State of the Art 

in Biorefinery in Finland 

and the United States, 

2008

Alan W. Rudie

United States

Department of

Agriculture

Forest Service

Forest

Products

Laboratory

General

Technical

Report

FPL–GTR–185
June 2009

Rudie, Alan W. 2009. State of the art in biorefinery in Finland and the 

United States, 2008. General Technical Report FPL-GTR-185. Madison, 

WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products 

Laboratory. 22 p.

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Abstract

The U.S. Embassy in Finland and the Finnish Ministry of 

Employment and Economy jointly sponsored a U.S. Embassy Science Fellowship to survey biorefinery research and 

development (R&D) activities in Finland and the United 

States and to seek cooperative research efforts between the 

two countries. The biorefinery effort in Finland started from 

concerns about global climate change and a need to comply 

with terms of the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. The biorefinery program in the United States started 

from concerns about the rising cost of crude oil and a desire 

to reduce dependence on foreign oil for U.S. transportation 

fuels. Although different in original intent, the two country 

R&D programs have many similarities and offer numerous opportunities for collaborative efforts. The program 

in Finland is more focused on direct replacement of highcarbon fuels, such as coal and peat, and gasification and gas 

reforming as a path toward transportation fuels. Chemical 

and biochemical research on biorefinery includes production of ethanol as a transportation fuel but is more focused 

on specialty chemicals and use of biomass chemical fractions in films and plastics. The U.S. focus is primarily on 

transportation fuels, with about equal efforts on gasification 

and Fischer–Tropsch reforming, and cellulose hydrolysis 

with fermentation to ethanol. This difference in emphasis 

is partially dictated by difference in raw materials. About 

two-thirds of the biomass available in the United States is 

dedicated annual crops and unused stalks and leaves of cereal grain agriculture. The bulk of the biomass available in 

Finland is thinnings and logging slash from softwood tree 

species. Agricultural residuals are more readily hydrolyzed 

than softwoods and, because of higher ash content, more 

difficult to handle in gasification and direct combustion. The 

difference in program emphasis between the two countries is 

largely a response to different climate and geographic conditions in Finland and the United States. 

Keywords: Biorefinery, gasification, saccharification, 

hydrolysis, fermentation, Fischer-Tropsch 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Mr. Glenn Lewis, Economic Officer at the U.S. 

Embassy in Helsinki, for arranging the Embassy Science 

Fellowship and overseeing the Embassy commitment to the 

project and Eileen Kane for State Department support for 

the Helsinki Embassy proposal. Thanks to Dr. Tuula Mäkinen, Program Coordinator for the Tekes BioRefine program, 

for arranging all visits and coordinating the technical part 

of the project. Thanks also to Mr. Del Conn of the U.S. 

Embassy for making it work. 

Although every effort has been made to review this report 

with scientists and government staff in both Finland and the 

United States, ultimately, the contents of the report are the 

research, opinions, and conclusions of the author. The report 

does not represent opinion or policy of any government 

agency in either Finland or the United States. 

Contents

Page

Executive Summary.............................................................i

Introduction..........................................................................1

 Biorefinery: Basics and Concepts....................................2

 Lignin and Cellulose........................................................3

 Biorefinery .......................................................................4

 Biorefinery in the United States and Finland...................6

 Purpose.............................................................................6

Existing Biorefineries...........................................................7

Biorefinery Program in Finland .........................................10

 Government-Funded Research Centers .........................11

 Biorefinery Science in Finland.......................................12

Biorefinery Research Initiatives in the United States........14

 DOE Bioenergy Initiative ..............................................14

 Bioenergy Research Centers..........................................15

 Integrated Biorefineries..................................................16

10% Validation—Small-Scale Biorefineries......................17

 Smaller Research Grants................................................18

 Feedstock and Supply ....................................................19

Summary............................................................................19

References..........................................................................20

On the cover: The introduction of this report alludes to a 

comparison of current extractive energy use as parasitic and 

sustainable energy efforts as symbiotic—living within the 

renewable energy budget of the earth. A lichen is pictured 

on the cover to symbolize this noble goal. Photo courtesy of 

Francis Jones, www.bugwood.org.
Executive Summary

In 2008, with the United States of America beginning to 

re-evaluate national policies on global climate change and 

Finland agreeing to European Union targets for renewable 

transportation fuels, the two countries discovered many similarities in their goals for renewable fuels. As a result, the 

U.S. Embassy in Helsinki and the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy agreed to sponsor a project using 

the U.S. State Department’s Embassy Science Fellowship 

program (ESF). The U.S. Embassy arranged the ESF, including local housing and travel. Tekes, the research funding 

agency of the Ministry of Employment and Economy, arranged access to government laboratories, universities, and 

corporations in Finland and organized the interviews needed 

to prepare a summary document of biorefinery research and 

development.

Visits and interviews in Finland occurred during a six-week 

resident period in May and June 2008. The U.S. portion of 

the report was completed on return to the United States in 

June. The report has been reviewed and revised by staff at 

the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and by the hosts for 

the visits throughout Finland.

The biorefinery program funded by Tekes and the Academy 

of Finland provides for a strong overall program. Compared 

with funding initiatives in the United States, hydrolysis 

methods leading to fermentation products receive somewhat 

less support in Finland, whereas gasification and pyrolysis 

receive somewhat more support. Nearly all the gasification 

efforts include at least a pilot-scale evaluation of reforming product gas to hydrocarbons using the Fischer–Tropsch 

process. The difference in emphasis between Finland and 

the United States is consistent with differences in available 

biomass. The United States has large amounts of available 

agricultural residuals and hardwoods, both of which respond 

well to hydrolysis methods. In contrast, softwoods, which 

are substantially more difficult to process with hydrolysis 

methods, make up the majority of available biomass in 

Finland.

Interest in ethanol as a fuel product seems greater in the 

United States than in Finland, but one Finnish company 

is producing fuel-grade ethanol from various industrial 

waste streams, and support for research on lignin- and 

carbohydrate-degrading organisms and enzymes is strong. 

Compared with U.S. funding, non-cellulose- (glucose-) 

based products are receiving relatively more interest in Finland, and much of the fractionation and hydrolysis work is 

targeted at pharmaceuticals, neutraceuticals, and specialty 

biomaterials applications.

