Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
with the growing market of vehicle there is an obvious increase in fuel demand, fos-
sil fuel alone cannot meet this demand both in terms of availability and price factor
(Junginger et al.
2010
)
While biodiesel and wood pellets are almost exclusively traded as an energy
carrier, bioethanol may also be used in other end-uses. Approximately 75 % of
the traded bioethanol is used as transport fuel. As far as global trade and market
of biofuels is concerned it is growing at very rapid rate especially the biomass
from feedstock, due to their easy availability like vegetable oils and agricultural
remains. Popular forms of fuels are mostly bioethanol and biodiesel. The current
estimate of the market trends of biofuels is not very impactful which is around 1EJ
that make up a total of 2 % of current use of bioenergy based fuels. It is assumed
that large quantities of biofuels will be traded internationally with Latin Ameri-
can and African countries as the potential exporters and Asia, Europe and North
America as the potential importers (Heinimo
2011
). Although small scale research
and production is being carried out in almost all parts of the world, the sustain-
ability and growth of bioenergy is largely based on trade.
6.1
Leading ethanol Producers 2008
The two prominent ethanol producers of 2008 are Brazil and USA with USA
producing 26.8 million t and Brazil 2.6 million t. These combined form 91 % of
the ethanol global production. In terms of consumption USA is the largest con-
sumer of bioethanol with the consumption of 28.4 million t in 2008. Out of the
net amount 4.6 % is imported. Next is Brazil with consumption quantity reaching
up to 16.5 million t. The net utilization of bioethanol in EU is 2.6 million t for
transportation and Sweden, France, Germany and Netherlands top the list of con-
sumers (Spelter et al.
2009
). There is an unavailability of proper code systems to
keep a track over the production and consumption activities of biofuels, so the
data is insufficient and incomplete especially in terms of ethanol consumption
which is also used as beverage, industry and fuel. It is difficult to quantify the
data on production and consumption of ethanol as a source of biofuels only.
6.2
Wood Pellets Role and Trade
Wood pellet provides a potential raw material source for the production of biofuels
after several processing steps. Wood pellet production in USA and Canada has been
around 680,000-690,000 t.
Last decade brought great deal of trade and consumption of wood pellets and
it has grown on mass scale. Its production is mainly centered in North America
(1.4 million t) and Europe (8-10 million t). The overall consumption of wood pellet
is higher in European countries as compared to USA (Spelter et al.
2009
).
