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New Business Areas

The biofuels market is expected to continue its rapid growth over the coming years. The European Commission has recognized the importance of fossil fuels substitution in order to safeguard supplies and protect our climate. This awareness has now been converted to affirmative action through directives instructing member states to develop plans ensuring that biofuels make up 5.75% of all transport fuels by 2010.

This means that beginning now, the EU-15 alone must produce approx. 18 billion liters of biofuel every year and at the same time Brussels is already considering a new target of 20% by the year 2020.

Global Market Potential for the Biofuel SunDiesel

The market for synthetic fuels is potentially worth billions of euros and the opportunities for SunDiesel made by CHOREN are especially promising. SunDiesel’s fuel qualities and energy balance are outstanding and the required raw material is readily available.
If we consider forecasts for fossil energy reserves and international climate protection goals, the long-term global market potential for SunDiesel is almost infinite. Long term energy prices are expected to rise allowing public sector subsidy programs to play a diminishing role and the relative manufacturing costs of biofuels to be competitive. Already today, if we add the external costs of climate change to the price of fossil fuels, biofuels are already cheaper than crude oil products.

CHOREN Industries has developed a lead of several years over its competitors in gasifying biomass and is now constructing the first industrial production plant to manufacture synthetic biofuels.

Crude oil production will begin to decline in the foreseeable future.

Transport energy requirements for the world’s growing population will continue to increase significantly over the coming decades, while crude oil production in particular will begin to decline in the already foreseeable future. This dilemma may be elegantly addressed through the use of biofuels.
Biomass will then become one of the key resource in balancing increasing consumption and diminishing fossil fuel reserves. We will then need industrial processes that convert various types of biomass into products that readily fit into the existing infrastructure.
This is exactly what the Carbo-V Process developed by CHOREN Industries does.

Using the CHOREN’s process, it is possible to reduce almost any kind of carbon bearing raw material to its lowest common denominator and then synthesize it to highly purified products.

Carbo-V gasification enables us to use biomass to manufacture the products that are currently based on crude oil – from combustion fuels to plastics. In the mobility sector in particular we are able to manufacture ‘designer fuels’ to the automobile producers requirements and thereby more fully exploit the potential efficiency gains of future engine technology.

In Europe, CHOREN Industries is currently focusing on biomass feedstock. It is equally feasible however, to use a variety of other industrial residue and waste substances as demonstrated since 1998 at the company’s pilot plant. All output products, such as the Fischer-Tropsch SunDiesel, have outstanding properties, because the original substances are completely broken down into their individual low-molecule constituent parts and only selective building blocks then synthesized into the specified end-product.

The EU projects that member states will still be 92% dependent on imported crude oil by 2030. This in turn led to the 2003 establishment of the alternate fuel strategy with biomass as it center piece.

The EU directive on biofuels mandates member countries to develop plans ensuring that at least 2% of all transport fuels are biomass derived beginning 2005.

A continual increase in the substitution quota demands that biofuels account for at least 5.75% of total consumption by the year 2010. This would mean three million tonnes a year in Germany alone.
In order to achieve this goal, Germany is promoting biofuels by exempting these from fuel excise and eco taxes. Other EU member states have already responded in a similar manner or are about to introduce appropriate incentive mechanisms.

Generating Electricity from Biomass

Many European countries have legislated on feeding electricity generated from biomass into the national grid.
The German Renewable Energy Act (EEG), guarantees extremely attractive levels of remuneration, especially when electricity generation is coupled with innovative processes such as gasification technology. Moreover, these levels of remuneration are fixed for the economic lifetime of the project, i.e. up to 20 years.
CHOREN Industries is also active in this sector and has process technology based on Carbo-V gasification for electrical power output of 5 MW – 20 MW. The first combined heat and power unit using CHOREN technology is expected to go on line in 2006.

Biomass, a "Climate-Neutral" Raw Material

The SunDiesel production process is particularly relevant to current climate and resource policies in Europe but the ultimate potential of the technology reaches far beyond this. We are convinced that in the very near future Carbo-V gasification will become a core element of multi-functional biorefineries enabling critical chemical and energy process cycles to be redefined. Conformant with environmental and political requirements, biomass is uniquely suited as the ideal feedstock for the production of day to day petrochemical raw products or transport fuel end-products.
Whatever the case, CHOREN Industries will endeavor to maintain its leadership by adapting and evolving its technologies to the challenge of ever demanding applications.. Our primary aim is to defend our leading position on the global market for biomass gasification and synthesis technology – the key to renewable and sustainable petrochemical and energy sectors.