Page 29 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

Biofuel transitions 23

First-generation biofuels include bioethanol or butanol, which utilizes
the sugar and starch portion of plants (e.g., cereals, sugarcane, sugar beet)
as biomass, and biodiesel that is produced with oilseed crops (e.g., rapeseed,
soybeans, sunflowers, coconut oil, palm oil, jatropha, recycled cooking oil,
and animal fat) as biomass (UNCTAD, 2016). For ethanol or butanol pro-
duced with sugar, simple sugars are extracted from a variety of sugar crops
and then fermented; while for starch ethanol or butanol the process is more
complex since starch is converted into simple sugars through a high heat
enzymatic process that requires additional energy. Bioethanol instead is pro-
duced by mixing lipids present in the oilseed crops with an alcohol, for
example, methanol, ethanol, through the chemical process of transesterifi-
cation. Whereas ethanol or butanol generates 70% less energy than gasoline,
bioethanol produces 88% to 95% of the energy content of conventional
diesel (Timilsina and Shrestha, 2010).
Bioethanol production reached 115.6 billion liters in 2015, more than
double since 2005, and is expected to grow to nearly 128.4 billion liters
by 2025 (Purohit and Dhar, 2018). The United States and Brazil have been
the leaders of bioethanol production and exports, with 57% of global
bioethanol production in the United States and 29% in Brazil. The EU is
a net importer of bioethanol, producing only 4% of total bioethanol
(EC et al., 2015); while other countries (China with 3%, Canada with
2%, Thailand with 1%, and the rest of the world with the remaining 4%)
produce bioethanol mainly for domestic use. Different countries use differ-
ent feedstock for the production of bioethanol: Brazil and India use mainly
sugarcane, North America and China starch crops (mainly corn), and the EU
sugar beet and grains (EC et al., 2015).
As far as biodiesel is concerned, its production reached 31 billion liters in
2015, compared to the 3.9 billion liters produced in 2005, and is expected to
grow to 41.4 billion liters by 2025 (Purohit and Dhar, 2018). The EU pro-
duces 38% of global biodiesel production but is also the main importer from
Argentina, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The United States contributes with 16%
to the global biodiesel production and imports most of the biodiesel from
Canada and exports mainly to Canada and Norway (EC et al., 2015). Brazil
produces 14% of the global biodiesel production, Argentina produces 7%,
Indonesia contributes with 6% of the production, Malaysia with 2%, and
the rest of the world with 17% of the total. India accounts for less than
1% of global biodiesel production (Purohit and Dhar, 2018). The feedstocks
mainly used for biodiesel are soybean in the United States and Argentina,
rapeseed and sunflower in the EU, and palm and coconut oil in Indonesia