From Crop to Wheel
Biofuels offer the advantage that they have the potential to reduce overall GHG emissions from road transport because the plants from which they are produced absorb CO2 when they are grown. This offsets the CO2 released from the vehicle when the blended biofuel is used.
In addition, there are GHG emissions associated with the production of biofuels (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides, crop cultivation/harvesting, manufacture and transport of biofuels). Biofuels deliver GHG savings when all of these emissions are less than the corresponding emissions from the production of conventional gasoline/petrol and diesel from crude oil.
In the UK, bioethanol can be economically produced by the fermentation of wheat or sugar beet.
Crops
In our plant, we will produce bioethanol from wheat which will be supplied under contract by existing growers.
Producing up to 420 million litres (330,000 tonnes) of bioethanol every year will use around 1 million tonnes of wheat.
The UK currently exports around 2.8 million tonnes of cereals which are grown on 350,000ha of land - enough to produce 1.2 billion litres of bioethanol which would meet five per cent of petrol demand.
More than 500,000 ha are currently in set-aside and 140,000 ha in bare fallow and the cereal sector may well be able to increase its technical efficiency year-on-year. The EU Commission has permitted this set aside land to be used for cereal production in 2008/09.
Production
Bioethanol is produced by the fermentation of starch or sugars in a very similar way to the method used to produce beer and wine. Fermentation is followed by distillation to remove the water and impurities and produce a pure alcohol.
Fossil fuels are used to provide energy in the production process but every effort is made to optimise fuel efficiency to minimise costs and maximise the environmental benefit from the biofuel.
Fuel
In the UK, biofuels can be added to standard unleaded petrol at levels up to 5% and used in any car on the road today. Using petrol with 5% bioethanol has no impact on mileage or engine performance.
Road transport fuel quality standards are currently under review with a proposal to increase the maximum biofuel content to 10% for all vehicles.
Cars
Petrol containing up to 5% bioethanol can be used in any unleaded car on the road in the UK today. In the longer term, there is potential for all ordinary cars to use higher blends. Ford and Saab already supply models to the UK which will run on bioethanol / petrol blends up to 85% bioethanol (E85).