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Finnish Collaboration Pioneering Commercial-Scale Production of Advanced Biofuels
John Greene : May 8, 2015
As consumers continue to become more aware of the need for diversified renewable energy resources, global opportunities abound. On a legislative level, the European Union (EU) remains at work towards the goal of fulfilling 20% of its total energy needs with renewable resources by 2020, a task made easier by incentivizing companies engaged in renewable energy production. But the groundswell of support on a consumer basis is perhaps best illustrated in recent data out of the UK, where 78% of the populace supports the use of renewable energy and, more specifically, 63% favor biomass technology. For St1 Biofuels Oy, a pioneering Finnish bioethanol producer, these statistics are encouraging.
St1 and strategic partner Novozymes recently made an announcement about the planned construction of a cellulosic biofuels plant that will be co-located on a sawmill site in Kajaani, Finland. The plant, owned by North European Bio Tech Oy (NEB), which is making a roughly €40 million investment in the project, will use softwood sawdust from the mill as feedstock. St1 expects the endeavor to be fully-operational by mid-2016, at which time the plant’s output will be leased to North European Oil Trade Oy (NEOT).
While there is no shortage of EU-based renewable energy installations and enterprises scrambling to get ahead of the pack, the latest St1 project marks two important developments for the cellulosic and advanced biofuels sector:
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The Kajaani facility will be the first in the world to produce bioethanol from softwood sawdust.
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The plant has real potential for commercial-scale production of advanced biofuels made from wood.
Finnish Forestry Leading the Way
Finland is a major hub for the European forestry industry and, as such, has a perpetual abundance of sawdust. Note the volume of the country’s forest-industry exports in 2013 in the graph below. While St1’s proprietary process technology utilizes wood as its feedstock, the company has chosen an ideal site to construct the new plant. Sebastian Søderberg, Vice President of Biomass Conversion at Novozymes states, “Northern Europe has a large industrial sector based on forestry, and this opens up many possibilities. The biomass and specialist knowledge is available here, and the long-term political framework is in place in Finland, which all works together to enable the commercial production of cellulosic ethanol based on softwood.”
To produce bioethanol from softwood sawdust, St1 will utilize its exclusive Cellunolix® technology coupled with enzyme expertise from Novozymes. The process uses steam-explosion to open the cellulosic structures of the sawdust particles, followed by enzymatic hydrolysis to extract the sugars for ethanol fermentation. According to St1, this process “… cuts the production costs and enables cost efficient logistics and limited capital risk exposure.”
Commercial Viability and Outlook
While everything about the new St1 project is innovative, the potential for substantial outputs of advanced biofuel derived from wood is especially promising. Initial production targets are in the range of 10 million liters (2.7 million gallons) per year, but the technology can be scaled up to produce roughly 50 to 100 million liters per year. If St1 is successful at hitting these commercial-scale goals from a single site, they will effectively create a worldwide benchmark for advanced biofuels production. Mika Aho, Managing Director at St1 Biofuels notes, “I am pleased to have Novozymes as enzyme technology supplier. The collaboration is key in optimizing our production costs that is one of the key elements in commercial cellulosic ethanol production.”
Based on the siting of the new facility and the planning and development that is going into the project, it is clear that the St1 collaboration is focused on long-term production and fulfillment; the symbiotic relationship with the sawmill offers cost savings before production even begins. Operating under EU statutes, there is tremendous potential in this project.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the advanced biofuels sector in the US continues to struggle due to regulatory delays and RFS implementations, which negatively impact investment in this market. That said, advocates for advanced biofuels and, in particular, those formulated from forest products should pay close attention to what St1 and Novozymes are doing in Kajaani, Finland.