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U.S. Department of Energy
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Getting ethanol into the marketplace

Conference ·
OSTI ID:135633
; ;  [1]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States); and others
There are two major markets for fuel ethanol from biomass--the oxygenate market and the neat fuel market. The overall strategy for ethanol deployment is to use low-cost waste feedstocks in the near term to produce ethanol cheaply enough to enter the oxygenate market--a higher value market than the neat fuel market. However, availability of low-cost feedstocks is limited, as is the capacity of the oxygenate market to absorb ethanol. As the cost of production of energy crops and of the conversion of these crops to ethanol is reduced through RD&D, biomass ethanol will be able to compete in the longer-term neat fuel market using higher cost (relative to wastes) energy crops. When energy crop-based ethanol becomes competitive, feedstock supply availability, and therefore the supply of competitively priced ethanol, will increase tremendously. Only through the use of energy crops will ethanol deployment be able to reach the 4-5 Quad level. This paper describes the market forces that will propel biomass ethanol into the transportation market. The impacts of biomass ethanol deployment on the economy and the environment is also described.
OSTI ID:
135633
Report Number(s):
CONF-9410176--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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