Pathway to a land-neutral expansion of Brazilian renewable fuel production
Journal article, 2022
Biofuels are currently the only available bulk renewable fuel. They have, however, limited expansion potential due to high land requirements and associated risks for biodiversity, food security, and land conflicts. We therefore propose to increase output from ethanol refineries in a land-neutral methanol pathway: surplus CO2-streams from fermentation are combined with H-2 from renewably powered electrolysis to synthesize methanol. We illustrate this pathway with the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry using a spatio-temporal model. The fuel output of existing ethanol generation facilities can be increased by 43%-49% or similar to 100 TWh without using additional land. This amount is sufficient to cover projected growth in Brazilian biofuel demand in 2030. We identify a trade-off between renewable energy generation technologies: wind power requires the least amount of land whereas a mix of wind and solar costs the least. In the cheapest scenario, green methanol is competitive to fossil methanol at an average carbon price of 95euro tCO(2)(-1).
Author
Luis Ramirez Camargo
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Utrecht University
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
Gabriel Castro
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Katharina Gruber
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Jessica Jewell
University of Bergen
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Physical Resource Theory
Michael Klingler
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
University of Innsbruck
Olga Turkovska
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Elisabeth Wetterlund
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Luleå University of Technology
Johannes Schmidt
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
Nature Communications
2041-1723 (ISSN) 20411723 (eISSN)
Vol. 13 1 3157Mechanisms and actors of Feasible Energy Transitions (MANIFEST)
European Research Council (ERC) (950408), 2021-03-01 -- 2026-02-28.
Subject Categories
Renewable Bioenergy Research
Bioenergy
Energy Systems
DOI
10.1038/s41467-022-30850-2
PubMed
35672306