Butanol Available Before Cellulosic Ethanol?

The Hull facility
“The facility in Hull makes sense for us because it is surrounded by UK wheat, the cheapest feedstock in NW Europe. In addition, CHP is already in place, it has a skilled work force and excellent opportunities for import and export. It can supply the UK market, but also for instance the Rhine market. We say, if you’re going to build an ethanol plant anywhere in the UK, it should be in or near Hull. But we are not doing it for the ethanol alone, we are also doing it to have a platform for butanol.

Why Butanol?
It is clear why second generation biofuels are more attractive to oil companies than first generation, but why is BP focussing so much on butanol? “There is an interesting dilemma facing the biofuels industry called the E10 wall. Some countries will want or need to go beyond a 10% ethanol blend, but we have a car fleet that is overwhelmingly E5 or E10 capable. Flex-fuel vehicle sales are increasing in the United States, but not enough to increase consumption significantly beyond 10%. The properties of butanol allow you to blend it with gasoline up to 18%, which buys you time to increase the market share of flex-fuel vehicles. In addition, you can transport butanol through pipelines and it has 88% of the mileage of gasoline, compared to under 70% for ethanol.” “We have a number of strategic relationships with auto manufacturers for innovations in car fleets and fuel science. As biofuels gain market share, we will have molecules that are much more engine friendly – like butanol, and engines that are more biofuel friendly. Those are convergent developments, but it takes time for the car fleet to change.”

Commercial availability
Butanol does need considerable development in the efficiency of its production process before it is commercially available. The most important question therefore is, when can we expect that to happen? “That is a difficult question. I want to avoid setting expectations that are inappropriate on the basis of cutting edge biotech. There could be events that speed up things and set backs. We have our targets, but I hope that we will have butanol available on a commercial scale, before we have cellulosic ethanol on an economically sound basis.”