Biofuel industry set to prove critics wrong

BP Biofuels North America president Sue Ellerbusch has said that the biofuel industry is on the 'cusp of I-told-you-so', as new technologies are disproving critics' theories that renewable fuel cannot compete with conventional fossil-fuels, according to an interview with AOL Energy.

Cellulosic ethanol and advance biofuels are close to a significant increase in scale, with companies such as BP confident that it has the technology to manufacture it on a scale comparable to that of conventional fuels.

BP is constructing a large facility in Florida to manufacture the fuels, and it has commented that the next facility built will be even larger. She also acknowledges competitors such as Abengoa and DuPont are creating good momentum for the industry.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance have recently found that some aviation biofuels could be competitive by 2020. However, the take-up of biofuels by airlines is likely to be modest in the near term unless governments introduce mandates requiring their use.

Posted by Lauren Steadman