Greentech Lead America: Worldwide biofuels production will grow from 33.6 billion gallons per year (BGY) in 2013 to 61.6 BGY in 2023, says a new report from Navigant Research.
North America is leading the transition to advanced biofuels, but healthy growth in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America is helping to diversify the fuel supply for a range of transportation applications, the report said.
After the growth of conventional biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, the next wave of advanced biofuels is nearing commercialization. The commercially available biomass-derived fuels is expanding to include advanced fuels derived from non-food feedstocks and drop-in synthetic substitutes for gasoline, diesel, and kerosene-based jet fuel.
Mackinnon Lawrence, principal research analyst with Navigant Research, said, “Although the scale-up of new production capacity will face significant headwinds in the coming decade, global biofuels production is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of six percent from 2013 and 2023—almost twice as fast as the growth rate for fossil-based gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel over the same period.”
Today, obligatory and voluntary ethanol and biodiesel blending mandates are set in more than 40 countries. At the same time, supply-oriented policies, like the Renewable Fuel Standard in the United States and Renewable Energy Directive in the European Union, call for rapid acceleration in the production of advanced biofuels.
The report predicts that global biofuels production will exceed the aggregated volume of blending mandates by 2020, even as the anticipated rollout of supply targets will exceed actual production in that same year. The next ten years will likely see a shakeup of existing policies around biofuels to better calibrate policy objectives and actual production.