The weakness in many plans to utilize wood or agricultural 

residuals to displace fossil-fuel-derived products is the inability to accumulate biomass on a scale comparable to 

competing products. The costs of collection, transportation, 

and storage of biomass limit the economically viable scale 

of processing facilities and the ability to compete directly 

with fossil-fuel-based products, which benefit from high 

energy density and a large economy of scale. The DOE cost 

projection for commercializing bio-based fuels requires a 

significant reduction in raw material cost, representing almost half the cost reduction needed for bio-based fuels to 

compete directly against gasoline and diesel fuel. A significant part of the raw material cost reduction is an expected 

increase in ethanol yield—from about 60 U.S. gallons 

per ton of biomass (227 L) to over 90 gallons per ton 

(341 L)—and similar improvements in processing efficiency 

with gasification and reforming. The most recent cost projection is that costs per delivered ton of biomass will fall 

for a few years as collection and transportation capabilities 

improve but will eventually rise back to about $60 per ton as 

the market builds and supplies tighten. Cost reductions are 

anticipated in single-pass harvesting for agricultural residuals, reduced biomass moisture, and higher density transport 

bundles. These are very formidable hurdles for agricultural 

biomass. They are even more daunting for wood residuals. Compared with the cost of providing roundwood to 

sawmills, harvest and transportation costs are much greater 

for forest thinning and residuals. All biomass utilization 

processes, or at least all processes targeted at displacing petroleum-based products, depend on improvements in harvest 

and transport. Finland has had an active program in forest 

biomass harvesting, and this is critical to making forestbased biofuels cost effective. The United States has focused 

more attention on improving productivity and harvesting 

of annual crops and agricultural residuals because this will 

contribute a larger share of the lignocellulose for alternative 

fuels in the United States.

The U.S. program is more focused on fuels than other products and is currently more focused on agricultural residuals 

than forest and forest products residuals. The emphasis on 

lignocellulosic ethanol and reforming synthesis gas to alcohols appears to be quite different from the major emphasis 

areas in Finland. For the saccharification and fermentationbased process, there is an extensive effort in the United 

States on genetic engineering solutions to several of the persistent needs. Of most interest is whether newer approaches 

such as rational design and directed evolution can provide 

the needed processing improvements.

A large part of the U.S. effort is in 13 demonstration plants 

using technologies including gasification with gas reforming, synthesis gas with fermentation, enzyme saccharification with fermentation, and acid hydrolysis with fermentation. Based on yields shown in the companies’ published 

literature, and stated position in the research and development (R&D) progression, it is not clear that any of these 

projects have breakthrough technologies that will make their 

biofuel product commercially competitive with petroleumbased gasoline or diesel fuel. Several, however, are well 

established companies with highly successful R&D 

and investment track records and very likely have 

 i
cost-effective—presumably profitable—technologies or 

ways to implement the technology. Based on the research 

goals of the Bioenergy Research Centers established by 

DOE, and the research project portfolios of DOE and the 

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), there is concern 

among the grant agencies that progress in cellulose saccharification yield, five-carbon sugar fermentation, tar removal, 

synthesis gas cleanup, and overall processing costs is not 

sufficient to achieve the renewable fuels production targets 

established in the Energy Independence and Security Act.

There is recognition within DOE that the pulp and paper 

industry understands biomass management and may provide 

an implementation pathway for forest biomass to biofuels. 

Two pulp and paper mills are among the gasification–

Fischer–Tropsch projects, and two prehydrolysis pulping 

projects have been funded by DOE. Several of the other 

DOE projects are co-sited with existing corn-ethanol plants 

or are managed by corn-ethanol producers who understand 

the harvest and transportation problems facing agricultural 

biomass users.

Based on renewed concerns within the United States on 

global climate change, and Finland’s agreement to comply 

with European Union targets for CO2 reductions in the 

transport sector, Finland and the United States now have 

very similar research needs and, not surprisingly, a number 

of similarities in the two programs. Although no formal 

cooperative process exists at this point, scientists in the two 

countries are already cooperating on research (Martinez and 

others 2008, Kilpeläinen 2007) and we should expect to see 

this continue. A remaining goal of this project is to expand 

this research cooperation. The two countries should consider 

collaboration on precompetitive research in Fischer–Tropsch 

catalysts, cataloging wood decay organisms and wood decay 

enzymes, cellulose recalcitrance to enzymes, and sustainability concerns, including how much biomass must be 

returned to agricultural soil to maintain soil productivity and 

the productivity impact of removing the tops, branches, and 

even roots that have been traditionally left in the forest.

ii
Introduction

Several global developments have led to an intense interest 

in renewable energy on the part of industrialized countries 

of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. One development is the 

concern among climate scientists that the increase in atmospheric CO2 will lead to climate disruptions and a growing 

consensus that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is at least 

partially a consequence of intensive use of fossil fuels for 

energy. In response, the United Nations (UN) convened the 

Framework Convention on Climate Change. In 1997, targets 

for reducing greenhouse gases were ratified in Kyoto Japan, 

becoming the blueprint for reducing the impact of modern 

civilization on the earth’s climate. Another development is 

recent fluctuations in petroleum costs, which have renewed 

concerns about the adequacy of known reserves and the 

potential for major supply disruptions. Industrial expansion 

and improving standards of living in Asia, South America, 

and Africa are increasing demand, and the supply of petroleum and petroleum products has not been able to keep up. 

The terms “Hubert’s peak” or “peak oil” refer to projections 

that crude oil extraction will begin to decline within the next 

quarter century (IEA 2005). These projections, combined 

with the current supply pinch, have generated increasing 

public concern that industrial economies will need to adjust 

to tighter supplies and higher costs for petroleum-based 

liquid fuels and chemicals.

Finland is among the leaders of the industrialized nations in 

use of renewable fuels, with over 25% of total energy use 

provided by renewable sources. About 20% is biomass provided by industrial forestry and forest residuals (IEA 2007). 

Finland has no coal, oil, or gas resources. It has shown 

considerable resourcefulness as a nation, having doubled 

total energy use between 1970 and 2002, without increasing 

the use of coal and petroleum (Figure 1). This past success 

complicates Finland’s efforts to roll back carbon emissions 

to below 1990 emission levels.

Until the recent concerns with climate change, the large coal 

and natural gas reserves in the United States reduced the 

incentive to encourage use of renewable fuels. Petroleum 

consumption in the United States has returned to usage levels of the 1970s, and natural gas consumption has increased 

significantly (Figure 2). However, the United States is a 

leader in the development of bio-based transportation fuels. 

In 2006, ethanol provided 2.6% of gasoline consumption 

(USDOE n.d.) with production doubling to provide nearly 

5% of gasoline use by 2007. Nearly all the ethanol production is currently produced from starch hydrolysis and fermentation, placing a burden on grain supplies. The research 

and development (R&D) focus of the United States has now 

shifted to non-food biomass, and several cellulosic projects 

should begin to produce ethanol before 2010. The use of 

lignocellulosic biomass to produce transportation fuel has 

been a long-term interest of the U.S. government. The U.S. 

Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Forest Service 

(USFS) have biomass fuel research dating back to the 1930s 

(Saeman, 1945, Harris and Kline, 1949) and this has been 

an R&D focus in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 

since it was formed in 1977 and assumed management responsibility for the National Laboratories. The United States 

has also become acutely aware that our reliance on foreign 

sources of petroleum is supporting governments that deny 

basic human rights and in some cases support international 

terrorist organizations.

Having signed the Kyoto treaty and as a member of the European Union (EU), which also ratified the treaty, Finland 

became subject to meeting the greenhouse gas reductions 

established for developed nations. Finland started a program to increase the use of biomass in direct combustion 

applications, such as district and industrial heat and power. 

Initial plans did not include a significant contribution of 

renewables to transportation fuels and considered peat as a 

renewable source of energy. Peat is the fraction of biomass 

that resists decay and that remains after the decay process is 

complete. In much of Finland, it is forming faster than it is 

being harvested for fuel, but the decay process is slow—up 

to 300 years—and the decay process emits methane, another 

greenhouse gas. The EU has rejected the use of peat as a 

renewable source of energy and insisted that Finland replace 

10% of petroleum-based transportation fuel with liquid fuels 

from renewable sources.

The government of the United States contested several 

aspects of the Kyoto agreement and as a result declined to 

ratify the treaty. However, disruptions in crude oil supplies, 

a decline in value of the dollar, and by some accounts, crude 

oil speculation caused a 100% rise in the relative cost 

of gasoline and diesel fuel within the United States 

(Figure 3). Although the cost of gasoline in the United 

States is still well below the cost of fuel in Finland, the 

relative rise in price has had a large impact on public perceptions. The United States has responded with a national 

initiative to replace fossil fuels used in transportation with 

State of the Art in Biorefinery 

in Finland and the United States, 2008

Alan W. Rudie, Supervisory Research Chemist

Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin

 1
2

renewable liquid fuels. The production of ethanol from corn 

has tripled since 2000, and the United States now targets 

to replace 15% of its transportation fuel with renewable 

sourced fuels by 2017 (Bush 2007).

Although the United States did not agree to the Kyoto protocol, the U.S. Federal Government (Bush 2007, 2008) and 

several U.S. State governments (California 2006, Freeman 

2006) have initiatives to control greenhouse gas emissions. 

The success with biofuel applications in Finland provides 

valuable experience for increasing the use of renewable lignocellulosic fuel sources in the United States. Although the 

perception of petroleum transportation fuel prices is not as 

shocking in Finland as in the United States, Finland has now 

committed to EU targets replacing 2% of fossil transportation fuels with renewable fuels by 2008, 5.75% by 2010, 

and 10% by 2020. Finland may therefore benefit from U.S. 

experience and R&D in renewable lignocellulosic-based 

transportation fuels. With this convergence of interests, the 

U.S. Embassy in Finland and the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy requested an Embassy Science Fellowship from the U.S. State Department to help establish the 

state of the art in the biorefinery industry and research in the 

two countries.

Biorefinery: Basics and Concepts

Without a recorded history, it is difficult to determine 

whether wood became a construction material (as tool 

handles) before it became humankind’s primary fuel, but as 

civilization advanced, wood and other photosynthetic plants 

certainly provided the primary fuel for heating, cooking, and 

nascent metallurgy. Wood was fuel long before it became dimension lumber and paper. Civilization’s shift from primary 

reliance on wood fuel to fossil fuels is largely a modern 

convenience, with coal becoming a common fuel during 

the industrial revolution and petroleum following about 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185

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Figure 1. Energy use in Finland (Statistics Finland).

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Figure 2. U.S. energy consumption (Statistical Abstract 

of the United States).
 3

100 years later. A major contribution was the development 

of steam power (1775), which eventually made intensive use 

of coal both necessary and possible. Fossil fuels provided 

huge benefits in energy density, but the centralization of 

supplies made coal use unrealistic for routine adaptation until transportation capabilities improved sufficiently to move 

large quantities of low-value materials long distances.

In this sense, current interests in biomass-derived fuels 

are a return to the past. However, the wide distribution of 

biomass that made it such a convenient historical fuel is 

one of the most intractable impediments to expanded use 

of biomass for fuel in modern centralized societies. Collection and transport have been and will continue to be one of 

the necessary focus areas of biofuel development in both 

countries. Many of these problems can be minimized with 

energy plantations, but energy crops have their own set of 

socio-economic costs and benefits. Biomass use as fuel 

today can be quite similar and far different from historic 

use. Short logs burning in a wood stove still provide heat 

for rural housing and cottages in both the United States and 

Finland. Improvements in stove efficiency and production 

of wood pellets have put a modern touch on this ancient 

process, but the romance of a traditional wood stove or fireplace persists. Differing by scale and efficiency, use of wood 

residuals in industrial energy production and district heating 

has become in many ways an ideal application, well scaled 

to the distributed supply and transport inefficiencies while 

providing very high energy efficiencies. Utilities and district 

heating plants in Finland have moved beyond heat by raising steam pressures to drive turbines and add electrical generation to district heating plants. These combined heat and 

power (CHP) plants provide exceptional energy efficiencies, 

although often at higher capital cost and low economy of 

scale relative to industrial utilities. District heating is not 

common in the United States, being restricted to business 

areas of central cities. Lack of a district heat market significantly reduces the energy efficiency of electrical utilities 

in the United States, but the shorter heating season makes 

extensive district heating a costly and less energy-efficient 

alternative. Use of biomass by electric utilities is practiced 

in several parts of the United States (Blain et al. 2003, Morris 2002), and co-firing some biomass with coal is becoming 

a common practice among coal-fired utilities.

Interest in biofuels in Finland and the United States goes 

beyond heat and efficiency. Both countries have intense 

interests in substituting photosynthetic-plant-based fuels for 

gasoline and diesel fuel used in transportation and for chemicals and polymers that make our modern societies possible. 

In the United States, this has taken initial form as ethanol 

produced from sugar and seed crops; in Finland, a diesel 

oil substitute produced from palm and rapeseed oils. The 

primary interests of both countries are to move beyond food 

and oil crops to use lignocellulose, the basic material of all 

photosynthetic plants, as the raw material for production of 

fuels. These so-called second-generation biofuels will be the 

subject of much of this report.

Lignin and Cellulose

The plant kingdom consists of a diverse group of species 

ranging from simple single-cell algae to complex vascular 

plants that make up the forests, grasslands, farms, lawns, 

and gardens of our everyday life. All plants have several 

features and functions in common. First and foremost, all 

plants use sunlight for energy needed to grow and reproduce. All plants combine two common chemicals—water 

and atmospheric carbon dioxide—to produce the polymers 

used to create the body of the plant and the support structure 

of macroscopic plants. It is this feature, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fixing it into plant material, 

that makes the plant kingdom key to restructuring a parasitic 

modern society into a sustainable symbiotic future society. 

