Schmidt-Synthetic Biology: Industrial and Environmental Applications
Biofuels in General 11world's transport fuel. Recent estimates indicate a continued high growth. From 2007 to 2008, the share of ethanol in global gasoline-type fuel use was estimated to increase from 3.7 to 5.4%, and the share of biodiesel in global diesel-type fuel use from 0.9 to 1.5%. Currently, the main suppliers for transport biofuels are the United States, Brazil and the European Union. Production in the United States consists mostly of ethanol from corn starch, in Brazil of ethanol from sugar cane, and in the European Union mostly of biodiesel from rapeseed. Investment into biofuel production capacity probably exceeded $ 4 billion worldwide in 2007 and is growing rapidly. Industry, with government support, is also investing heavily in the development of biofuels. The current biofuel production has been stimulated by biofuel subsides, fuel blending mandates, national interest in energy security, climate change mitigation and rural development programs (see Table 1.3).International trade in ethanol and biodiesel has been small so far (about three billion liters per year in 2006/07), but is expected to grow rapidly in countries like Brazil, which reached a record-high of about five billion liters of ethanol fuel export in 2008 (Figure 1.1). Predictions forecast that global use of bioethanol and biodiesel will nearly double from 2007 to 2017. Most of this increase will probably be due to biofuel use in the United States, the European Union, Brazil and China. But other countries could also develop towards significant biofuel consumption, among them Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Thailand and the Philippines.Regarding the global long-term bioenergy potential, estimates depend critically on the underlying assumptions, particularly on the availability of agricultural land for non-food production. Whereas more optimistic assumptions yield a theoretical potential of 200-400 × 10 18 J/year or even higher, the most pessimistic scenario estimates 40 × 10 18 J/year. More realistic assessments considering environmental Table 1.3 Estimates on future economic indicators in the United States, based on the