One of the world’s leading science companies has created a grain-based fuel it thinks blows ethanol out of the water, leading some ethanol boosters to doubt their product.
DuPont has entered into an agreement with BP, a petroleum company with a global network of 25,000 service stations, to commercialize biobutanol, a new biofuel that overcomes many of ethanol’s shortcomings.
The two companies are busy converting the first ethanol fermentation facility in the United Kingdom into a biobutanol plant, which should produce commercial quantities of the fuel by late 2007.
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And that plant is already outdated.
DuPont officials said a further streamlining of the conversion process should lead to additional global capacity and broader commercialization of the company’s revolutionary technology before 2010.
News of an improved biofuel being developed and marketed by two global heavyweights has caused some navel gazing on the part of ethanol promoters.
“If butanol is a bigger and better opportunity, are we doing the right thing here?” wondered Ashley O’Sullivan, president of Ag-West Bio Inc., a catalyst in the development of Saskatchewan’s bio-economy.
“Is ethanol the eight-track and butanol the DVD technology?”
Those were the questions that popped into his mind after hearing a presentation by John Fisher, new business development manager for
DuPont Canada, who was speaking at the third annual Bio-Logical Futures conference in Saskatoon.
DuPont has set a goal of generating $6 billion US in additional revenues from sustainable products and services by 2015. A big part of that revenue is expected to come from its biobutanol initiative, said Fisher.
The new fuel is easier to blend with regular gas than ethanol. It does not require petroleum companies to make modifications to blending facilities, storage tanks or retail gas pumps.
It can be blended at higher concentrations in standard engines, up to 16 percent versus 10 percent for ethanol.
And it has a British thermal unit value that is within five percent of gasoline compared to a 35 percent discount for ethanol, which means a higher energy content and better fuel economy for consumers, especially at high blending rates.
The only thing holding the technology back was expensive production costs, but Fisher said DuPont has addressed that issue.
“We see it being cost competitive with ethanol,” he said.
Lionel LaBelle, president of the Saskatchewan Ethanol Development Council, has heard the same kind of hype about cellulose-based ethanol being the fuel of the future but has yet to see one commercial plant built in North America.
“I would argue that (biobutanol) is five to 10 years out before they make any kind of effect in the marketplace,” he said. And when it arrives it will not dethrone ethanol, contends LaBelle. It will just be one of a number of renewable fuel products vying for farmers’ grain.
“I’m not concerned about DuPont’s position at all,” he said.
Fisher also downplayed the threat to the ethanol industry.
“I’m not sure the market necessarily will be only butanol. There may be situations where ethanol will make more sense,” he said.
DuPont isn’t hedging its bets one way or the other. The company has partnered with biorefining firm Broin to commercialize its cellulose-based ethanol technology. A demonstration plant should be operational by 2010.
But O’Sullivan said given biobutanol’s distinct advantages and the players that are behind the venture, it is at least worth thinking about its impact on the existing biofuel landscape.
“We just want to be careful as we move forward that we’re all moving in the right direction with the right technology,” he said.
If butanol becomes the biofuel of choice for petroleum companies, existing ethanol plants across North America’s grain belt can be retrofitted to biobutanol facilities.
The good news is those refurbished plants would require an equivalent amount of grain.
The bad news for western Canadian farmers is that DuPont’s initial focus will be corn, which is the staple of its Pioneer Hi-Bred International seed business.
But Fisher said biobutanol plants are able to use a wide variety of feedstocks.
“I think we’ve got an opportunity in Western Canada for a wheat-based biobutanol,” he said.
