NEWS. The BioRefine Programme for new biomass products. Biofuel development on a broad front. A demo plant takes towards commercial scale

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1 THE BIOREFINE PROGRAMME REVIEW 2009 NEWS The BioRefine Programme for new biomass products Biofuel development on a broad front A demo plant takes towards commercial scale

2 Content 2 News The BioRefine Programme for new biomass products The FuBio Programme to lay knowledge foundation for processing wood biomass Biofuel development on a broad front Third generation biorefinery plant in operation since 2008 Biorefinery demonstration plant, an important step towards commercial scale Renewable diesel potential for versatile emission reductions The challenge of assessing environmental impacts of biofuels Contacts Significant opportunities for joint projects between the Finnish and US biorefinery research A lthough initially approaching biomass utilization from different directions and perspectives, the United States and Finland have arrived at nearly the same research focus on converting biomass to liquid transportation fuels and to materials and chemicals that replace petrochemical products, noted Dr. Alan Rudie from Forest Products Laboratory, USA, in his report on biorefinery R&D activities in Finland and the USA. He conducted the survey in Finland in 2008 by interviewing leading Finnish scientists and companies in forest biorefinery. According to the report there are numerous opportunities for collaborative efforts. See more: The report: State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, is available at Experts believe in biorefineries According to the results of the survey conducted in Scandinavia and in North and South America biorefineries and related new energy products are considered a way to guarantee the forest cluster s success in the future. It seems that forest biorefinery business has market potential and global competition can be expected. Together 145 forest and bioenergy experts attended in the survey in They were either interviewed or approached with an internet questionnaire. The University of Jyväskylä was responsible for conducting the survey. Research collaboration was established between UC Berkeley in the USA, and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Tampere University of Technology of Finland. See more: The entire survey is found in the BioRefine Programme Yearbook 2009 published by Tekes, Algae and fungi for biofuel production The project, part of the BioRefine Programme, evaluated the feasibility of fungi and algae for the production of biofuels. The results are promising: one of the oleaginous yeasts was shown to produce significant amounts of lipids, raw material for biofuel. The project strengthened the understanding of identification of new raw materials for biodiesel production and development of biorefinery concepts. The project partners, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) plan to continue the studies. 2

3 The BioRefine Programme for new biomass products The BioRefine Programme was launched by Tekes, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, in 2007 and is due to run until the end of Several factors are driving the demand and markets for new biomass products like biofuels, biochemicals and other renewable products. There is a need to mitigate climate change, to reduce dependency on increasingly expensive oil, and to improve the security of energy supplies, stated Jukka Leppälahti, Programme Manager at Tekes. A vast network and unique entity The existing know-how of Finnish forest and energy companies forms the basis for creating new businesses and new products from biomass. Biorefineries can utilize biomass raw materials from various sources: forest-based biomass, agrobiomass and various waste and side streams. Identifying new value chains is essential, and cooperation between companies from different industrial clusters is needed for innovations. Finnish companies, research institutes and universities have long-term experience in the research of advanced biofuels, and they are forerunners in developing and demonstrating new technologies. 3

4 The BioRefine Programme for new biomass products harnesses the extensive network of national research institutes, universities and enterprises. The Programme is to develop business related to new value-added products, or new process or business concepts that utilise biomass in a variety of forms, as well as related technologies, equipment production and services, said Tuula Mäkinen, Programme Coordinator, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The BioRefine Programme together with the FuBio Programme of Forestcluster Ltd. and Biofuel Development Programme of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy forms an extensive network of collaboration. This kind of collaboration in studying biorefining is internationally unique and is playing a pioneering role in the world, said Jukka Leppälahti. Focus on biofuels for transport Cost competitiveness and environmental sustainability will be key issues in future markets for biomass-based products. Integrated production of biomass-based products in large biorefineries creates cost advantage and competitiveness, and it is expected to be the most viable in the first stage, although small distributed biorefineries may become important in the next stage. In the first phase of the Programme the main share of the projects has focused on RD&D of biofuels for transport. Technologies for producing biofuels via the synthesis-gas route and new liquid biofuel concepts based on integrating a fluidized-bed boiler and fast pyrolysis are developed and demonstrated. In addition to the production, also the use of biofuels is demonstrated. Greenhouse gas and other environmental impacts are assessed. The planned programme budget totals EUR 137 million and at mid-term the vol- 4