Fuels produced from plant materials simply return the CO2

sequestered by the plant to the atmosphere; as long as this 

process is conducted in a sustainable manner, it has no net 

impact on atmospheric CO2.

Plants produce three main structural polymers (cellulose, 

hemicellulose, lignin) and one primary food storage polymer (starch). Plants produce numerous small molecules, 

such as fats and resins, that provide other food storage and 

defense needs. These compounds are also under study as 

potential fuel and high-value chemicals that will help the 

future biorefinery go beyond commodity fuels. However, 

these extractive chemicals are not generally available in 

high enough concentration to impact the materials and energy needs of our societies. Starch and the lignocellulosics 

dominate. Plant production of fats and oils is of interest as 

a biological source for diesel oil, but most biodiesel today 

uses food-grade oils obtained from seeds or nuts.

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008

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Figure 3. Relative fuel prices, U.S. dollars per gallon 

(3.8 L/gal) and euros/liter, January 2000 to January 

2008. U.S. prices rose by 100% during this period, 

compared with about 30% in Europe. (Price in euros, 

Statistics Finland; price in dollars, personal log.)
4

The primary building block of the plant is glucose—common sugar. Glucose is a molecule of 6 carbons, 6 oxygens, 

and 12 hydrogens and is assembled in the plant by combining 6 carbon dioxide molecules and 6 water molecules to 

produce one molecule of glucose and 6 molecules of oxygen. The reaction requires energy, which is supplied by light 

through the biochemical processes known as photosynthesis:

6 CO2 + 6 H2O + hυ à C6H12O6 + 6 O2

Plants use glucose for both cellulose and starch. In cellulose 

(Figure 4), glucose is linked into a straight-chain polymer of 

thousands of glucose monomers. The polymers are assembled in elementary fibrils with diameters ranging from about 

4 nm to as much as 20 nm, depending on the species, and 

up to several microns long. Elementary fibrils are assembled 

into microfibrils, which are set up in layers to form the 

plants cell wall. As a long, straight-chain polymer, the cellulose chains in the fibrils organize into crystalline regions, 

providing greater strength and stiffness to this critical polymer. Starch is also a polymer of glucose with several critical 

differences: the primary bond between glucose monomers, 

shorter chain lengths, and short side chains. These differences make cellulose the plants primary cell wall polymer 

and resistant to degradation, and starch a universal food that 

is readily depolymerized into the glucose monomers and 

cellobiose dimers used by organisms as food.

Hemicellulose is really a collection of three or four polymers assembled from a variety of sugars—glucose, galactose, and mannose, six-carbon sugars very similar to 

glucose, and xylose and arabinose, five-carbon sugars 

(C5H10O5). The hemicelluose polymers are all mixtures of 

two or more sugars and can be straight chain or have short 

side chains (Figure 5). They do not form crystals and are 

much less resistant to hydrolysis, either chemically by acids 

or by enzymes. Geese, cattle, and other animals that rely on 

grass and tree twigs for food digest the hemicellulose polymers into simple sugars as a major source of nutrition. 

The purpose of hemicellulose in the plant remains a topic 

of debate, but it represents 20% or more of most plants 

(Figure 6).

The final polymer in plants is lignin. Unlike the carbohydrates, which are all assembled from simple sugars, lignin is 

assembled from monomers similar to the spices vanillin (vanilla) and cinnamon. Lignin is a random cross-linked polymer. The bonds between monomers are chemically resistant, 

and the monomers have little value as food to most animals. 

Lignin is usually considered to be the glue that holds the 

cellulose polymers together into a cohesive cell wall and 

the cell walls together to form plant stems and tree trunks. 

Lignin makes up 15% or more of typical grasses and 20% 

to 35% of the wood in most trees (Figure 6).

Biorefinery

The basic conceptual framework for producing liquid 

transportation fuels from plant matter is not new. Historically, two approaches have been favored. The first relies on 

chemical similarities between cellulose and starch. Alcohol 

production from starch has been a commercial practice 

for centuries—at least as long as the popular beverages 

beer, whiskey, sake, and vodka have existed. By breaking 

down cellulose into the glucose monomers, it is suitable 

for fermentation in the same way, and the alcohol produced 

is capable of powering internal combustion engines. Two 

commercial methods were developed near the turn of the 

last century (1901 and 1909): concentrated acids and dilute 

acids (Kamm and others 2006). Concentrated acids dissolve cellulose and break it into the component glucose 

sugars in nearly quantitative yields. The major problem is 

that producing the acid is energy intensive and the process 

consumes almost as much energy as it can produce in transportation fuel. The dilute acid process avoids high energy 

requirements by using high temperatures and dilute acid to 

break down the cellulose. The product glucose, however, is 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185

Figure 4. A simplified drawing of cellulose showing 

two glucose molecules.

Figure 5. An example of a short section of glucuronoxylan, a hardwood hemicellulose.
5

unstable at the higher temperatures required by the process 

and decomposition reactions become dominant after about 

half the cellulose is converted (Saeman 1945, Mok and 

Antal 1992). The yield of glucose and subsequently ethanol 

is only about half of the theoretical amount. The dilute acid 

process has been pursued for over a century, with commercial-scale plants built in Germany, Russia, and the United 

States. Interest was typically high during times of conflict, 

when heavy demand and supply disruptions caused fuel 

shortages (Kamm and others 2006).

The second major approach to conversion of biomass to 

chemicals is thermochemical. In thermochemical processing, a combustible material is heated in the absence of air to 

produce a liquid called pyrolysis oil, or a mixture of gases. 

The two processes are usually referred to as pyrolysis and 

gasification, respectively. For coal and other substrates that 

lack oxygen atoms, some form of oxygen is also required. 

This can be supplied by steam, water, or substoichiometric 

air. The gas mixture from gasification is primarily carbon 

monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and water and is 

called by various names including product gas, producer 

gas, and synthesis gas. Technically, synthesis gas is not 

the product gas from gasification but rather a gas mixture 

adjusted to provide ideal stoichiometry for a reforming reaction such as the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis of hydrocarbons. 

