Industry integration

25th March, 2008

In the rush to meet environmental targets on emissions biofuel development has surged, but profits are elusive. Is it time to look more closely at the petrochemical industry's methods?

Fledgling industries go through several start-up phases before they reach maturity. In the last few years both biodiesel and ethanol production have gone from lab trials to small experimental scale to commercial production in increasingly large facilities. But as yet most are stand-alone plants built to produce a single product, and few would survive without subsidies.

Some plants are built to make use of waste from other industries, such as fats from food processing and some sell their waste to other industries, these include crude glycerol from biodiesel makers, distillers grains from ethanol producers and oil seed cake from vegetable oil presses, but none of these are high value products.

This is a notable contrast to the petrochemical industry where crude petroleum is the feedstock for a huge range of organic chemicals used in polymers, food processing, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, paint and dyestuffs - the list is almost endless. Integrated production leads to significant energy savings and a more efficient operation.

Lack of integration

It is becoming increasingly clear that the era of cheap oil cannot last for ever. There are already serious attempts to extract oil from tar sands where the energy used in extraction and refining is very similar to that contained in the finished product. Increasing use of biomass, not just for fuel but to replace petroleum-based chemical production, offers a real alternative.

The US government recognised this some time ago. Back in 1999 President Clinton promoted the development of bio-based products and bioenergy, which was followed a year later by the US Congress's Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000.

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