5 ume of the projects was over EUR 120 million. The total volume of enterprise projects was about EUR 92 million, of which the Tekes funding was EUR 36.5 million, and the total volume of research projects was about EUR 31 million, of which the Tekes funding was EUR 19 million. A broad Finnish effort to develop new biorefining competencies and technologies is coordinated under the umbrella of the BioRefine Programme. By 2012, it is estimated that biorefining activities in Finland will be under study in Tekes-financed projects to a volume of about EUR 200 million, noted Tuula Mäkinen. International activities International cooperation has an essential role in developing innovative technologies, products and services. In the BioRefine Programme research organizations have been encouraged to have international cooperation, the USA and Canada being one of the most important partner countries, in their projects. Currently eight research projects of totally 25 research projects have cooperation with North or South American universities or research institutes. The FuBio Programme to lay knowledge foundation for processing wood biomass The Future Biorefinery, FuBio, is a research programme by Finnish Forestcluster Ltd. The programme creates new competence in processing wood biomass and stimulates the transformation of the Finnish forest cluster. FuBio is a five-year programme with a budget of about EUR 50 million financed by shareholders of Forestcluster Ltd. and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The core of the programme is to study and develop new ways to fractionate wood into different material streams and processing of these streams to generate material solutions for existing and new value chains. Organic plastics, new composite materials and various biochemicals are examples of potential new products, said Lars Gädda, Research Director, Forestcluster Ltd. Forestcluster Ltd coordinates the operations of the Finnish forest cluster s. It is owned by all key companies and players in the forest cluster in Finland. The EU targets The EU set in April 2009 in a socalled RES Directive an overall binding target of a 20% share of renewable energy sources in energy consumption in the EU, as well as binding national targets in line with the overall EU target, and a 10% binding target for renewable energy in transport to be achieved by each Member State by The research themes show the focus The programme consists of five research themes and the research is conducted mainly in research organizations and universities. Also industry-managed consortium projects will be generated in the programme. The themes are Fractionation technologies Cellulose for material applications Hemicelluloses for materials and hydroxy acids Lignin for energy and materials Biochemicals for protection of goods and health Future forest biorefineries The future biorefinery is a process, where tree is fractionated into three main fractions: cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. These are then processed into different materials or chemicals for various higher value applications. The extractives may have an essential part in the modern biorefinery. 5

6 Biofuel development on a broad front Finnish forest industry companies see new business opportunities for second-generation biofuels based on non-food raw materials. UPM is engaged in various projects to develop technology for producing biofuels and bio-oils from forest residues. UPM is one of the world's leading forest industry groups. We are actively involved in developing new production concepts for biofuels, said Pekka Jokela, Manager for Biofuels. We believe they will provide us with significant future business and turnover. Biorefinery project has priority UPM s main thrust is a project to use gasification and the Fischer Tropsch process to produce a renewable component for diesel motor fuel. We opted for this concept because the production process can utilize our own mill feedstock - materials like forest residue chips, bark and stumps. It is also important that biorefineries can be integrated into existing UPM plants, explained Pekka Jokela. The process has been undergoing testing since summer 2008 at a Gas Technology Institute (GTI) test facility in Chicago. The capacity of the GTI fluid-bed gasifier, using raw material imported from Finland, is 2-5 MW. In gasification our technology partner has been Andritz Carbona. At the GTI we are also piloting product-gas cleaning and down stream process stages. Biomass has been gasified before but the innovation is that we are gasifying under pressure and with pure oxygen. UPM is currently drawing up environmental impact reports for building a biorefinery at its Rauma or Kymi mills. The reports are for a plant capable of producing tonnes of renewable fuel per year. The test runs have gone well so we are confident that we will have the technical readiness to build a larger-scale facility in summer

7 Bio heating oil through pyrolysis UPM is also developing a process based on pyrolysis that is aimed at replacing fossil fuels with bio-oil produced from forest residues. Fast pyrolysis is the most economical way to produce liquid biofuels for heating purposes. We can achieve high efficiency by integrating the pyrolysis process with the existing fluidized bed boiler, Pekka Jokela explained. Oil quality control is important. In the test plant that started up in Tampere in summer 2009, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is responsible for quality control and analysing the bio-oil. Our technology partner in developing the pyrolysis process is Metso. Bio-oil is an entirely new product, which is why we have to manage the whole chain from feed stock sourcing to bio-oil end use. Apart from developing the whole production chain, practical experience over the longer term will also influence the decision to invest in a commercial plant. The results look good and the quality of bio-oil produced in the pilot plant is similar to what VTT has achieved on a smaller scale. Fibrous-based ethanol UPM is also investing a project to develop a process for producing transport fuel ethanol from fibrous material. The fibre ethanol process is at the pilot and test-run stage. Its raw material is industrial waste that contains fibres, Pekka Jokela said. Third generation biorefinery plant in operation since 2008 The Chempolis biorefinery plant started up in Oulu Finland in 2008 is a third-generation refinery plant because it utilizes agricultural residues in producing biomass products and biochemicals. The plant is first of its kind in the world. I n addition we are focusing on paper fibres and pulp, and we are serving bioethanol and biochemical production technologies alongside pulp-making, said the President and CEO of Chempolis Oy Esa Rousu. In the first test runs pulp from Chinese wheat straw was produced for test runs in paper machine. These runs were a success. Building the biorefinery plant has required an investment of about EUR 20 million and many years of development work. Chempolis licenses the technologies it develops, and provides refinery engineering, project management services including certain key equipment technologies as well. Acknowledgement from World Bank A World Bank report in 2006 on traditional and modern pulp production methods judged the Chempolis concept the best both economically and environmentally. The report spurred widespread interest. We have concluded a license agreement with UPM Corporation, one of the leading forest industry groups. Moreover, we have signed the strategic partnership agreements with customers in China, which also has the largest, growing markets. Chinese customers and equipment suppliers have played an important role in the engineering of the equipment. Large supplies of non-wood and non-food raw materials Each year the world produces about five billion tonnes of the agricultural residues that the Chempolis biorefining technologies can use, and China and India make the greatest use of them. Among the materials that can be used are wheat and rice straw, corn stalks and bagasse, the residue from sugar production. Many types of reed, such as the common reed and reed canary grass are also suitable feedstock for a biorefinery process. Chempolis Oy has been developing environmentally sustainable technologies for biorefining since

