The market
The global biofuels market was estimated at $ 82.7 billion in 2011 and should double to 185.3 billion dollars in 2021. In 2012, global biofuels production will reach 118 billion liters to reach 155 billion in 2015, Against 49 billion in 2006. By 2021, total production should reach 250 billion liters. This represents an annual growth rate made up of 15 to 20 %, which increases the market share of transport fuel from 3 to 8.5 %, or around 40 % of global growth in the sector's production. According to estimates by 2030, up to 30 % of the fuels used in transport will be biofuels. Ethanol is expected to retain its dominant position in the sector. In 2007, twenty oil producing countries provided fuel to more than 200 countries. By 2020, we expect 200 countries to have one or other biofuels production program. It could be considered the greatest conversion of a global industry to a local business and development platform. The first generation of biofuels was in competition with foods such as corn, soy, sugar cane, rapeseed and palm oil. The second generation of raw materials for biofuels focuses on alternative agricultural and forestry raw materials. Brazil has the greatest diversity of renewable fuels sources: Babassu (palm) and native cupuass (cocoa), soy, castor oil, oil palm, cotton, filnesol, coconut, peanuts, rapeseed, algae, cellulose, cane to sugar. Several countries have adopted the Jatropha Curcas, originally from Latin America. The most important initiatives are in India (+ 1 million hectares), Mozambique (300,000 ha), Indonesia (200,000 ha) and Brazil (100,000 ha). India has put aside 60 million hectares of non -agricultural land and intends to replace 20 % of biofuels with Jatropha. In Colombia, Las Gaviotas was the pioneer of fuel production from pine (turpentine) which has now drawn the attention of Bhutan which, by its constitution, reserved 60 % of its land for primary forest, mainly PINÉDES. By 2012, mixing mandates exist in at least 38 countries around the world, and 29 regional governments have preceded their national or federal decision -makers and imposed a mixture with biofuels on their local market. The United States, Brazil and the EU represent 85 % of world production in 2010. The market has no clear leaders and many are looking to position themselves: Neste (Finland) in Singapore and Tyson-Conoco In the United States, the largest facilities, respectively, with 250 and 200 million gallons of annual production capacity, indicating an increasing trend in scale economies. On the other side of the spectrum, engineers have designed competitive biodiesel processors on a small scale capable of producing 2,000 liters of biofuels per day from raw materials obtained locally, considerably reducing the carbon footprint caused by transport. With 150 small installations installed in the past two years, the company Extreme Biodiesel (California, USA) helps the creation of local cooperatives that meet the needs of individuals who combine each other and companies wishing to move on to renewable energies.
Innovation
Biofuels have a high energy efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions (-78%), sulfur (-100%), carbon monoxide (-48%), particles (-47%) and hydrocarbons (-85%) . It is well established that corn fuels cannot survive on the market without massive subsidies of the American government. The industry is looking for improved conversion routes, in particular thanks to the introduction of the concept of biraffinery (see case 6). The ethanol sector is aware that for each liter of fuel, it rejects 10 liters of liquid waste. Consequently, a concentration of large -scale installations easily tests the local water supply. The nine Cali ethanol factories (Colombia) are looking for other uses for their wastewater. We are very concerned about the fact that the land cultivated for the production of biofuels are entered or escape the control of local rural communities and that farmers undergo pressure to grow large areas of monocultures without worrying about energy inputs, Local food supply, water resources and health problems. Dr. Sean Simpson has a vast university career in biology and biochemistry. Born in the United Kingdom and now residing in New Zealand, he started his studies with a baccalaureate in science from the University of Teesside (United Kingdom), with a specialization in biotechnology. He then obtained a master's degree in phytogenetic engineering from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), crowning his university studies by a doctorate in plant biochemistry of the University of York (United Kingdom). While he first ventured into the production of drugs at Hoffmann La Roche in Switzerland and Sandoz in Austria, he then did research on cellular structures at the University of Tsukuba in Japan before settling In New Zealand where he worked with Genesis on the conversion of hard wood into ethanol. He then started looking for a microbe capable of using carbon for gas as a source of energy and converting this carbon energy into fuel. His