NotPetroleum Blog

35 Billion Gallons of Biofuel by 2017

from GreenFuel Technologies Biofuel White Paper

If GreenFuel algae facilities could be located at every operating
plant in the U.S., it would be possible to produce about 13.5
billion gallons of biodiesel and 8.5 billion gallons of ethanol per
year if those plants continued to produce electricity at levels
similar to production in 2005. While it may not be possible to
locate production at every plant, and not every plant has sufficient
land to site the GreenFuel operations – a high-level, first cut
estimate indicates that perhaps three-quarters of the plants are
feasible options. If this is the case, then GreenFuel could
theoretically supply about half of the alternative fuels that
President Bush called for in his State of the Union Address (35
billion gallons by 2017); reduce the amount of land that would be
needed by 90%; not use valuable agricultural land; and reduce
pressure on crop prices.

Also, if all plants are used, then there could be significant
production of biofuels in almost 30 states (Figure 11). This only
counts existing coal-fired power plants and GreenFuel could produce
algae co-located with natural gas-fired facilities, refineries and
industrial facilities that burn fossil-fuels so that there is
potential to locate biofuels facilities in a broader number of
locations. For example, California, which has little coal-fired
generation located in the state, has a number of refineries and
natural gas-fired plants that could produce algae giving fuel
suppliers the ability to produce fuels locally for the large
California market.
Figure 8: Theoretical production of biofuels if all coal plants have
a GreenFuel facility

GreenFuel has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from
these power plants. If sited at all the power plants, GreenFuel
might be able to reduce about 500 million metric tons of carbon. If
we take a conservative picture of the potential, where GreenFuel
would produce 16 billion gallons, then perhaps 250 million tons of
carbon could be reduced. This represents more than 10% of carbon
dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. If these emissions
are taken as credits in a potential greenhouse gas trading system,
it could be worth over 2 billion dollars a year.

Using GreenFuel algae as a portion of the biofuels demand and
supplementing corn and soybean feedstocks, the costs of delivering
biofuels to the economy can be reduced. Finally, what this
information tells the policy community is that we can safely push
towards a larger share of renewable fuels with very little risk that
the costs will be high because emerging technologies won’t be
available. If the cellulosic technology does not emerge as quickly
as expected, we can wait for it; we can produce 35 billion gallons
of biofuels by 2017 with a combination of GreenFuel and existing
technologies and have a cost-effective and robust energy system that
has fewer risks and more opportunities of wider geographic
production capabilities.

http://www.greenfuelonline.com/gf_files/WhitePaperBernstein051607.pdf