8 Biorefinery demonstration plant, an important step towards commercial scale A biofuels demonstration facility in Varkaus, Finland is a good example of innovations by Finnish companies with an eye to the expected future global demand for renewable traffic fuels. The Varkaus demonstration plant is for biomass-to-liquids production, utilising forestry residues. Two of the companies behind it are Stora Enso, a global paper, packaging and forest products company, and Neste Oil, a refining and marketing company focusing on advanced, cleaner traffic fuels. Stora Enso and Neste Oil have established a 50/50 joint venture, NSE Biofuels Oy, to develop technology and to produce biocrude in commercial scale for renewable diesel. The demonstration facility at the Stora Enso Varkaus mills was inaugurated in June 2009 although the first part of the plant, the 12MW gasifier, has been up and running since the end of In addition to feeding the gas reforming and cleaning phases, the gas produced is used to replace oil and to fire the lime kiln of the adjacent pulp mill. The gasifier has been running very well for long periods of time, and we have been able to use it to replace fossil fuels in the lime kiln with syngas, said Antti Jääskeläinen, SVP, Biorefining & Bioenergy, Stora Enso. The whole value chain under research The demonstration process covers all stages of biomass-to-liquids (BtL) production, such as drying of biomass, gasification, gas cleaning and testing of Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. The demo will be used to develop technologies and engineering solutions for a commercial-scale plant. That is the most significant objective of the demonstration unit. Before we can make an investment of several hundred million eu- 8

9 ros, we have to be convinced of proven technology. So far, the results we have achieved have been promising. The raw materials for the renewable fuel consist of forest residues such as branches, tops, stumps and bark. In future the planned commercialscale BtL plant will utilise some one million cubic metres of forestry residues annually. This is a great amount, which is why raw material management and logistics require much preparation on Stora Enso s side. Meanwhile Neste Oil is developing the renewable diesel refining parts. All these studies are being done simultaneously, Jääskeläinen added. Seamless cooperation The professional personnel at the demo plant have been very successful in adopting the operation models required by the new technology. Our main technology supplier is Foster Wheeler. The company has its premises in Varkaus, which is something of an advantage in everyday work. Moreover, Foster Wheeler supplied another gasifier in the same industrial premises in the past, which also helps. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is the joint venture s main R&D and testing partner and has performed the pilot-scale tests of the process segments. Great business opportunities Biomass-based renewable fuels represent a remarkable future business opportunity. We need further development work and also competitive forest industry sites to host the future commercial units. Our demonstration phase takes us a step closer to this goal, Jääskeläinen noted. 9

