New Zealand Herald, New Zealand
03-14-07
Ethanol wrong biofuel option say US experts
By Christine Nikiel
Jeff Stroburg says US demand for biodiesel will be near four billion litres by 2012.
Photo / Brett Phibbs
Jeff Stroburg says US demand for biodiesel will be near four billion litres by 2012.
Photo / Brett Phibbs
New Zealand's focus on ethanol production as a replacement for fossil fuels
could be misplaced, visiting US experts say.
Within 15 years, the biofuel of choice would not be ethanol-based, Professor
Basil Nikolau of the Iowa State University said at a biotech conference in
Auckland yesterday.
Nikolau, who specialises in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, said
biodiesel, made from oils, was more like petroleum than ethanol.
And problems in the production and transportation of ethanol created extra costs,
he said.
Ethanol could be diluted in water, and so could not be transported through
pipelines.
And producing the biofuel used more energy than it created.
Jeff Stroburg, chief executive of Renewable Energy Group, said demand for
biodiesel in the US had grown from 94 million litres in 2004 to nearly 760 million
litres last year.
He predicted that by 2010, demand would reach have reached 3.8 billion litres,
far more than the demand for ethanol or petroleum-based diesel.
But Jim Watson, founder of Genesis Research, which is conducting a large
ethanol experiment in Taupo through its subsidiary BioJoule, said the American
view was "biased".
Corn was a lucrative crop grown in the US for home consumption and export and
there was competition for the land needed to grow corn either as a food or to
produce ethanol.
People were not keen to see land used for growing food taken over to grow crops
for biofuels.
For that reason, BioJoule focused on producing cellulosic ethanol produced from
woody material that could be grown on "marginal" land.
To replace diesel supply with biodiesel required quality land.
"If New Zealand did this we'd have the same problem as the US - using highquality land might mean replacing a food crop," Watson said.
The world needed biodiesel and ethanol produced from a range of sources,
Watson said.
In February the Government said that from next year it would force oil companies
to meet a biofuels quota of 0.53 per cent of total fuel sales, rising to 3.4 per cent
by 2012.
Genesis Research offshoot Biojoule is seeking $5 million for a trial plant that will
produce ethanol from shrubby willows it is growing near Taupo.
Local researcher Scion and state-owned AgResearch have teamed up with San
Diego company Diversa to study how to use enzymes to convert wood into
sugars that can be fermented and refined into ethanol.
Genesis, Scion and Diversa have said the forestry industry could provide ethanol
for the three billion litres of petrol New Zealand uses each year.