For a long time second generation biofuels, those made from the residual non-food parts of current crops, have been discussed, debated and promoted, but until recently they have seldom been produced in Europe in significant quantities. That is beginning to change.

Late last year I was lucky enough to visit Kalundborg, Denmark, to shoot a story for Euronews’ new Innovation series about Inbicon’s recently-opened large-scale second generation biofuels plant. Our tour guide, Inbicon’s VP for Corporate Affairs Michael Persson, was keen to point out that the reason for building the factory was to show the system in action, turning straw into fuel for cars, rather than to sell the actual bioethanol itself. ”We are developing the technology and marketing the technology. We don’t want to be an ethanol producer, the only reason we have built this plant is to actually demonstrate that this technology works,” he underlined.

The flowing lines and bright aluminium of the exterior emphasise the purpose of the project -  Inbicon is indeed using the site to market its know-how, and having a futuristic-looking factory should impress the clients when they pull up outside. It’s the first plant of its kind that I’ve visited, so I can’t make a comparison concerning the technology within, but on the face of it a system which takes unwanted straw bought from local farmers and turns it into ethanol for cars, lignin to replace coal in power plants and C5 molasses to boost biogas production seems to be a genuine advance.

For Persson the sheer scale of the Inbicon plant – the target figure is 5.4 million litres of bioethanol p​er year – is the most important factor. ”When working with new technologies like these it is always fairly easy to do it in a laboratory. The difficult part is to upscale it on an industrial scale in industrial conditions like we do here. So the challenge is to make all the different processes work together, and to make sure that the flows are right in the process,” he said.

The next step is to find a client, perhaps in the US or far East, willing to go further and build a truly commercial-level site, which would range from five to ten times the size of the plant in Kalundborg. For the time being, drivers in Denmark are now consuming the second generation biofuel from Inbicon every day, with energy firm Statoil rolling out a 5% blend at 100 filling stations around the country.

– Jeremy Wilks

Producer

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