Bioenergy

Biofuels Digest, the news website, has released its Advanced Biofuels tracking database, release 1.1, which follows new projects worldwide. According to the latest figures, advanced biofuels production capacity is projected to reach 1.7 billion gallons by the end of 2013, a healthy rise from last year's announced capacity of 1.3 billion gallons. The database is now tracking 56 companies with advanced biofuels projects in 13 countries.

Biofuels Digest says that some key findings are that drop-in fuels are expected to overtake ethanol as the leading advanced biofuel in terms of production capacity by 2012, and that algal fuel will hit its stride with production capacity projected to reach 421 million gallons per year by 2013.

The database is available as a free download to registered subscribers of Biofuels Digest; subscriptions are free, sign-up at Biofuels Digest with your email address.

Palm oil is in the news, both good and bad:

• BBC's Panorama TV show investigates the connection between the use of palm oil in household goods — foods like biscuits and toiletries like soap — and its effect on orangutans in Indonesia. Using GPS technology and satellite imaging, the BBC team pinpointed the exact locations where a major palm oil producer, the Duta Palma Group, is logging on high conservation lands and deep peat lands. Logging on both types of land are illegal.
• After viewing the Panorama documentary, Unilever announced1 that it will not buy palm oil originating from Duta Palma, to ensure that they did not end up in its best-selling brands, such as Dove soap and Flora margarine. This is the second blacklisting of a palm-oil producer in three months by Unilever: Earlier it cut off2 palm oil originating from Sinar Mas, the second largest palm oil producer in the world, after Greenpeace presented Unilever with photographic evidence that the Indonesian company was illegally clearing rainforest in protected areas, including in reserves for Indonesia’s endangered orangutan population. Unilever's moves only affect palm oil "originating" from Duta Palma and Sinar Mas — but since palm oil is blended, product from both companies may still find its way into Unilever products.
• Unilever's actions may become moot if the European Union's plans to re-classify oil palm plantations as forests go into affect, reports3 the EUobserver. The nonprofit organization cites an European Commission draft document that was leaked and is now hosted4 on the website of Friends of the Earth Europe. The document shows that EU is considering allowing use of biofuels produced via conversion of rainforests to oil palm plantations based on a new definition of forests in which the trees should be at least five meters tall, and their crown cover should be more than 30 percent.
• Meanwhile, a study by Wageningen University in the Netherlands finds5 that sugar cane grown in Brazil, palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, and sweet sorghum in China, rank as the most sustainable of the current generation of biofuel crops. The researchers at the university’s plant-science department compared6 nine crops worldwide, and found that the three crops make the most efficient use of land, water, nitrogen and energy resources in relation to the net energy produced. Provided there is no land use change, greenhouse gas emissions of these three biofuels are substantially reduced compared with fossil fuels. Maize (US) and wheat (Northwest Europe) as ethanol feedstocks perform poorly for nearly all indicators. Sugar beet (Northwest Europe), cassava (Thailand), rapeseed (Northwest Europe) and soybean (US) are intermediate.

1. 1. The Independent: Unilever drops major palm-oil producer
2. 2. Factclipper: Unilever cuts use of uncertified palm oil, but says sustainable oil is too pricey for consumers
3. 3. EUobserver: Palm oil plantations are now 'forests,' says EU
4. 4. European Commission: The practical implementation of the EU biofuels sustainability scheme and on counting rules for biofuels, PDF, 979 kb
5. 5. Bloomberg.com: Palm Oil, Sugar Cane Most Sustainable Energy Crops, Study Shows
6. 6. Wageningen University: Duurzame biobrandstof komt uit de tropen

Called JMax 100, the proprietary Jatropha cultivar — a plant variety with specific traits — is the first developed by SG Biofuels (Encinitas, California) to provide farmers with a high yielding variety whose genome is sequenced for particular growing conditions. Jatropha curcas is a non-edible shrub that is native to Central America, and which can be grown on marginal lands unsuitable for other crops; the seeds contain high amounts of an oil that can be refined with existing technology to produce diesel and jet fuel, and specialty chemicals. JMax 100 is optimized specifically for growing in Guatemala.

Because it yields twice as much oil, JMax 100 increases the profitability of Jatropha to greater than $400 per acre, more than 300 percent higher than existing commercial varieties, claims SG Biofuels. This equates to 350 gallons or more per acre at a cost of $1.39 per gallon — essentially competitive with petroleum.

JMax 100 is the result of more than three years of research at the company's Biofuels Genetic Resource Center, resulting in the largest and most diverse library of Jatropha genetic material in the world. The center now contains more than 6,000 unique accessions and an array of Jatropha genetic traits, including enhanced fruit yield, pest resistance, soil adaptation, improved flowering capabilities, uniformity, and improved harvesting, all of which enhance profitability per acre of the crop.

In January 2010, SG Biofuels joined with Life Technologies Corporation to sequence the Jatropha curcas genome, which would allow for rapidly introducing new traits for increasing oil yields.

At the 15th Annual National Ethanol Conference in Orlando, Florida, two Danish firms announced new enzymes that can reliably convert cellulosic biomass into ethanol at costs close to $2 per gallon — near parity with gasoline:

• Novozymes announced its Cellic CTec2 enzymes, its first commercial enzyme for cellulosic ethanol. The company says that a combination of CTec2 and its existing HTec2 enzymes cuts enzyme costs for cellulosic ethanol production to $0.50 per gallon — an 80 percent drop over the last two years and a longstanding price target for industry. At $0.50, enzymes are one-quarter of the total levelized cost for cellulosic ethanol at $2.00 per gallon, very close to cost parity with corn ethanol, and with gasoline from oil at $75 per barrel. Novozyme has tested the enzyme cocktail with corn cobs, corn stalks, sugarcane bagasse, wood chips, and wheat straw in its pilot and demonstration plants, and at the facilities of its partners: Greenfield Ethanol Inc., Inbicon, Lignol Energy Corp., Poet LLC, ICM and Sinopec. The company says that largescale commercial plants will be onstream in 2011
• Genencor introduced its latest generation of cellulosic enzymes, Accellerase Duet, which enhances the beta-glycosidase and cellulose activity of its Accellerase 1500 system. The new enzyme's higher activity allows the dosing levels to be cut three-fold, while at the same time producing higher sugar and biofuel yields. The new enzyme is employed as a whole broth formulation, which provides nutrients to organisms for fermenting the biomass but also lowers the chemical load into the process. The enzyme works well with all feedstock and pretreatment combinations, but is particularly effective on pretreated substrates with high hemicellulose contents. Danisco has a joint venture with DuPont Co. for producing cellulosic ethanol

A primary market for Novozymes and Genencor will be the US, where government guidelines require 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol to be produced annually by 2022. If enzyme costs drop to $0.20–$0.25 per gallon, the US enzyme market could reach $3.2 billion.