The world’s first large scale second generation biofuel refinery has opened in Germany.
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Choren Industries opened its plant in Freiburg last week and said it expects to produce 18m litres of biodiesel from wood residue each year. This would be enough to fuel 15,000 vehicles.
The company said that the biomass-to-liquid fuel produced at the plant would be better suited to powering existing cars on the road than other biodiesels on sale. Germany currently requires that all diesel is blended with 5% biofuel, but from the beginning of 2009 this will rise to 7%. There has been some concern that older engines may not cope well with the change.
Choren says it plans to set up a second plant with an annual production capacity of 250m litres (54.9m gallons) in Schwedt, near the Polish border. By 2020, the company aims to run 10 to 15 BTL plants, of which a further five will be in Germany.
Choren Industries is backed by Daimler and Volkswagen, as well by Shell. Both Daimler and Volkswagen have engineered their vehicles to run on ‘SunDiesel’, produced by Choren.
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