Biofuel from wood from the Landes forests: a solution soon available in reservoirs ?

Biofuel from wood from the Landes forests: a solution soon available in reservoirs ?

L'usine landaise compte produire 21 millions de tonnes de bioéthanol d'ici trois ans pour approvisionner le marché régional en carburant E5, E10 et E85. DaylightLoren/Getty Images

Maritime pine transformed into automotive fuel: in Tartas in the Landes, a biorefinery of the American group Rayonier Advanced Materials (Ryam), specialized in wood chemistry, has started the production of second generation bioethanol, a first in France.

The Landes plant plans to produce 21 million tonnes of bioethanol within three years to supply the regional market with E5, E10 and E85 fuel. “That's the consumption of 2,500 vehicles for one year”, explains Ludovic Berdinel, director of the biorefinery, which required an investment of 37 million euros.

The fuel will be sold by its commercial partner Esso, the French subsidiary of the American oil giant ExxonMobil.

“Expanding the scope of exploitable plant raw materials”

The biorefinery already produced cellulose from local softwoods for various industrial applications (cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, hygiene products and eyeglass frames in particular), from Landes pines, but without recovering the sugars, now transformed into bioethanol, after a process of fermentation, distillation and dehydration.

Forest residues “have the advantage of not competing with agricultural materials and above all do not involve new cuttings of wood other than that already exploited on our site for cellulose”, specifies the president of Ryam France, Christian Ribeyrolle.

The development of advanced biofuels is part of the objectives of the European RED II directive, which provides for the incorporation of 14% renewable energy in transport by 2030, including 3.5% of second-generation biofuels.

“This directive has generated demand from oil groups, opening the door to projects that were previously on the verge of profitability”, says Ludovic Berdinel.

According to the IFP Energies Nouvelles research institute, second-generation bioethanol “allows to broaden the scope of exploitable plant raw materials, from forest waste or cereal straw to herbaceous plants rich in lignocellulose“. It should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 85% compared to the fossil fuel reference, according to IFPEN.

The consumption of bioethanol, made from agricultural alcohol, soared by 83% in 2022 and continued to increase by 5% in 2023. In 2022, this biofuel represented 6.5% of the gasoline market.

In France, IFPEN, INRAE, Tereos and Total have been running another research project on the production of second-generation bioethanol, called Futurol, since 2011. The technology was first commercialized in Europe, in Croatia, in 2020.

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