International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 39 – Commercialising conventional and advanced liquid fuels from biomass

Dr Les A Edye

National Task Leader

Director, BioIndustry Partners Pty Ltd

Bioenergy Australia Quarterly Conference, December 2014

BioIndustry Partners

IEA Bioenergy Task 39 – Commercializing Conventional and

Advanced Liquid Biofuels from Biomass

Objectives:

• To facilitate commercialization of conventional and

advanced liquid biofuels

• Collaboration among 16 countries

• Ensure information dissemination and R&D collaboration

• Analyze biofuel technology, policy, and markets

• Report to IEA Bioenergy and task members

• Internet site, News letters, Commissioned reports

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Catalyze Cooperative Research

State of Technology &

Trends Policy, Markets

Deployment and Information

Sharing

http://www.Task39.org

POLICY AND IMPLEMENTATION

Policy, Markets, Sustainability & Implementation

SUSTAINABILITY

John Neeft FUEL MARKETS/DEMO DATABASE Dina Bacovsky/Michael Persson EUROPE/AFRICA Anders Holmgren/Claus Felby/ Emile van Zyl PACIFIC RIM Ian Suckling/Shiro Saka/Jin Suk Lee NORTH AMERICA/SOUTH AMERICA Warren Mabee/Paulo Barbosa

IMPLEMENTATION AGENDA

Warren Mabee/Susan van Dyk

Key outputs: — Demonstration plants

database (ongoing) — Biofuel markets and

supply and value chains (i.e., feedstock supply and trade)

— Sustainability of advanced biofuels

— Biofuels roadmap — Implementation

agendas (ongoing) — Expansion of biofuels in

Asia - China, India Also: Networking, interact

within IEA

Reports and Documents

• The potential and challenges of drop-in biofuels (2014)

• Advanced Biofuels – GHG Emissions and Energy Balances (2012)

• Status of Advanced Biofuels Demonstration Facilities in 2012. Also translated

to Chinese

• IEA Bus Report-Joint AMF, VTT with contributions from Task 39 (2012)

• Algal Biofuels – Joint Task 39 and AMF Exec Summary (2011)

• Biodiesel GHG Emissions: Past, Present and Future (2011)

• IEA Bioenergy Annual Report (2011)

• Bioenergy, Land use and Climate Change Mitigation (2010)

• EU Report on Indirect Land Use Change (2010)

• Current Status and Potential of Algal Biofuels (2010)

• Potential impacts of bioenergy policy: suggestions for N-S linkages (2008)

• Biofuels in the European Union: An overview on the EU biofuels policy (2007)

• Worldwide fuels standards: Overview of specifications and regulations (2006)

• Ethanol from lignocellulosics: Policy options to support production (2005)

• Review on biodiesel standardization world-wide (2004)

• Other reports on sustainability, R&D gaps & market barriers, case studies

and overviews

Current triennium

planned reports

• Advanced biofuels demonstration plants

• Co-products and integration in biorefineries (with Task 42)

• GHG/Energy balance and leveraging potential of conventional

vs. advanced biofuels (with Task 38)

• Updated on algal biofuels commercialization

• Status of developments in emerging economies

• Spatial analysis of feedstock resources (with Task 43)

• Implementation Agendas Update

• Biofuel capacity at country level (with AMF)

• Impact of transport biofuels policy on existing industries (e.g.

food, stationary power) at the country and global levels

http://task39.org/publications/

Definition of drop-in biofuel

• Liquid bio-hydrocarbon like, oxygen-free and functionally

equivalent to petroleum fuels – Hydrotreated Vegetable Oils (HVO)

– Hydrotreated Pyrolysis Oils (HPO)

– Fischer Tropsch Liquids (FT liquids)

• Oxygen Challenge

– Oxygen is present in biomass in the form of hydroxyls, esters,

and ethers

– Can oxidize fuel components, reactors and pipeline metallurgy

and cause corrosion

– Oxygen content reduces energy density

drop-in

fuel

Technology pathways to drop-in fuels

sugars

syngas

biooil

lipids

fermentation

catalytic

conversion

upgrading

hydrolysis

gasification

pyrolysis

oilseed crop

Autotrophic

algae

sugar crop

Su

n p

ho

ton

s, w

ater

, C

O2

and

n

utr

ien

ts

Bio

mas

s fi

ber

Hy

dro

pro

cess

ing

animal

digestion

Higher alcohols

(e.g. Gevo)

