Assessment of Conversion Technologies for Bioalcohol Fuel ...

are now focusing on the energy industry. In North America, such venture capital
investment reached an estimated $2.1 billon in 2006, four times what it was in 2004
(Clean Venture Network, 2006).
Federal, state and local governments have also increased significantly their support of
biofuels and bioenergy R3D projects. This investment surge comes not only with
hope, but in many cases with hype. The bioenergy technology development field, and
bioalcohol production technology in particular, has seen its share of exaggerated
claimsand unrealistic expectations over the years. And, while today’s development
picture shows great promise, there is still no guarantee which, if any, of the biomassto-ethanol
processes under development will achieve commercial success, or on what
timetable. As has been the case with other emerging areas of technology, many of
the technology development activities described in this report will end up becoming
“dry wels.” This is the character of R&D and venture investing. Further R3D progress
must address a variety of remaining technical, environmental and regulatory, marketrelated,
and socio-political challenges in order for cellulosic bioalcohol production to
achieve commercial reality. These challenges are summarized in the following
subsections:
Technical Challenges
Remaining technical issues still need to be resolved for both the thermochemical and
biochemical conversion of cellulosic biomass to alcohol fuels. For thermochemical
technologies, for example, specificity of syngas to ethanol catalyst performance needs
further development work. Biochemical technologies require further development of
lower-cost and more effective enzymes. Technical issues also remain with respect to
feedstock characteristics; collection, processing and storage of feedstock; process
scale-up and integration of commercial scale facilities. The lack of complete and welldocumented
demonstration-scale project results continues to impede the availability of
financing for commercial applications of any of the cellulosic bioalcohol production
technologies.
Environmental and Regulatory Challenges
The lack of substantial data from demonstration scale facilities to quantify the potential
environmental impacts -- involving air emissions; water use and treatment; ecological
impacts; solid waste disposal; environmental permitting; and the impacts related to the
delivery of biomass (i.e. traffic, emissions, odor and noise) pose continuing issues for
the development of cellulosic bioalcohol facilities. Siting and permitting new facilities is
often complex and arduous for biofuel project developers in California and in some
other U.S. regions. Various environmental and regulatory issues also continue to
affect the collection and transportation of biomass feedstocks, especially with respect
to the regulation of municipal waste sector in California and the harvesting of excess
forest materials.
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