A纤维素乙醇在中国的机遇和挑战.doc

亚化咨询：纤维素乙醇在中国的机遇和挑战

采用先进预处理技术和酶制剂，即将进入商业化示范的纤维素乙醇装置成本可控制在4000元/吨左右，但其原料供应的稳定性是一大挑战。未来煤制乙醇和纤维素乙醇将成为中国燃料乙醇的主要来源。燃料乙醇市场的进一步扩大，还需要政府的政策支持和油品销售企业的合作。

由于第一代生物乙醇以玉米、甘蔗等为原料，引起人们对粮食供应的担忧，能源化工企业开发了第二代生物乙醇。第二代生物乙醇也称纤维素乙醇，以农林废弃物中所含的纤维素为原料，包括玉米秸秆、玉米芯、小麦和水稻秸秆、甘蔗渣等。纤维素乙醇原料可再生，既不影响粮食供应，也可以充分利用现有乙醇汽油的基础设施，是公认的绿色能源。

但事实上过去几年中，纤维素乙醇在全球范围内都进展缓慢。根据美国2010年宣布的可再生燃料标准(RFS)，到2022年，美国须生产160亿加仑/年纤维素乙醇，2011年的目标是2.5亿加仑，可实际上2011年美国纤维素乙醇的产量仅约660万加仑（2万吨）。

阻碍纤维素乙醇获得迅速发展的主要因素是成本，在早期的技术条件下，即使加上补贴，纤维素乙醇也不具市场竞争力。但这一情况正在改变，随着纤维素乙醇酶制剂成本降低、效率提高，以及预处理等环节技术不断成熟，纤维素乙醇商业化瓶颈即将突破。行业领先的化学和工程公司建设了一系列商业化示范装置，将在2-3年内验证大规模生产纤维素乙醇的真实成本。

我国《生物质能发展“十二五”规划》（征求意见稿）指出，2010年我国生物燃料乙醇利用量200万吨，生物柴油50万吨；2015年生物质液体燃料规划达到500万吨/年。中国《可再生能源中长期发展规划》也指出，到2020年，生物燃料乙醇年利用量将达到1000万吨。亚化咨询认为，在粮食乙醇停止发展，生物柴油进展缓慢的现状下，纤维素乙醇将是实现规划目标的重要途径。中国公司也计划了一系列纤维素乙醇项目。

下面，亚化咨询将就纤维素乙醇价值链的主要环节，分析其在中国的机遇和挑战。

1. 原料供应和成本

《生物质能发展“十二五”规划》（征求意见稿）显示，我国可供能源化利用的农业废弃物理论资源量为4亿吨/年，可以为纤维素乙醇提供充足的原料。但由于中国农业经济的特点，原料收集难度大。生物质发电和造纸行业的经验表明，秸秆原料收集可以采取分散收集、多点储存的模式，最好由专业公司来运作原料的物流和储运。

纤维素乙醇的原料供应体系将为中国的农业人口提供增加收入的机会。以1000万吨/年的乙醇产能为例，其需要的原料为4000万吨/年，农业废弃物按照400元/吨计算，将为农民增收160亿元/年。此外，以具有竞争力的价格收购农业废弃物，还可以解决农民农忙后焚烧秸杆引起的空气污染问题。

由于原料的能量密度低，考虑到运输能耗，纤维素乙醇单个项目的规模不宜过大，并且规划项目地点要避免可能出现与生物质发电、造纸等行业争夺原料的问题。

2. 乙醇生产

纤维素乙醇的生产主要包括原料预处理、酶解、发酵和精馏等环节。其中原料预处理需要大量的能量，酶解需要昂贵的酶制剂，这两个环节在总成本中占据了重要份额。由于纤维素制乙醇过程会副产很多木质素，木质素可以作为燃料提供蒸汽和电力，因此项目能量平衡的工程设计尤为重要，可以降低整体的能耗。

公开资料显示，目前国内纤维素乙醇试验装置的成本超过7000元/吨，相比乙醇的市场价格没有经济性，高性能和低价格的酶制剂是降低乙醇成本的关键。高性能的酶可以提高纤维素和半纤维素的转化率，从而降低乙醇的原料单耗；而酶制剂价格的降低，更是可以直接降低乙醇的成本。

2010年5月，诺维信（Novozymes）宣称其诺纤力赛力二代（Cellic CTec2）酶制剂产品可以使生物燃料行业能以每加仑2美元以下的成本生产纤维素乙醇。以美元对人民币6.3的汇率计算，约4160元/吨。

