by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) A mere “The Year in Rewind” as we reach the end of 2014? Not the intrepidSS Digest! Instead, we dust off our crystal ball and peer into tomorrowland.
1. The Year of Supercritical, and thermal conversion. We’ve been hearing more and more about dissolving biomass, either to extract sugars or to extract an intermediate which can be used to make drop-in fuels.
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2. Oil price recovering to $75. Despite fears of $35 oil, the overall oil market will return to the $70s, as global oil demand grows “by 900,000 barrels a day, as the IEA predicts, to 93.3 million barrels per day.
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3. Asia, Asia, Asia. The trend lines from 2014 are unmistakable — “Asia is the new Brazil” as a combination of strategic investment, high natural gas prices, daunting CO2 emissions and abundant biomass put a bigger and bigger focus on the Far East.
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4. Organic acids rock. Though projects aimed at replacing hydrocarbons will struggle against the headwinds of low oil prices, projects that utilize organic acids (e.g. succinic, malic, adipic, dodecanedoic, glucaric, polylactic) will continue to utilize a high percentage of the original biomass (after bioprocessing), and are more likely to remain cost competitive during 2015.
5. Scandinavia rises. Most attention that goes to Europe is focused on the technology development side, because so many important companies and researchers are based there. But we see an increasing number of projects being developed in Scandinavia, …
6. Consolidation. We saw a lot of activity by REG this year — completing the acquisition of the Geismar renewable diesel project, acquiring LS9 and moving into the EU in Q4 — we see more consolidation in 2015 as many companies with great technologies will conclude that it is better to become a part of a commercial-scale enterprise than continue to fight to finance first commercial projects in tough financing times. …
7. Aviation advancing. After several years of testing and certification, we see the first commercial-scale facilities breaking ground in 2015 with production beginning in 2016. …
8. Big ups, downs for butanol. We expect a big year for biobutanol — at least more one player unveils its timeline for commercial scale, and we would not be surprised to see a groundbreaking on a new plant. …
9. Mandates stabilize in 2015. Despite predictions that the US RFS2 and the EU’s mandates will be overturned, or curtailed, we see lower oil prices taking pressure off gasoline market demand and deflating some pressure off blend wall concerns and “RFS is broken” arguments. …
10. New loan guarantee wave. We expect to see a new wave of loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy — as news of the massive loan portfolio profits realized through its LG program, and it’s below-market-average project default rate — begin to counter polarized political opinions formed by the collapse of Solyndra. …READ MORE