10 Renewable diesel potential for versatile emission reductions Advanced biofuels are helpful not only in combating greenhouse gas emissions, but in reducing local emissions, such as particulates and oxides of nitrogen. The OPTIBIO project verifies the feasibility of high concentration renewable diesel in urban buses in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and simultaneously demonstrates the potential for reducing emissions. The OPTIBIO project has a double goal: the project verifies the usability of renewable diesel in urban buses and the potential for emission reductions. The new diesel (trademark NExBTL) developed by Neste Oil is used in 300 urban buses in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The project was launched in May 2007 and will continue through Field tests, as well as engine and vehicle tests in laboratory environment are the key elements in the project. The field tests are carried out in everyday operations of the buses. The fleet of the buses consists of both new vehicles and vehicles that have been in service for some time. Some of the older buses have been retrofitted with the particulate catalysts to enhance emission performance, stated Professor Nils-Olof Nylund, responsible for the coordination of the project. Promising results in field and laboratory tests VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has conducted emission testing of vehicles in their laboratories. On 100% renewable diesel, the average NOx reduction was 10% and simultaneously the particulate emissions were reduced by 27% to 37% maximum value being as high as 50%. These good results were achieved in both new and old vehicles. Altogether 22 buses are subjected to emission control regularly. At VTT, also in-depth measurements for unregulated exhaust components have been performed and they show that these results are better than for regulated emissions. According to the tests the renewable diesel reduces heavy aromatics in the exhaust gases by up to 85%. The field tests during the past one and half years have shown no fuel related problems. Getting ready for future applications The OPTIBIO project is verifying the feasibility of biofuels for traffic in larger scope, not only for fuels available today. We want to have proven solutions and applications for vehicle manufactures and bus operators when new renewable fuels for traffic will be in wide utilization in the future. Our goal is to contribute to the process of creating standards for these new fuels, concluded Nylund. The participants of the OPTIBIO project Helsinki City Transport Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council Neste Oil Proventia Emission Control Scania Helsinki University of Technology VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland TEC TransEnergy Consulting Ltd 10

11 The challenge of assessing environmental impacts of biofuels Sustainability criteria for liquid biofuels are currently being developed by various institutions including the EU. However, the creation of appropriate and effective criteria is a very challenging task. This was one of the main issues considered in the Biovaiku project, part of Tekes BioRefine Programme. The greenhouse gas balances of transportation biofuels have been assessed in Finland and the world but the results have been contradictory. Furthermore there is relatively little information available on other environmental impacts. The aim of the Biovaiku project was to explore the main problems and challenges related to environmental impact assessment of biofuels. The most important result of the project is the identification of the most critical issues and the uncertainties involved in the assessment procedure, said project manager Sampo Soimakallio, Senior Research Scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Participants in the project were VTT, the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), MTT Agrifood Research Finland, the Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) and the Government Institute for Economic Research (VATT). if it brings jobs, or improves energy selfsufficiency and security of supply. Certain biofuels have also been observed to produce fewer harmful air pollutants when combusted in the engine. Research results to support decision-making Biofuels ought to be produced on the most sustainable basis possible and they should reduce the use of fossil fuels. There is a major risk that sustainability criteria will be ineffective if they are drawn up in a way that externalizes emissions. Even if biofuels are produced in the most sustainable way possible, they are not alone the answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. Overambitious targets for bio- fuel use could actually accelerate climate change. The Biovaiku research consortium began a two-year follow-up study this autumn. This new research project is also part of the Tekes BioRefine Programme. The results of the Biovaiku project and the follow-up study will be particularly useful to large operators such as Neste Oil, Stora Enso and UPM, companies that are planning large-scale investments in biofuel production. They could also benefit public authorities in their strategic decision-making. The results can be used when planning national long-term measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing the EU directive on promoting the use of renewable energy. Production of biofuels may cause many harmful impacts The sustainability of biofuels can be examined from environmental, economic and social viewpoints. This is why it is challenging to measure and assess sustainability. Increased production of biofuels could result in a shortage of raw materials or land area. In the worst scenario, destruction of the rainforests will accelerate. Biofuel production could also have other negative consequences, such as social problems and increase in food prices. Biofuel production may not necessarily have a long-term future because soil yields may deteriorate. There is also no comprehensive research data on how farming and harvesting of biofuels influence the different emission components of the soil. On the other hand, biofuel production could be beneficial for local economies 11

12 Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes is the main public funding organisation for R&D in Finland. Tekes funds industrial projects as well as projects in research organisations, and especially promotes innovative, risk-intensive projects. Tekes offers partners from abroad a gateway to the key technology players in Finland. The Tekes Programmes part of the innovation chain The Tekes programmes are an essential part of the Finnish innovation system. these programmes have proven to be an effective form of cooperation and networking for companies, universities and research institutes that are developing innovative products, processes and services. The Tekes programmes boost development in specific sectors of technology or industry, and the results of the research work are passed on to business systematically. The Programmes also serve as excellent frameworks for international R&D cooperation. BioRefine, intensive cooperation in biorefinery The BioRefine Programme launched by Tekes in 2007 promotes cooperation between companies and research organizations in development of business related to novel products, processes or business concepts that utilise biomass in variety of forms. The existing know-how of Finnish forest and energy companies forms the basis for creating new businesses and new products from biomass. The BioRefine Programme opens up possibilities for networking with Finnish companies and research organisations. For more information Jukka Leppälahti, Programme Manager tel jukka.leppalahti@tekes.fi Tuula Mäkinen, Programme Coordinator tel tuula.makinen@vtt.fi October 2009 Printed at Erweko Teonsana Oy Photos Petri Lehto, istockphoto, StoraEnso, UPM, VTT, Vapo Oy