Isoprenoids

(e.g. Amyris)

Blending

FT liquids

(e.g. CHOREN)

HPO

(e.g. ENSYN)

materials

processes

LEGEND

CONVENTIONAL INTERMEDIATES

12

Bio

T

herm

o

Ole

o

Source of Hydrogen

• >90 % of commercial H2 comes from steam

reforming natural gas

• Higher oxygen content → more CO2 emissions

associated with hydrotreating

• CH4 → C + 2H2

Steam reforming C

O2

CH4 H2

ENERGY INTENSIVE PROCESS!!

Hydrotreating and Hydrocracking

• Hydrotreating (Removes sulphur impurities as H2S)

• Hydrocracking (breaks heavy oil to lighter molecules)

Heavy crude molecule

Diesel range molecule Gasoline range molecule

14

Competition for Hydrogen inputs

• Heavy oil processing

• Alberta

• Venezuela

• Ammonia industry

• Fertilizer

• Other uses

• Drop-in biofuels?

15

Purvin & Gertz forecast for world crude oil quality (Source: data from EIA)

Competition for hydrogen

– crude oil quality declining

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1990 2000 2010 2020

Million b

arr

els

per

day

Heavy Sour

Light Sour

Light Sweet

“Sour” = High Sulfur

16

Many examples of commercial biofuel flights

Most based on oleochemicals, e.g.

US Navy: Sept 2011 Solazyme algae oil and palm oil

Continental Airlines: Nov 2011 Solazyme algae oil

Alaska Airlines: Jan 2012 tallow and algae

Lufthansa: July 2011 Jatropha, Camelina

Finnair: July 2011 Used Cooking Oils

17

Demand for renewable aviation fuel –

strong driver for drop-in fuel

Commercial drop-in biofuel companies

• All based on oleochemical

– Neste Oil: 630,000,000 gallons diesel

from palm oil

– Dynamic Fuels: 75,000,000 gallons diesel

from animal fat

Neste Oil facility, Rotterdam

18

Major scale up challenges for each platform

• Pyrolysis

– Hydrogen

– Hydrotreating catalyst

– Gasification

– Capital / scale

– Feedstock /yields

• HVO oleochemical

– Feedstock

• Refinery insertion challenges

Sources: Jones et al. 2009;

Swanson et al. 2010;

Pearlson et al. 2011 19

Summary

• Oleochemical: commercial now and less H2-dependent

with considerable potential for growth (feedstock

challenges?)

• Thermochemical well suited for long term drop-in biofuels

• H2 and catalyst challenges (Pyrolysis), Scale challenges

(Gasification)

• Leveraging on oil refineries: more challenging than expected

• Biochemical “drop-in” products more valuable in rapidly

growing chemicals markets

• Accessing cheap/renewable Hydrogen will be a key

challenge for both drop-in biofuels and crude oil of

decreasing quality

20

Implementation Agendas

IEA Bioenergy Task 39 messages • biofuels industries exist only where there is political will,

• they require enduring market shaping policies,

• they benefit from early financial support that de-risks new industry

start-up,

• once established a biofuels industry can be profitable and make

significant contributions to GDP, and

• they are/can be good for the environment.

Australian circumstances • significant underutilised feedstock resources, and

• as it stands currently, we are failing to thrive and will likely regret not

moving earlier to establish this industry.

Task Group

• ARENA requirement for information

desimination

• What story do we tell the rest of the world?

• Should we seek to influence government?

History of plastic materials

• 1600 BC – Natural rubber - Mayans make a rubber balls

• 1000 BC – Shellac & Beeswax – many uses

• 1736 – Natural rubber brought to Europe

• 1839 - Vulcanization of natural rubber latex

• 1850s – Distillation of oil to produce kerosene & paraffin wax

• 1860 - Parkesine – nitrocellulose – made from cotton

• 1907 – Bakelite

• 1910 – Synthetic rubber (styrene-butadiene)

• 1933 – Polyethylene

• 1941 - Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)

• 1954 - Polypropylene

Next meeting: January 2014, Berlin

Les Edye 0408185308

ledye@bigpond.net.au

l.edye@qut.edu.au

BioIndustry Partners

http://www.task39.org/Home.aspx