US advanced biofuels capacity to reach 2.6bn gallons by 2015

Sep 11, 2012 - Advanced biofuels production capacity in the US will reach 1.6 billion to 2.6 billion gallons (9.8bn litres) by 2015, US organisation Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) estimates in its new report on the sector.

The Advanced Biofuel Market Report 2012 notes that biofuel production capacity in the US and Canada will grow to some 685 million gallons in 2012 from 437 million gallons in 2011. It has identified 165 active advanced biofuel producers in North America this year.

The report notes that standards such as California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) create an incentive for investors and biofuel companies to continue innovating and increasing biofuel production, which will drive down costs and carbon emissions.

E2 calculates that at least 27 new commercial facilities with total output capacity of 700 million gallons have to become operational by 2015 to meet the low-end of its capacity projections. The capacity of these and existing facilities will be enough to meet the goals of LCFS and RFS2 but continuing these government programmes is important for further investments in advanced biofuels, according to the report.

The report also states that advanced biofuel production costs will further decline with the rise of production capacity and be competitive with petroleum production costs.

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