On April 17, 2008, the world’s reportedly first commercial biomass-to-liquid (BtL) plant opened in Freiberg, Saxony in Eastern Germany. The owner company Choren Industries GmbH projects that it will take 8 to 12 months for the plant to reach its full annual capacity of 18 million liters. The plant will run on forest residue wood and waste timber. At full capacity it will use 65,000 MT of wood dry matter as feedstock. Investment costs amounted to 100 million Euro, including a 35 million Euro subsidy from the state of Saxony.
While BtL can be produced from cellulosic material, it is distinctly different from cellulosic ethanol, another second generation biofuel.
The Choren project is the most commercially advanced of several research and development activities in Germany for BtL production. Choren produces BtL with the Carbo-V ® process and calls its fuel “SunDiesel®”. Choren cooperates with the car manufacturers Daimler and Volkswagen which have tested the fuel in their cars.
Other activities exist at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (Research Center Karlsruhe, FZK) with the bioliq ® process, also in cooperation with Volkswagen. A pilot plant is currently being constructed at the FZK.
Choren is contemplating building an industrial scale plant with an annual capacity of 270
million liters/200,000 MT (71 million gallons) in the city of Schwedt in the state of
Brandenburg. The final decision is projected for 2009 and subject to the company’s assessment of the projected profitability. If built, the plant could start operating in 2012 or
2013. Currently, production costs for BtL are still higher than those for fossil fuels, thus the
use of BtL depends on tax incentives. However, the German energy tax law currently
provides a tax exemption for second generation fuels only until 2015. As a result, the period
for amortization would be rather short. Consequently, the final decision whether to
implement the plans will likely depend on amendments in the German energy tax law to
prolong support for second generation biofuels.
BtL is very popular among German politicians who hope it will help them achieve their
ambitious biofuel goals and alleviate the food versus fuel debate at the same time . However,
while the opening of the Freiberg plant is a milestone, BtL is still in its infancy and it is still a
long way to go for large scale production of BtL in Germany.
Because of its technical specification BtL is also popular with the car manufacturers and
mineral oil companies, which are more likely to support the use of BtL then cellulosic ethanol
for example.
Future economic viability of BtL production will depend on feedstock costs, logistic costs to
move the biomass to the facility, prices for competing products such as fossil fuels, future
technical progress and reduction of conversion costs, and last not least government support,
for example in the form of tax incentives or mandate.
BtL is a second generation biofuel that is produced from biomass. Unlike first generation biofuels such as bioethanol or biodiesel, BTL production uses the
whole plant, while biodiesel and bioethanol currently only use parts of the plant. This results
in a smaller area requirement for the same amount of energy compared to biodiesel or bioethanol.
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