此外，纤维素乙醇还将为工程建设和设备供应商带来市场机会。一个典型的5万吨/年纤维素乙醇工厂投资以6亿元计算，1000万吨/年的总产能，总投资将为1200亿元。酶制剂的价格以每吨乙醇1200元计算，届时每年的酶制剂销售额将达到120亿元。

3. 乙醇分销

按现行政策，乙醇是以90#汽油出厂价的91.11%卖给中石油或中石化用于调配乙醇汽油。2012下半年，我国90#汽油出厂价超过8000元/吨。考虑到中国特有的成品油定价机制和国际油价未来的走势，可以认为成本在4000元/吨左右的先进纤维素乙醇生产装置在中国具有丰厚的利润空间。

乙醇汽油在中国仍属于试点推广，尚未全面铺开，燃料乙醇的销售渠道单一等问题仍需解决。2012年6月，美国环保署（EPA）决定批准销售E15乙醇汽油，对中国的燃料乙醇行业是一个利好消息。如果中国也推广E15乙醇汽油，按照2015年中国汽油消费量1亿吨，其中50%为E15乙醇汽油估算，燃料乙醇的总消费量将达到750万吨/年。按照中国目前试点推广的E10来推算，届时燃料乙醇的总消费量也将达到500万吨/年。

总的来说，技术进步推动产业升级，随着一系列先进商业化示范装置的投产运行，纤维素乙醇的真实成本将得到验证，中国的纤维素乙醇行业将迎来发展机遇。作为绿色能源项目，纤维素乙醇投资者应当积极争取国家优惠政策和补贴，以进一步确保利润空间。展望未来，纤维素乙醇也将面临煤制乙醇（主要是醋酸加氢工艺路线）的挑战，届时综合成本更低的技术将成为赢家。

2013煤/生物质制乙醇技术经济研讨会将于2013年1月10-11日在上海召开，行业领先的研究机构和技术开发者将分别介绍纤维素乙醇技术经济分析和纤维素乙醇商业示范项目进展。由于会议日期临近，如果您有兴趣参加此次会议，欢迎和我们联系。会议负责人：高小姐 021-50329699-114 ella50329699@

ASIACHEM: Cellulosic ethanol in China – Opportunity & Challenge

Using advanced pretreatment and enzyme preparations, the commercial demonstration cellulosic ethanol costs can be controlled around 4000 CNY/t, but the stability of the raw materials supply is a major challenge. Future coal-to-ethanol and cellulosic ethanol will become the main sources of fuel ethanol. The further expansion of the fuel ethanol market also need the support of the government policies and the cooperation of oil companies.

Since the 1st generation bio-ethanol is based on corn and sugarcane etc as raw material, it naturally caused people’s concern on cereal supply. Therefore, energy & chemical industry developed the 2nd generation bio-ethanol, or so called cellulosic ethanol, based on cellulose material contained in agriculture/forestry wastes such as corn stalks, corn cob, wheat and rice straw, and sugarcane bagasse etc. Cellulosic ethanol becomes a well recognized green energy because it can be made from renewable raw materials, will not affect the cereal supply, and make full use of existing ethanol gasoline infrastructures.

In the past years, however, cellulosic ethanol developed quite slowly in the world. According to the US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) published in 2010, it proposed that by 2022, the States need to produce 16 billion gallons per annum of cellulosic ethanol, the target set for 2011 was 250 million gallons, but in fact the whole country produced only 6.6 million gallons (20kt) in last year.

Stumbling block on the way of cellulosic ethanol development was the production cost. By the early developed process technology, cellulosic ethanol is not market competitive even subsidy was added. But now, the situation is changing. With reduced cost and improved efficiency of cellulosic ethanol enzyme preparation, and matured technology available for pre-treatment and other process sections, cellulosic ethanol is expected to pass through the bottleneck of commercialization. Leading chemical and engineering companies have built several commercial demo units, to examine the true cost of large scale cellulosic ethanol production in next 2-3 years.

In China, the government issued “Biomass Energy Developing 12-5 Program” (draft) , which announced that China consumed 2 Mt/a of bio-ethanol in fuel use and 500 kt/a of bio-diesel fuel. Planned biomass based liquid fuel use by 2015 is totalized up to 5 Mt/a. it is also pointed out by Chinese “Renewable Energy Mid-/Long Term developing Program” that the nation’s annual use of bio-fuel ethanol shall reach 10Mt/a by 2020. ASIACHEM considers that as cereal ethanol ceased to develop and bio-diesel gained only very limited growth, cellulosic ethanol becomes an important path to realize the developing target. In fact, a series of cellulosic ethanol plant are planned by Chinese players.

