Spotlight nordic Adv ancements in Transportation Biofuels The Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the world’s single largest renewable transportation fuel producer is currently Finnish oil refiner, Nes te. With four production units – two in Finland, one in the Netherlands and one in Singapore – the company has a total installed annual production capacity in excess of 2 million tonnes of renewable transportation fuels. A hydrogenation process, resulting in a “renewable fuel” or hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) rather than a “biofuel”, Neste’s proprietary NEXBTL process is both feedstock agnostic and end-product flexible. The process can convert almost any form of organic fat or oil feedstock into renewable diesel, or with some process adjustments into renewable jet fuel. At the end of July it was announced that Neste, along with two other US based renewable fuel producers – Renewable Energy Group (REG), one of the largest producers of biodiesel in the US with ten facilities, and Solazyme, a company that produces a blended fuel made from microalgae and other renewable feedstock – had each signed three-year fuel supply agreements with US based global logistics major UPS. The deals secure UPS’s access to up to 46 million gallons of renewable diesel fuel in order to meet the company’s objectives to move more than 12 percent of its purchased ground fuel from conventional diesel and gasoline fuel in the US to alternative fuels by the end of 2017. According to Neste its NEXBTL renewable diesel will be used by UPS’s fleet in the US starting mid-2015 and the mutual intention is to expand the cooperation globally. One of the oldest specialty chemical companies in the Nordics, Sweden-based Pers torp also has one of Europe’s most modern and energy efficient biodiesel esterification plants in Stenungsund, Sweden. Recently it acquired an idled 50 000 tonne per annum RME biodiesel plant in Fredrikstad, Norway making it the largest biodiesel producer in the Nordics. – We have ambitious growth plans for biofuels, 30 Bioenergy International No 81, 5-2015 now and in the future, and we see how demand will increase to meet global climate challenges. In order to grow with the market we need to secure more production capacity, and with the Norwegian facility we can combine Perstorp’s unique expertise with existing equipment. With the new facility we can almost double our current production capacity, said Lars Lind, Vice President Biofuels, Perstorp in a statement. In June it was revealed that Perstorp had signed a long-term off-take agreement with Icelandic renewable methanol producer Carbon Recycling Intern ational (CRI). Called “Vulcanol” the methanol is produced at CRI’s pioneering “Emissions-to-Liquid” (ETL) production facility in Svartsengi, Iceland. CRI’s proprietary process uses waste carbon dioxide from a geothermal power plant and hydrogen derived through electrolysis of water using renewable electricity. This makes the CRI plant the world’s first liquid renewable transport fuel produced from non-biological sources of renewable energy. Founded in 2006, the CRI plant began commercial production in 2012, producing around 2 million litres of renewable methanol per annum. It has been expanded to 5 million litres or 4 000 tonnes per annum production capacity, making it the largest plant of its kind. Earlier this year Geely Group announced plans to invest a total of US$45.5 million in CRI to become a major shareholder of CRI. The intention is to collaborate on the deployment of renewable methanol fuel production technology in China and explore the development and deployment of 100 percent methanol-fuelled vehicles in China, Iceland and other countries. Geely Group is China’s leading international automotive group and consists of a number of automotive brands, including world-renowned Swedish automaker Volvo Car Corporation, the United Kingdom’s iconic London Taxi Company, and the Geely Auto brand, which markets cars in 35 countries across the world. CRI also has a partnership with Cofely Fabricom (ENGIE Group), one of the leading multidiscipline engineering, project management and construction organisations in the UK to engineer and build solutions based on CRI’s powerto methanol technology which can be deployed widely, such as in chemical, power and steel industries. Last month the world’s first renewable methanol filling pump for electric vehicles (EVs) was opened in Aalborg, Denmark by fuel retailers OK. Supplied by CRI the 100 percent renewable methanol fuel pump will serve EVs fitted with methanol fuel-cell range extenders provided by Danish company Serenergy in a project supported by OK, Hamag and Serenergy in collaboration with the Danish Energy Agency. An EV with a direct methanol fuel cell range extender converts methanol into electricity onboard. Sweden’s largest oil refiners Preem have also been active in producing renewable diesel and low blend gasoline fuels. With a refining capacity of more than 18 million m³ of crude oil per annum at its two refineries it is the largest fuel company in the country. In 2011 it launched Evolution Diesel, the world’s first renewable diesel fuel based on refined tall oil, a residue from the pulp industry. In June this year it launched a gasoline version, Evolution Bensin, a 95-octane fuel with 5 percent ethanol and 5 percent refined tall oil. The difference is that the ethanol is blended whereas the tall oil is refined together with the crude. A world first, it is entirely compatible and blends with other 95-octane fuels on the market but has a 10 percent bio-component instead of 5 percent. Norway and Sweden) have a general reputation of being soft-spoken, pragmatic and environmentally aware. Companies are often perceived as having an entreprenuerial spirit of ”co-opertition”. In context of advanced transportation biofuels it certainly seems that there is much more walking than talking.
Bioenergy no 5 September 2015
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