Biofuels Innovations & Startups Report

Comprehensive Showcase of Global Biofuels Innovations & Startups

From CLIMAFIX, leader in climate innovation intelligence

Biofuels Introduction:

Biofuels typically refer to liquid fuels produced from biomass. Biofuels are of high importance mainly owing to their use as transportation fuels, to partially or fully substitute gasoline and diesel. The two prominent biofuels in this context are ethanol (for gasoline replacement) and biodiesel (for diesel replacement).

More than 100 million tons of ethanol are produced globally every year and over 30 million tons of biodiesel. These form only a fraction of the total oil used for transport every year – about 4 billion tons of oil is produced every year, with a large share used for transport. While their current contribution is small, biofuels constitute a fast-growing market, especially ethanol, with countries such as Brazil running 50% of their transport on ethanol. Other countries aggressively pursuing biofuels include the US, many EU countries, and India – most of these countries use only about 10% of biofuels in their transport fleet.

Ethanol is especially popular in countries that are large producers of sugar and corn – these can be used to make ethanol. Countries that are large-scale producers of vegetable oil (palm oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, peanut oil) have the potential for producing biodiesel.

The first-generation production technology for both ethanol and biodiesel is quite well established. However, second and third-generation technologies for these two fuels are still undergoing significant innovations and evolutions.

Similar to the use of biomass for heating or power, the use of biofuels in transport constitutes a net zero application of the fuel, as the CO₂ emitted during biofuel use was originally captured by the biomass feedstock during its growth.

Biofuels provide a partial or in some cases even full replacement alternative for gasoline and diesel, and in gasoline or diesel blends, they can be used without any major changes to the vehicles or the support infrastructure. However, biofuels have seen significant challenges in scaling, owing to the non-availability of suitable feedstock in large quantities. In addition, the use of food crops (sugarcane, corn, palm oil, etc.) has resulted in the food vs. fuel debate. Large-scale cultivation of crops such as palm for biofuels have also resulted in significant environmental and ecological challenges in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

Innovations in the biofuels domain during the 2020-2030 period can be expected in 2nd generation (especially cellulosic ethanol) and 3rd generation of biofuels (especially biomass to liquid tech), scaling up of energy crop cultivation, pyrolysis, carbon capture at ethanol fermentation facilities, and vehicle engine customizations for higher-proportion biofuel use.

The Biofuels Innovations & Startups Report provides insights on the following: