Can the plant from which Tequila is made, agave, transform the economics of sustainable aviation biofuels?
Byogy Renewables has invested in a strategic partnership with AusAgave Australia, aimed at developing multiple feedstocks to develop low-cost sugars for the production of renewable fuels and chemicals.
Structured initially as a strategic partnership, Don Chambers, CEO of AusAgave, will join the Byogy team to drive overall global feedstock operations — and, if all goes well, a merger of the companies may emerge down the line.
Praise for the partnership arrived from as far away as Brazil, where Byogy established a subsidiary in 2011 and recently partnered with Avianca Brasil Airlines to support global approvals of higher blends of Byogy's premium fuel. So, not surprising to hear that Avianca Flight Operations Director Norberto Raniero stated: "Our team now includes more elements to produce a competitive, alternative aviation biofuel."
With feedstock cost representing over 65% of fuels final cost, according to Byogy, it makes sense for aviation biofuels companies to take a strategic interest in it. But the capital and management problems are tough. There is a need, for example, to acquire and manage some 200,000 acres of farmland to support a 50 million gallon aviation biofuels plant with feedstock (for this example, we've used corn sugar yields — obviously, cane, algae and other feedstocks have different agronomics).
1. For the feedstock grower, contract for the long-term, at acceptable margins for the given land that needs to be used.
2. For a strategic investor focused on serving the aviation market, ensure that the resulting products are cost-competitive.
3. If financial investors are utilised — ensure that the products are not only cost-competitive, but represent the highest return amongst the potential product, or are in other ways more sustainable (e.g. long-term contracts, or? less commodity price risk in the long-term).
This is where agave might come in. It's known around the world primarily as the crop from which tequila is made — but also has been valued for its fibres. AusAgave and Don Chambers have pushed agave yields quite a ways along. According to the firm, they're getting substantially more biomass per acre than sugarcane, and twice the sugar content.
It's advantage can be summed up in three letters: CAM. 'Crassulacean acid metabolism' is an alternative and important carbon fixation pathway — the stomata in the leaves remain shut during the day to reduce water loss, but open at night to suck down huge gulps of CO2. CAM plants have low water requirements and high photosynthetic efficiency. Pineapple is perhaps the best known; and, there's agave.
AusAgave has spent the last ten years developing intellectual property on the drought resistant agave genus by embracing plant propagation, agronomy, cropping, and harvesting techniques, which result in "plantations affording at least a 50% yield per acre improvement over historic sugarcane productivity," according to the firm.
"The results of our recent harvesting program have already proven our efforts to substantially increase sugar yields and decrease delivered sugar costs for select agave species, and we fully expect to continue decreasing sugar costs over the next few years," said Mr Chambers.
Why agave?
How about ethanol yields of 10,000 liters per hectare (1070 gallons per acre, per year)?? That's a start.
According to Byogy, AusAgave's recent harvest results already demonstrate the production of low-cost sugars allowing Byogy's technology "to produce cost competitive gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and a suite of chemicals at or below that of petroleum products without infrastructure modification, blending, or government subsidies."
