others argue that it takes more energy to produce
a liter of ethanol from corn than the energy content of that liter
of EtOH.
-
- USDA disagrees strongly with that view, but the energy pathway
efficiency is still very low.
- Very small domestic market; growth of Brazis EtOH industry is
highly dependent on exports
- High import duties in the US and elsewhere are limiting EtOH
exports from Brazil.
- Fuel vs. Food issue resurfaces whenever sugar prices jump or if
a drought or natural disaster affects sugar cane crops.
- Domestic regulations related to blending ratios continue to
create government-caused supply fluctuations.
- Water and land required to expand sugar cane output =
significant local environmental impacts.
8. The US ethanol industry is concentrated in the mid-west where
feedgrains are grown
9. Br 10. Enzymatic Hydrolysis: The Way Forward?
- New crops and conversion technologies needed for EtOH to have a
significant impact on fossil fuel usage
- US corn-to-EtOH program has limited potential and is too
expensive. Without huge subsidies, it would collapse.
- Growth in Brazils EtOH industry is limited by high import
duties in US and elsewhere and environmental impacts of expanding
sugar cane plantations
- Technology of the Future: Enzymatic Hydrolysis
11. Enzymatic Hydrolysis: Has its time finally come?
- Short answer is we are very close but.
-
- Cellulose-to-biomass technologies still need further
improvement
-
- Resource selection must be sensibly done.
-
- Reliability and seasonality of biomass fuel supplies remains a
continuing question.
12. Enzymatic Hydrolysis
- But, to achieve substantial increases in EtOH production, all
countries, including Brazil, will need to turn to ligno-cellulosic
biomass as an additional feedstock.
- In the US, EtOH production is expected to plateau at 40,000 ML
by 2010, unless biotech firms develop new varieties of corn with
higher yields/acre or higher levels of fermentable starch
levels.
- US EtOH production can increase to 225,000 ML if cellulosic
biomass is relied on as a future feedstock.
- Before this feedstock can play a significant role, improvements
in process economics are needed
13. Progress in Commercializing Enzymatic Hydrolysis
- Two of the Worlds largest enzyme producers Genecor
International and Novozyme- have worked under a US DOE contract to
achieve a 50-fold reduction in the cost of cellulase.
-
- 10-fold cost reduction was achieved in 2002
-
- 30-fold improvement was achieved by 2004.
-
- Genecor has developed enzymes that allow a simplified process
for producing EtOH from cellulose.
-
- Novozyme is building a demonstration plant in Nebraska that
will use its brand of improved enzymes.
- Other technological breakthroughs expected to reduce the cost
of producing EtOH from cellulose such that enzymatic hydrolysis
will become the cost effective option for producing EtOH in most
countries
- Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and most other ASEAN
countries can then expand their EtOH programs to include
agricultural wastes
- Given the abundance of agricultural wastes in most ASEAN
countries, the shift in feedstocks should result in EtOH finally
achieving a significant displacement of oil imports.
14. Map 1 Growth of cellulose-to-ethanol industry will be helped
in US by the favorable location of ethanol plants to crop residues
15. Map 2 Potential location of Ethanol Plants in 2025 with
application of enzymatic hydrolysis technologies Source: Michael
Wang, Argonne National Lab, USA 16. Even Brazil land of low cost
sugar cane- has tremendous potential to produce EtOH from
cellulosic wastes.
- 436 million tonnes of sugarcane were harvested in 2005
from
-
- 55% used for sugar and 45% for EtOH
-
- 16 billion liters of fuel ethanol produced
- 122 million tonnes of bagasse was produced in 2005
-
- Currently being burned in inefficient CHP plants, capable of
producing 7.6 GW of electric capacity
-
- With improved enzymatic hydrolysis systems, Brazil can
theoretically produce 25 billion liters of EtOH from its
bagasse
-
- Even if only 30% of bagasse and cane waste is converted to
EtOH, Brazil could still produce 6.6 billion additional liters of
EtOH
-
- Plus the lignin, which is left over after cellulose is
converted to EtOH can provide all the electricity & steam
requirements of sugarcane-to-EtOH plants
17. For each tonne of sugar cane, only 6%-9% is in the form of
sucrose. Rest: high moisture fermentable waste 18. Summary
- Using increased amounts of food crops and arable land to
produce more ethanol will raise Food vs. Fuel debate to level that
will render current ethanol production methods as
unsustainable.
- Subsidies in US are neither sustainable nor desirable.
- Way forward is to use enzymatic hydrolysis to convert
cellulosic wastes into ethanol at a reasonable cost.
- Process produces lignin as a by-product, which can be used to
produce power and steam, effectively allowing ag industry to have
his cake and eat it too.
- Farmers can earn extra income (some, not much) from selling
their residues and wastes to enzymatic hydrolysis plants