These thermochemical processes were also investigated 

vigorously, particularly during the First and Second World 

Wars. Although pyrolysis oil has never been found useful 

for much other than direct combustion in boilers or possibly turbines, the gas produced in gasification can be reformed into a number of products including hydrocarbons 

much like diesel fuel, methane (the major component of 

natural gas), methanol, hydrogen, and higher-chain-length 

alcohols (Hamelinck 2004). Most notable from a historical perspective was the use of gasifiers by Germany to 

produce fuel-grade hydrocarbons from coal during World 

War II (Anderson, et al., 1952; Schulz, 1999) Coal gasification and Fischer–Tropsch reforming have also been used 

extensively by the Republic of South Africa (Stiegel and 

Maxwell, 2001; Schulz, 1999). Biomass, much the same as 

coal, can be converted to product gas and reformulated into 

the same variety of products. The gas produced can also be 

used directly in gas turbines to generate electricity or as a 

replacement for natural gas in industrial processes. The gas 

produced is not considered suitable for direct substitution in 

natural gas distribution systems because the energy content 

is about two-thirds that of typical natural gas and the high 

concentration of hydrogen cannot be transported and contained in standard steel pipes and tanks. Coal gasification 

is still of interest in several parts of the world. The DOE is 

supporting an intensive evaluation of coal gasification for 

utilities because the product gas is more easily cleaned to 

remove sulfur and mercury, and a large fraction of the CO2

produced when burning coal can be collected from the product gas and possibly sequestered in underground storage 

reservoirs. The combined cycle generating process, which 

involves combustion of the gas in a gas turbine and use of 

the exhaust heat to produce steam for use in a steam turbine, 

can also provide improved energy efficiency relative to the 

more common steam boiler used by the majority of the utilities in the United States. Similar biomass gasification processes have been studied by the DOE as a way to reduce the 

use of coal to generate electricity in the United States.

These concepts—cellulose hydrolysis, subsequent glucose 

fermentation and gasification, and subsequent producer 

gas reforming—have been under almost continuous investigation since 1920. Interest has intensified or waned with 

periodic changes in the price and availability of petroleum 

and public interest in alternative energy, environmental concerns, and now greenhouse gas and climate change. With 

one exception, the key features have remained constant. 

That exception is advances in enzyme technology that have 

been under investigation and development for 10 years or 

more but have a much shorter history of scientific pursuit in 

hydrolyzing cellulose into glucose. The caution is that the 

basics of enzymatic saccharification of cellulose to glucose 

have been under investigation since World War II, 60 years 

of research effort. Modern genetic methods can reduce the 

cost to produce the enzymes and can create cocktails of 

enzymes that are not available from one unmodified organism, but ultimately, the process is limited by pre-existing 

enzymes available from lignocellulosic-degrading organisms, and the majority of the enzymes used today are from 

organisms that have been known and used for this purpose 

for decades.

Although the basic approaches for producing transportation 

fuel from lignocellulose are relatively mature technologies, 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008

0

20

40

60

80

100

Lignin

Other

Cellulose

Hemicellulose

Starch

Corn

Stover

Hardwoods

Softwoods

Switchgrass

Composition (%)

Figure 6. Typical composition of some representative 

plants.
6

they have largely remained at the R&D stage because the 

economics surrounding commercialization have generally 

not been favorable. Unless pricing structure in the fuels market is significantly altered or a breakthrough in one or more 

of the persistent barriers is achieved, the economics for 

producing transportation fuels from forest biomass are likely 

to remain marginal. Without significant advances, improvements will be incremental and very likely of an engineering 

nature. The pace of engineering improvements will increase 

when demonstration-scale and commercial-scale processes 

are running and capable of undergoing the types of detailed 

engineering and process scrutiny that have been used to 

improve industrial processes for two centuries. This is not to 

suggest that breakthroughs in the technologies for producing 

biofuels will not occur. However, a critical feature of more 

mature technologies is that the rate of scientific development is slower, and this should be anticipated for both the 

biochemical and thermochemical processing routes. Breakthrough advances in any technology cannot be predicted or 

scheduled. For well-researched processes, breakthroughs are 

often serendipitous because logical solutions have usually 

been tried without success. Recalcitrant cellulose and gasification tars and oils have both survived 100 years of research 

efforts. It is unrealistic to assume that people overlooked 

something obvious that is just waiting to be discovered. 

Modern researchers have vastly more powerful instrumentation, a far greater understanding of the fundamental science 

involved, and new tools and processes that were not previously available. With time, these tools may help provide the 

scientific breakthroughs that solve these problems. For now, 

these very difficult R&D challenges remain. To accelerate 

the commercialization of biofuels, an array of investment 

incentives may be necessary to reduce the economic risks of 

starting new biorefineries. Among major risks, the prices of 

commodities such as crude oil are very volatile, dependent 

on supply, demand, and even geopolitical considerations. 

Factors need to be considered—such as economic protections against price swings—to avoid a collapse of the 

developing biofuels industry when these alternative fuels 

enter the economy and impact the supply. Price supports 

have often been used to support agriculture and other desired industries, and they may be helpful to reduce risk and 

volatility in a capital-intensive commodity business such as 

biofuels.

Biorefinery in the United States and Finland

The United States and Finland have parallel interests in 

producing energy and transportation fuels from biomass, 

even if they arrived at these interests from different perspectives. Given the vast differences in size and population 

(Table 1), differences in the scale of their biomass research 

efforts should be expected. Whereas this is certainly the 

case, Finland’s state-funded research program is more 

focused, with a larger percentage devoted to renewable energy. Biomass energy research in Finland represents 0.02% 

of GDP, compared with just 0.004% of GDP in the United 

States. To some extent, this recognizes the greater contribution of forestry, paper, and wood fuels in the Finnish 

economy.

Finland has been and is a leader in commercial implementation of biomass gasification. Currently operating are a 

mixed-fuel gasifier supplying product gas to a boiler in 

Lahti, and the Stora Enso Varkaus mill using a gasifier to 

recover heat value and aluminum from recovered Tetra 

Pak (Lausanne, Switzerland) liquid packaging containers. 

These two installations nearly equal the current operating 

investment level in the United States. A major difference in 

bioenergy emphasis in the United States is the 10 planned 

hydrolysis plants that are part of the DOE-funded integrated 

biorefinery and 1/10-scale biorefinery programs.

Purpose

This report provides a summary of implementation plans for 

biorefinery applications and government-supported research 

projects in Finland and the United States. It is an effort to 

define the state of the art for biofuels and bioproducts in 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185

Table 1. Summary comparison of Finland and the United States in 

size and economya

Finland United States 

Population (millions) 5.3 304 

Area (km2, thousands) 338 9,826 

Forests (km2

, thousands) 257 3,020 

Gross domestic products (billions) $193 $13,800 

Annual research (proportion of GDP) 3.4% 2.6% 

Annual renewables R&D, 2007 (millions) € 25 ($40) $574 (€ 363) 

Total energy (EJ) 1.4 100 

Renewable energy (PJ (%)) 340 (23%) 7,210 (6.7%) 

Biomass power (PJ (%)) 300 (20%) 3,821 (3.6%) 

Operating commercial gasifiersb 2 3 

Planned gas-to-liquids demonstrations 1 3 

Planned lignocellulosic ethanol 0 10 

a

 $1.00 = € 0.632, June 9, 2008 

b

 Lahti (50MW), Corensco (40 MW, waste), Stuttgart, AR (100 MW), Little Falls, 

 MN (60 MW), Weyerhaeuser (50 MW kraft liquor). 
7

the two countries. Providing a reliable sense of the latest 

developments in laboratories and pilot plants is impossible 

because these developments are invariably held confidential 

until published or patented. The report concentrates on announced commercial and pilot-scale demonstrations and 

publicly funded research projects. The assumption is that if 

people are still actively researching an area, it is recognized 

as a valuable R&D goal and has not been solved and had 

public release.

