New Strategic Plan Guides Biofuels Development
North Carolina has a new statewide strategic plan for developing biofuels.
The 16-page document, "Fueling North Carolina’s Future: North Carolina’s Strategic Plan for Biofuels Leadership" was presented to the North Carolina General Assembly in April 2007.
It was the culmination of a seven-month process involving more than 70 leaders from across the state, co-convened by the Biotechnology Center and four other organizations.
The state-mandated plan lays out nine strategies for the decade ahead. The first commits North Carolina to produce enough biofuel to account for 10 percent of its liquid fuels by 2017.
That means new production capacity of more than 500 million gallons a year, based on state residents’ current consumption of about 5.6 billion gallons of petroleum-based liquid fuels per year – virtually all of which comes from outside the state.
Air pollution, rising gas prices and geopolitical uncertainties over petroleum have increased interest in renewable, cleaner-burning biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Promising New Market
Ethanol is a gasoline supplement that is produced from starchy biomass through an enzymatic process, and biodiesel is a diesel supplement produced from plant oils through a chemical process. These fuels are made from organic matter that represents a promising new market for growers across North Carolina.
Efficient Biomass Resources
Though corn is the initial crop of choice for ethanol refiners throughout the Midwest and West, North Carolina researchers are seeking even more efficient sources of “biomass” or “feedstock” for ethanol refining here. Contenders include pine, switchgrass, canola and even algae and kudzu.
Enzymes developed through biotechnology are used to break down the sugars in starchy vegetation to make biofuels, and to convert cellulose from woody plants into ethanol.
New enzymatic technologies developed by companies such as Novozymes, which operates a major enzyme-production facility in Franklinton, N.C., will help reduce the cost of cellulosic biofuels so they can compete with traditional petroleum-based products.
North Carolina will have its first ethanol-manufacturing plant online in early 2009. Raleigh-based Clean Burn Fuels is developing a $100 million plant on 500 acres three miles southeast of Raeford — a town about 20 miles west of Fayetteville.
In addition, numerous small biodiesel processors and stations are springing up throughout the state.