Out at SIGMA's annual meeting in San Francisco, on Saturday John Melo, CEO of Amyris, gave a talk about the future of Bio-refining.
Now, naturally, as head of a company that is a bio-refiner, he sees a great future for biofuels. There were a couple of interesting points he had that make more sense following the election season.
First, he said that the cost of carbon will show up over the next 4-8 years. That is, the market will be accounting for carbon, either on the production or the consumption end, whether through cap-and-trade, or a carbon tax.
Second, the future of biorefining lay in being able to produce a flexible slate of products, from the cheapest available feedstock. He believes (of course) that his company has the right recipe for success.
Amyris uses bio-engineered yeast to turn feedstock -- in the case of the company's plants, sugarcane -- into petroleum products. So far Amyris has produced ethanol and diesel, but has plans to make jet fuel in the future.
The company just started up a pilot plant in California that will produce renewable diesel, and expects to get approval for the product from the EPA in the next 30 days. According to Melo, the product has virtually no sulfur and reduced NOx emissions, and 80% less greenhouse gas emissions than regular diesel.
It can be blended up to 50% with ULSD, up from the 20% that is typically the maximum for biodiesel. Also, the company expects to be able to distribute through the normal product pipelines, unlike biodiesel and ethanol currently in use.
But will it make a difference here in the US? Sugarcane is the best feedstock at current prices, according to Melo, but doesn't grow well in most parts of the country outside the southeast US. So corn and soybean lobbyists should not be losing sleep just yet, at least until a better, cheaper feedstock comes along that is better suited to North America.
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