Energy efficiency can cut the growth in energy demand by 50 percent in developing countries

A doctoral thesis from the German university, Hohenheim, investigates the longterm competitiveness of German biofuels and comes to the following conclusions:

• German and EU biofuel production costs are approximately €0.45 €/liter using such local feedstocks as wheat or sugar beet, while Brazil can produce ethanol for €0.17/l from sugar cane. Allowing €0.10/l for transport to Germany, Brazilian ethanol can still undercut German production costs by 40%. The calculations for Germany are based on market prices of around €100/metric ton for wheat and €30 €/m.t. for sugar beet.
• Other international cost comparisons reinforce the findings: Thailand can produce sugarcane-based bioethanol at €0.21/l and Australia at €0.27/l. The productions costs for corn-based bioethanol are around €0.31/l in China and, due to high subsidies, €0.26/l in the US.
• Feedstocks account for more than 50% of production costs in Germany, and operating costs -- including chemicals and energy and using a 200-million-liter/yr plant as an example -- represent another 30% of the overall tab. Doubling plant capacity would reduce costs by only around 4%.
• Furthermore, there is a imbalance between feedstock availability and biofuel demand: Germany and EU are net importers of vegetable oil (the raw material of biodiesel) and net exporters of grain and sugar (the raw materials for bioethanol), while at the same time the region tends to have a shortage of diesel and a surplus of gasoline.

As production of bioethanol in Europe is less CO₂-efficient than imported bioethanol from sugar cane or for instance direct combustion of organic solid fuels, such as wood, the author concludes that the competitiveness of German biofuels will depend heavily on: the price of crude oil; the longterm framework of biofuel taxes, quotas and subsidies; and continuous reduction of biofuel production costs.

In the latest of a series of doomsday scenarios from various US groups, researchers at Iowa State University's (ISU) Center for Agricultural and Rural Development say that US ethanol producers are likely to see their profits vanish by the end of the year, and even enter negative margins in 2008. ISU forecasts that ethanol output will be six billion gallons this year, 11 billion in 2008, and peak at 14 billion by 2010, and with no growth for six years after that. The increase in production will result in rising corn feedstock costs and falling ethanol prices, the net result being that even the US government's subsidy of 51 cents/gallon will not offset potential losses for new plants coming onstream.

If wastepaper and cardboard is converted into biofuels, it could provide clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and cut municipal solid waste, proposes a joint study by researchers at the National University of Singapore and ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). They estimate that up to 82.9 billion liters of waste paper-derived cellulosic ethanol can be produced worldwide, replacing 5.36% of gasoline consumption, with accompanying GHG emissions savings of between 29.2% and 86.1%.

The researchers assessed the amount of wastepaper and cardboard from 70 countries, which they then extrapolated to a further 100 countries based on their socioeconomic development. They also calculated the petrol consumption of these 170 countries using EarthTrends, an online environmental-information database. By combining these calculations, they established a global figure for the amount of ethanol that could be produced from wastepaper, and the resulting savings.

The study was published online in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy,1 and reported in SciDev.Net, the Science and Development Network, which contacted a number of scientists for their comments. Some felt that the model would work best for developed countries with paper recycling programs already in place, since the paper waste would simply be transported to biofuel processing units instead of papermills. However, recycling opportunities for these two would be lost, so this cost has to be weighed against the generated income. Others doubted that the variable amounts and quality of paper waste generated in developing countries would be suitable for a biofuels plant.

1. 1. The biofuel potential of municipal solid waste Subscription

Seen as crucial in the fight against global warming, carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects face a high risk of failure because of their high costs, an analysis1 by The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) reveals. GCCSI states that the cost of power generation at a coal-fired plant rises by up to 78 percent with CCS. But, the unknown future value of carbon dioxide is a hurdle to CCS investments since the market price for carbon required to develop CCS in a coal-fired plant is $90 per metric ton of CO₂ and $112/m.t. for a natural gas plant. Reuters points out that the European carbon price on October 27 was $21/m.t.

GCCSI says there are 213 active or planned CCS projects, of which 101 are of commercial scale. Of these, 62 are fully integrated for capturing, transporting and storing CO₂, and most of these target coal plants. But due to commercial, technical and regulatory hurdles, GCCSI says the projects should be diversified to the cement, aluminium, iron and steel industries. The audit urges setting up projects in China and India where capital costs are 30 percent lower due to low labour rates, and in such industries as natural gas processing and fertilizer production where CO₂ capture is part of the operation. GCCSI was formally launched in April 2009 by the Australian government, and now has 20 countries and over 80 companies and organizations as members.

1. 1. Strategic Analysis of the Global Status of CCS - Report 5, Synthesis Report, PDF, 10.1 MB