A number of long-standing technical impediments in biomass conversion remain to be resolved. Commercially applicable solutions to any of these problems would greatly 

improve the economics for producing a biofuel. Among 

these persistent goals are the following:

•	 Reduction of tars in gasification

•	 Less costly gas clean-up processes

•	 Improved gas reforming catalysts

•	 Increased saccharification rates and yield in wood hydrolysis to sugars

•	 Improved fermentation organisms that handle all sugars 

and high sugar and alcohol concentrations

•	 Improved fermentation organisms for producing other 

products—butanol, propane diol, hydroxyl-acids

To the extent that these are still active research areas, there 

is not an obvious consensus that drastic improvements have 

been achieved in any of these areas. Whether any breakthroughs have occurred and are still held as confidential is 

beyond the capabilities of this or any such report.

Existing Biorefineries

In considering the state of the art of biorefinery, there are 

really two states of interest: what already exists and the state 

of the science that will dictate products and processes in the 

future. The term biorefinery implies a process that mimics 

the forms or functions of a petroleum refinery. These interests do direct much of the science, but operating processes 

that effectively utilize biomass as fuel or chemicals satisfy 

the needs to replace fossil fuels and reduce the discharge of 

greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. This section broadens the 

discussion to include direct combustion as a replacement for 

other fuels in heat and power operations.

Finland has nearly doubled total energy use since 1970. This 

has been accomplished without increasing the use of petroleum and coal (Figure 1). Natural gas, nuclear energy, and 

black liquor from kraft wood pulping have supplied the bulk 

of the incremental energy needs, but hydropower and wood 

residuals have also contributed. This has made Finland 

a world leader in biomass energy. About 20% of total 

energy needs in Finland are supplied by biomass resources 

(Figure 7), ranking Finland third among EU nations for percentage of renewable energy (EUDGET 1997). The majority 

of the biomass use is supplied by Finland’s comparatively 

large forestry and paper industries (Figure 8). Black liquor, 

the waste product containing about 50% of the wood used 

to make white papers and both bleached and unbleached 

paperboard, constitutes fully half of the renewable energy 

(Hakkila 2004). Another large part of the biofuel use is 

wood wastes generated at the paper mill site and burned to 

generate process steam and electricity (Tekes 2004). This 

includes nearly all the bark, some wood handling and chipping dust, and in some cases knots and other tree structures 

that do not pulp well. Furthermore, because the paper industry needs both steam for heating and drying and electrical 

power to operate motors and control systems, the steam 

produced in black liquor and waste wood boilers is used to 

generate electricity before being distributed and used in the 

mill as heat. 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008

Petroleum

27%

Import kWh

4%

Coal

9%

Nuclear

18%

Natural gas

11% Peat

5%

Black liquor

10%

Industrial

8% CHP

4%

Hydro

4%

Other

27%

Figure 7. Energy use in Finland. Total use is 1.4 EJ.
8

A growing use of wood in Finland is as district heating. 

Without a domestic supply of natural gas, Finland did not 

install a large natural gas distribution system for residential 

heating. Instead, this need is filled by central heating plants 

that supply steam or hot water to houses and small businesses in the district. This is cost effective in Finland because of the higher relative energy prices (since there are no 

domestic fossil fuels other than peat) and the long heating 

season, which improves the financial returns on the steam 

distribution infrastructure and makes the higher CHP energy 

efficiency available for a larger portion of the year. Many 

plants that used coal or peat as fuel were able to switch part 

of their fuel needs to wood and other biomass, and this use 

has been expanding (Tekes 2004). Many of these plants 

were initially—or have been converted to—combined heat 

and power (CHP) plants, where steam is produced at higher 

pressures and is used to generate electricity in backpressure 

turbines before supplying the lower pressure steam to the 

heating district. CHP plants are more energy efficient than 

stand-alone electric generation and account for about 75% 

of the heat and electrical needs in Finland (Tekes 2004).

The Finnish government is pursuing a policy of expanding 

the proportion of power and heat supplied by wood. This 

takes a number of forms: conversion of existing biomass 

boilers to handle wood, development of smaller scale turbines to make CHP cost effective at scales of 10 MW and 

below, and expanding the availability and cost competitiveness of wood residuals. The government provides incentives 

to land owners and harvesting companies to thin overgrown 

forests and collect logging residues (Tekes 2004). By one 

estimate, these efforts have tripled the use of forest biomass 

as fuel over the past 10 years, with a goal of increasing 

use an additional three times over the next 20 years 

(Tekes 2004).

With large reserves of coal, the United States has had little 

incentive to promote the use of wood as fuel or for production of chemicals. Overall biomass use for energy in the 

United States is just 3% (Figure 9), (USDOE/EIA 2008). 

The pulp and paper industry operates biomass boilers and 

black liquor recovery boilers in the United States but is a 

much smaller proportion of the economy, and the contribution to overall energy use is proportionately smaller. District 

heating is not as common in the United States because the 

heating season is shorter and cannot justify the expense of 

the steam distribution networks. As a consequence, most 

public utilities and private electrical producers do not have 

a significant outlet for supplying steam and operate at lower 

energy efficiency. The renewable contribution to electrical 

generation in the United States is about 9.5%. Of this renewable sourced electricity, hydroelectric provides nearly 75%, 

wind 11%, and the biomass about 6.25%. Nearly two-thirds 

of the biomass use is attributable to industrial users, the bulk 

of which produce pulp, paper, and other forest products. Of 

the 9.6 GWh of dedicated biofuel generating capacity, about 

35% is installed in California. Much of this was in response 

to the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978, which 

required utilities to buy excess electricity generated by small 

producers at avoided costs (Blain and others 2003). In California, 43 biomass plants were constructed between 1980 

and 1990. Many of the smaller and less efficient plants have 

shut down, but 29 of these plants are operating with over 

700 MW in generating capacity. Biomass has not been the 

preferred choice for renewable sourced electrical capacity in 

California for over a decade. The current growth in renewable generating capacity in the state is predominately from 

wind turbines. This is the case throughout the United States, 

where installed wind turbine generating capacity has been 

increasing over 20% annually since 2001 (USDOE 2007).

