SUBSTANTIAL INVOLVEMENT BY DOE TO ADDRESS SCALE-UP CHALLENGES FOR BIOREFINERIES

摘要

Since 2003, the Department of Energy (Department) has been substantially involved incost-sharing the development of over thirty integrated biorefinery projects to process biomassfeedstocks into transportation fuels and biobased products. These projects range in scalefrom developing engineering designs for pilot operations, to constructing integrated pilot- anddemonstration-scale biorefineries, as well as commercial biorefinery demonstrations. Underdirection of public law (Energy Policy Act of 2005), the Department was authorized to "carryout a program to demonstrate the commercial application of integrated biorefineries1." Underthat mandate and subsequent law (e.g., the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of2009), the Department's Biomass Program conducted three separate competitive FundingOpportunity Announcements (FOAs) from 2006-2009 to solicit applications from thecommunity to develop integrated biorefineries at these various scales. This presentationprovides a brief overview of the careful selection process employed to meet the mandates ofpublic law and describes how the Department utilizes project management best practices toaddress the challenges of scale-up and completion of these projects. An oft voiced criticism isthat the federal government tries to pick technology winners. In fact, the Department's overallobjective is to foster development of a robust, commercially-competitive biorefinery industry byselecting a broad suite of technology types that appear technically mature enough to besuccessful, not to advance any particular technology. A further objective is to reduce the riskassociated with designing, constructing and operating first-of-a-kind biorefinery demonstrationssuch that the return on the investment can become attractive to private investment. In thisvein, the overall benefit of the industry-federal partnerships will be discussed along with thepractices and processes used to help both recipients of federal funds and the Departmentachieve successful development of Integrated Biorefineries.