Following is the analysis of ASIACHEM on cellulosic ethanol value chain and opportunity & challenge of the industry in China.

1. Raw material supply & cost

As shown in “Biomass Energy Developing 12-5 Program” (draft), theoretical resource amount of Chinese agriculture waste available for energy conversion is estimated 400Mt/a, well sufficient to feed cellulosic ethanol production. The difficulty is in the collection, because of scattered distribution of Chinese agriculture economy. Experiences in biomass power generation and paper industry suggest a pattern of discrete collection and multiple-base storage, and to contract professional companies for raw material storage & logistics.

Cellulosic ethanol raw material supplying can create opportunity for Chinese rural population and increase their income. Taking 10 Mt/a ethanol as capacity basis, the industry will need 40 Mt/a of raw material feed. This means CNY16 bn/a of additional income for the farmers, calculating on assumed price of CNY 400 per ton of waste. In addition, purchase of waste from farmer by a competitive price is also a way to solve the air pollution problem caused by burn-off of stalks in harvest season.

Large capacity of a single cellulosic ethanol project is not advisable because of lower energy density of the raw and taking account of transportation energy demand. Besides, site location shall be determined not to compete for raw supply with biomass power and paper industry.

2. Ethanol production

Process of cellulosic ethanol consists of mainly raw material pre-treatment, enzymolysis, fermentation and distillation etc, Utility consumption of raw pre-treatment and enzyme price of enzymolysis accounts major share in the total cost. Cellulosic ethanol process usually by-produce a lot of lignin, which can be used as fuel for steam and power generation. Therefore energy balance of the project is of particular importance in engineering design to reduce general energy consumption of the process as a whole.

As indicated in published data, Chinese cellulosic ethanol test unit at current stage produces at the cost exceeding CNY7000/t, showing no economy in comparison to market ethanol price. The key to reduce ethanol cost is an enzyme preparation of lower price and higher performance. Better enzyme can reduce raw material consumption by improving cellulose and semi-cellulose conversion. On the other end, reduced enzyme price directly contributes to cost saving.

In May 2010, Novozymes announced that the company could supply Cellic CTec2 enzyme formula to bio-fuel industry and reduce the cellulosic ethanol cost down to below USD2/gal, i.e. CNY4160/t by the exchange rate of 1USD equals to 6.3CNY.

Cellulosic ethanol will also bring up market opportunity for engineering companies and equipment vendors. Based on CNY600mn investment for a typical 50kt/a cellulosic ethanol plant, China will need CNY120bn of capital to build the targeted 10Mt/a total capacity. And, if the enzyme preparation cost per ton of ethanol produced is assumed CNY1200, the annual sales shall aggregate up to CNY12bn by that time.

3. Ethanol distribution

By current price policy, ethanol is sold to PetroChina or SINOPEC for blending of ethanol gasoline at 91.11% of 90# gasoline factory gate price. In H2 2012, 90# gasoline factory gate price exceeded CNY8000/t in the country. Taking consideration of Chinese specific refined oil pricing mechanism and future trend of international oil market, it is believed that an advanced cellulosic ethanol plant operating at CNY4000/t complete cost will enjoy great profit margin in China.

Use of ethanol gasoline is only at the starting trial stage with a long, long way ahead. Concentrated sales channel for fuel ethanol remains the problem for the industry. In Jun 2012, US EPA approved legal distribution of E15 ethanol gasoline, good news for Chinese fuel ethanol industry. When popular use of E15 comes true in China and based on gasoline consumption of 100Mt and a 50% portion will be E15 in 2015, this is an estimate of 7.5 Mt/a fuel ethanol demand. If the estimate based on the current standard in China (E10), the total fuel ethanol consumption will reach 5 Mt/a.

In general, technology progression always presses forward industry upgrading. With a series of advanced commercial demo units brought on-stream, exact production cost of cellulosic ethanol shall be examined. Chinese cellulosic ethanol industry will face to good opportunity for development. As a green energy, cellulosic ethanol investor shall strive for favorable policy and subsidy from state authorities to further secure the profit margin. However, cellulosic ethanol will also face the challenge from coal-based ethanol (mainly by Acetic Hydrogenation route), and the process with lower cost will be the winner of the game.

2013 Coal/Biomass to Ethanol Conference will be held in Jan.10-11, 2013 in Shanghai, China. The experts from leading Research Institute and Technology Provider will introduce Technical & Economic Analysis of Cellulosic to Ethanol and the Updates of Cellulosic to Ethanol Commercialized Demonstration Plant respectively. Please contact (86-21) 5032 9699 -114 Ella Gao or Email to gao@ for more details.