In most of the United States, electrical power generation 

using biomass boilers costs more per megawatt-hour than 

generators operating on coal. Biomass supply is always a 

problem. The best way to reduce costs is to reduce the cost 

of the biomass, but this eliminates a large portion of the 

available wood because it is either too valuable as dimension lumber or too far away to transport to the utility. In 

California, biomass generators have typically not received 

government credit, subsidies, or other help. In fact, they did 

not even receive the disposal fee paid to waste haulers and 

landfills when the biomass utilities accepted wastes, even 

though in doing so they reduced the volume of materials going to landfills. Instead, the landfill or the waste haulers are 

allowed to collect and keep the disposal fee.

Both the United States and Finland have pursued biomass 

gasification and pyrolysis as advanced combustion options. Small commercial-scale gasifiers have been operated 

in Finland since 1983, with the operation of an Ahlstrom 

(Helsinki, Finland) designed low-pressure fluid bed gasifier 

at the Wisaforest Oy paper mill in Pietersaari and a similar 

but larger gasifier installed in Lahti to provide a product gas 

burned in a conventional boiler. In the United States, a 

similar biomass gasifier has been operated by a utility in 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

0.00

3.00

6.00

9.00

12.00

15.00

Industrial wood use (

%) Figure 8. Industrial use of wood in Finland (Statistics 

Finland).
9

Burlington, Vermont. Whereas these gasifiers provide valuable experience in collecting and handling the biomass 

fuels, the designs are not directly applicable to the effort to 

reform the gas into liquid transportation fuels.

Both the United States and Finland have taken a step beyond these types of traditional uses of biomass with the development of an industrial sector supplying renewable transportation fuels. In the United States, this has taken the form 

of corn grain alcohol plants providing ethyl alcohol used as 

a fuel oxygenate, substitute fuel (up to 10% of gasoline), 

and E-85 ( 85% ethanol–15% conventional gasoline) usable 

in vehicles with engines designed for the high alcohol content (Figure 10). In addition, soybean oil and some other oil 

crops have been used to produce an esterified oil (fatty acid 

methyl ester, or FAME) used as a renewable component in 

diesel fuel. These applications have received considerable 

review for effectiveness because of the fuel needed to plant, 

fertilize, and harvest corn and soybean crops (Fargione and 

others 2008, Searchinger and others 2008). The impact on 

cost and availability of both corn and soybeans has been 

felt throughout the world. Much of the increase in corn and 

soybean prices must be due to the large petroleum demands 

of modern farming and the increase in the cost of fuel. The 

increase in prices is undeniable and, given the impact on 

food supplies in many developing countries, regrettable. 

The United States is moving away from the use of corn and 

other grains for fuel production, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 limits the credits for cornderived alcohol to 15 billion gallons per year. The DOE has 

focused nearly all current efforts on using corn stalks, straw, 

and non-food plants as the raw material for transportation 

fuels. Research funded by USDA does support conversion 

of starch into higher value products that displace existing 

products manufactured from fossil fuels, but for biorefineries for producing transportation fuels, the USDA funding is 

also targeted at lignocellulosic raw materials. The farm bill 

passed in 2008 continues a $0.51/gal (€0.10/L) subsidy (tax 

credit) on corn-based ethanol and established a $1.01/gal 

(€0.20/L) tax credit for cellulosic ethanol. The bill also establishes an assistance payment for collection, harvest, storage, and transportation of eligible lignocellulosic biomass 

purchased by a biorefinery up to $45/ton (€38/tonne).

In Finland, renewable transportation fuel has taken the form 

of a dehydroxy hydrogenated oil produced from a mixture 

of palm oil, rapeseed oil, and waste fats and oils generated at rendering plants and other facilities. Neste Oil, the 

Finnish petroleum supply and distribution company, has 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008

Petroleum

39%

Coal

23%

Nuclear

8%

Natural gas

24%

Wind

0%

Solar

0%

Geotherm

0%

Biomass

3%

Hydro

3%

Other

6%

Figure 9. Energy use in the United States. Total use is 100 Quad in 2006 

(105 EJ). (DOE Energy Information Administration, Annual Outlook, 2008.)

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Ethanol production (106 gal)

Figure 10. Ethanol production in the United States. 

(Source: Renewable Fuels Association.)
10

commissioned one process line to supply this NExBTL diesel oil and has a second line under construction to double 

supply by 2009. This source of oil is not without problems 

(Fargione and others 2008), but Neste Oil has been careful 

to use certifiable oil supplies and is trying to avoid the undesirable land use impacts from displacing crop production 

(Tullo 2008). The worldwide impact on food availability 

and pricing has certainly been far less than that related to the 

use of corn for producing ethanol in the United States. Dehydroxy hydrogenated fats are also produced as a renewable 

diesel fuel in the United States, with a 300-bbl/day coprocessing system at a ConocoPhilips refinery in Texas and 

a planned 5,000-bbl/day stand-alone plant being construction under a joint venture between Tyson Foods and Syntroleum in Louisiana (Tullo 2008).

The energy and fuel distribution company ST1 Oy is building a network to provide ethanol as a renewable fuel and gas 

oxygenate. To avoid competition with food products and because Finland does not have a large agricultural sector able 

to supply excess starch grain, the ST1 strategy is to produce 

ethanol from various waste streams. The company is building a network of small plants that use process food wastes 

from candy factories and bakeries as raw material. These 

plants hydrolyze starches to sugar and ferment the sugars 

to produce dilute alcohol, but the product is just distilled to 

85% ethanol (15% water) for shipment to a centralized processing facility that dehydrates to absolute alcohol for fuel.

In summary, both the United States and Finland have a history of using biomass as combined heat and power in the 

forest products industries. Both countries also have experience with wood use in local utilities—in the United States 

for generating electricity and in Finland for CHP electrical 

and district heating. Both countries are currently using foodgrade oils to make biodiesel. The United States has also 

developed an extensive corn ethanol industry that provides 

the fuel oxygenates needed in modern gasoline and now 

also supplements other transportation fuel needs. There is 

biomass supply available to expand the traditional solid fuel 

utility use of biomass in both countries. Finland continues to 

encourage conversion of local district heating to biomass or 

fuel mixtures including biomass. In the United States, coalfired utilities continue to add biomass as a portion of the fuel 

mix. Both countries also recognize the need to expand biomass use to produce transportation fuels and chemicals and 

polymers that displace petroleum-based products.