research conducted him in writing a newspaper in which he highlighted certain bacteria found in the digestive path of a special rabbit race which could potentially convert waste into fuel. The rabbits digest in a unique way, first by chewing 300 cycles, then, after a first extraction of nutrients in the small intestine, the food residues are supported in the Cæcum which is filled with enzymes and bacteria which decompose and recondition the remains of food, ready to be re-insured; These are the caecotrophies. The incredible and unique mixture of microorganisms in the CCUM was an inspiration to embark on the next adventure: how to produce fuel from waste. For Dr. Simpson, it was clear that the first and second generation biofuels directly compete with food or agricultural land to produce food. Although the second generation is more diversified and more sophisticated in its approach than the simple use of foods intended for human consumption as a fuel resource, it remains a use of land which could otherwise have been put into alternative production such as hemp or Nettle. Mr. Simpson has imagined a new fermentation which captures gas rich in CO and converts carbon into fuels and chemicals. He thinks in terms of bioraffine factories and studies the potential for conversing industries and agriculture waste flows which are today contamination of air, soil and water, endangering climate stability. It offers an entirely new vision of how carbon capture could become the basis of a renewable fuel strategy. Its initial calculations indicate that this technology with possible production of more than 400 billion liters per year has the potential to have a material impact on the future supply of transport fuel, while generating new raw materials for industry chemical.
The first cash flow
An analysis of the steel industry indicated that emissions from the manufacture of 1.4 billion tonnes of steel per year could be converted by this new fermentation process compressed in 115 billion liters of ethanol. Mr. Simpson then co-founded Lanzatech in New Zealand thanks to the support of some local providential investors. A pilot factory was established in 2008 at the Bluescope Sterery in New Zealand, which successfully converted the CO and the related gases to 55,000 first gallons of ethanol. This first experience motivated Baosteel, based in China, to set up a demonstration factory increasing production to 380,000 liters of ethanol per year. This factory has been operational since fall 2011. The available data was convincing enough to pass the operations of this small unit to a commercial installation capable of converting residual gases of the steel industry to around 250 million liters per year. Providential investors are now replaced by institutional and industrial partners in Malaysia, India, China and the United States. Lanzatech has opened offices in the United States and China.
The opportunity
Although Europe is undoubtedly the leader in biofuels, Lanzatech has extended its cooperation programs with India (Indian Oil, Jindal Steel and Power), Malaysia (Petronas) and Japan (Mitsui & Co). The successful exploitation of demonstration factories and subsequent funding enabled Lanzatech to obtain the title of business of the year in Asia-Pacific "and Dr. Simpson was recognized as a young biotechnologist of the year. Potential developments are not limited to rejections of steelworks, Lanzatech is ready to extend to waste flows from the production of oil coke and the treatment of agricultural waste. An assessment of 1.3 billion tonnes of wasted biomass just in the United States could eclipse once and for all the use of corn as a biofuel, with an estimated production potential at 720 billion liters per year and without billions of subsidies necessary for corn -based ethanol. Dr. Simpson does not limit his portfolio of opportunities, and it seems that the Lanzatech team is just beginning (conclusion of each of the Gunter fables). He has demonstrated the ability to use CO2 in a continuous fermentation process to synthesize acetate. Then, there are massive flows of solid waste from forest and agricultural residues, municipal waste (see case 51), and even coal treatment waste which could be treated like the emissions of the industry of the steel. The way in which processes engineers have converted the concepts of Dr. Simpson includes the recovery of process water, while all residues are raw materials for the chemical industry, just as co-products are derived from oil in a refinery. A process by which solid emissions and waste are converted by biological fermentations inspired by natural processes in combustible and raw materials without subsidies or food competition is a concrete example of the blue economy. Although investments for an installation are above the means of small individual entrepreneurs, it is clear that any country with the extraction of coal, agro-industry and the production of steel could adopt this technology which will soon have competing bacteria creating a competition platform among the Bluefuels.
