Commercialization of drop-in biofuels and coprocessing

Transport-related emissions are still growing, with fossil fuels contributing more than 90% of the energy demand required by this sector. Consequently, the transport sector will have to decarbonise and aggressive reductions will need to take place if the sector is to meet net zero targets. While (green) electric vehicles are expected to contribute significantly to carbon reductions in road transportation, other strategies, such as the use of drop-in biofuels will be required for hard-to-electrify sectors such as aviation and shipping.

Download the full report: Commercialization of drop-in biofuels and coprocessing

At this point in time, almost all of the technologies used to make drop-in biofuels produce multiple streams, such as gasoline, jet and diesel, with the product slate varying depending on the type of technology used. While some facilities are described as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) plants, these facilities typically produce multiple products that are used by different transportation sectors. Although SAF production has unique considerations, overall, the technical challenges of most of the technologies are similar for different products. Although a refinery can typically select the boiling point cutoffs, which determine the types of fuels it produces, this mainly impacts jet fuel production as the boiling point/carbon number range for jet fuel overlaps with that of gasoline and diesel. While additional processing can be carried out to increase a particular fuel fraction, this usually comes at the expense of increased cost, affecting the economics of a refinery.

This report by IEA Bioenergy Task 39 (transport biofuels) is an update from a 2022 report “Recent progress in the production of low carbon intensive drop-in fuels”.

Since the previous report there has been a significant increase in commercial announcements for drop-in and co-processing facilities. One of the biggest drivers behind these many new announcements is probably the introduction of policies targeting the production of drop-in and co-processed fuels in both the US and EU.

Highlights:

• The growth in drop-in biofuel production, e.g., renewable diesel and biojet fuels (SAF) has increased substantially in the past few years, facilitated by the implementation of enabling policies.
• One of the main attractions of producing drop-in biofuels is that companies and users can use the current infrastructure for the distribution and use of these low-carbon intensity (CI) fuels.
• Co-processing of biogenic feedstocks by refineries continues to increase in popularity, particularly as the lower CI of the final fuel can substantially lower the scope 3 emissions of the supplier.
• Lipids are the predominant biogenic feedstocks that are used for co-processing. However, demand for waste-based lipid feedstocks (such as fats, used cooking oils and greases) is growing to above what can be supplied. Further deployment will require an increasing use of (lignocellulosic) biomass-derived biocrudes. Biocrude production is still in development, with questions regarding its availability, cost, and carbon intensity (CI) still needing to be resolved.
• As it is likely that refineries will be the main producers of low-CI fuels, the repurposing of facilities to produce renewable diesel and biojet/SAF and the co-processing of biogenic feedstocks will continue to grow. This growth will be needed if the world is to meet the decarbonisation of transport targets that have been set.

Download the full report: Commercialization of drop-in biofuels and coprocessing