Biorefinery Program in Finland

Publicly funded biorefinery research in Finland has centered around two coordinated initiatives by Tekes and two 

initiatives by the Academy of Finland. Tekes initiated the 

ClimBus program in 2004, which ended in 2008. It totaled 

€75 million distributed over five years. Tekes funding was 

approximately 50%, with the remainder provided by companies and other sources of matching funds. With the ClimBus 

program completed in 2008, Tekes launched the BioRefine 

program to run from 2007 to 2012. The BioRefine program 

coordinates and manages about €150 million, also with 50% 

from matching funds. Tekes funding supports applied science to engineering and pilot scale and is available to both 

universities and companies.

The ClimBus program focused on business opportunities 

for mitigating climate change. Specific objectives were to 

develop cost-effective, climate-friendly technologies that 

could be used by companies within Finland and also as future businesses or products, including services. The project 

included energy efficiency, renewable fuels, and utilization 

of greenhouse gases. In addition to supporting existing industry needs, the new technologies were to help generate 

new manufacturing and service businesses within Finland.

ClimBus supported 68 public research projects and 

74 industrial research projects. Projects were not limited 

to biofuels or bioproducts but included projects to improve 

conventional combustion efficiency, combustion of recovered waste, and carbon management. Several biofuels and 

biorefinery projects were included:

•	 Evaluation of forest energy resources and the supply 

chain, including harvesting practices, transportation, 

costs, and uses of forest residuals (Tekes 2004)

•	 Evaluation of the suitability of domestic reed canary 

grass and barley straw as a feedstock for producing 

ethanol

•	 Improvements in a reed canary grass supply chain

•	 On-line moisture measurement of biofuels

•	 Fast pyrolysis to produce bio-oils and subsequent use

•	 Gasification, gas cleaning, and gas reforming to liquid 

fuels (McKeough and Kurkela 2008)

The BioRefine program has similar objectives but with an 

additional focus on technologies needed to develop secondgeneration transportation fuels—fuels produced from stalks 

and leaves of plants rather than seeds and storage tubers 

usually used as human or cattle food. This program aims 

to develop innovative technologies, products, and services 

based on national strengths. Another key objective is to 

increase national and international cooperation and networking between sectors and businesses in order to achieve further innovations. The program does not include stand-alone 

biomass combustion that is not integrated into other industrial processes or products.

The earlier ClimBus program did not ignore transportation 

fuels, but the proposed Finnish program to comply with 

Kyoto protocol was to focus more attention on stationary 

combustion sources to displace CO2-intensive fuels like 

coal. This was a well-thought-out strategy that would have 

achieved the maximum reduction in CO2 production and 

emissions in Finland. However, it did not technically comply with EU targets on transportation fuels, and the Finnish 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185
11

government has revised the internal goals and committed the 

country to displacing 5.75% of all transportation fuel with 

liquid fuels from renewable resources by 2010. Although the 

immediate commitments are satisfied by Neste Oil’s investment in NExBTL diesel fuel, developing second-generation 

biofuels from lignocellulose or other non-food raw materials 

remains a critical goal in the new program.

Nine research universities in Finland have received grant 

funding from Tekes as part of the BioRefine program: 

University of Helsinki, Helsinki University of Technology 

(TTK), Åbo Academy, University of Jyväskylä, University 

of Turku, Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), 

University of Oulu, Tampere University of Technology 

(YUT), and University of Kuopio. A sampling of projects 

funded in the BioRefine program include production of fatty 

acids in algae and fungi for use in renewable diesel, kinetics 

of biomass pyrolysis, wood gasification and gas cleaning, 

new wood fractionation technologies, and an evaluation of 

bioactive wood polyphenols as antimicrobials.

In addition to the ClimBus and BioRefine programs, the Science and Technology Policy Council of Finland established 

an alternative funding process using approved second-party 

management to collect, select, and oversee projects. Tekes 

was assigned overall responsibility for the program. Of 

five proposed centers, Forest Cluster Ltd. was the first to 

be incorporated and issue a call for proposals. The process 

established has Tekes evaluate the entire package of proposals and decide to fund or reject as a package. This process 

offers the potential for more tightly coordinated projects 

while reducing the administrative burden on Tekes. In addition to the Forest Cluster, which has proposed research 

in renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials from trees, an 

Energy and Environment cluster is planned but was yet to 

be formed.

Additional funding is available in the biorefinery area 

from the Academy of Finland and through EU and other 

international grants. The Academy of Finland support goes 

beyond the sciences and encompasses a wide range of disciplines, including language studies, political science, and 

medicine. Support for science and technology tends to be 

on a longer time frame and more fundamental than projects 

typically supported by Tekes. The Academy has provided 

considerable long-term support for research on wood decay 

organisms and enzymes and bio-active wood chemicals. It 

supported a Center of Excellence at the Technical Research 

Centre of Finland (VTT) on Industrial Biotechnology that 

focused on enzymatic bioconversion of lignocellulosics 

(2000–2005).

The Academy of Finland has two biorefinery-related initiatives: Sustainable Productions and Products (KETJU: 

2006–2010, €7.5 Million), and Sustainable Energy Research 

Program (SusEn: 2008–2011, €10.5 Million). Within the 

focused area of biorefinery, KETJU includes a consortium 

working to functionalize galactoglucomannans; a consortium on paper, bioenergy, and green chemicals from 

nonwood residues; and an individual project on improving 

the utilization of xylose. The SusEn program includes two 

projects on using algae to produce fatty acids, projects on 

polysaccharide-based biofuels and optimal treatment of lignocellulose to produce bio-ethanol, and a study of concepts 

for second-generation biofuels.

The KETJU program includes a joint request for proposals 

(RFP) with the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, 

and the SusEn program includes projects with additional 

funding support from China, Poland, Luxembourg, and the 

Nordic funding organization. Joint RFPs were issued with 

Chile’s National Commission for Science and Technology, 

and a similar RFP is planned with the Brazilian National 

Council for Scientific and Technological Development.

Government-Funded Research Centers

VTT Technical Research Center of Finland

VTT receives about a third of its funding from the Ministry 

of Employment and Economy, a third through competitive 

grants, and a third from corporate partners. Total annual 

funding is around €230 million (VTT 2007). Four of the 

BioRefine projects funded in 2007 and 2008 were awarded 

to VTT. Within the VTT organization are 46 knowledge 

centers, of which 6 are energy and forestry related. These 

knowledge centers have maintained active research on 

thermal and hydrolysis pathways for several decades. The 

knowledge center on wood harvesting and supply logistics 

is one of the few publicly funded R&D groups in this critical aspect of wood-residual-sourced fuels and raw materials. 

VTT has several extended research projects on secondgeneration renewable fuels, including projects on gasification, pyrolysis, and cellulosic ethanol. VTT is also conducting research on production of novel biomass-derived 

chemicals and materials.

METLA Finnish Forest Research Institute

METLA is part of the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and 

Forestry, employs about 700 people, and has an annual 

budget of €54 million (METLA 2007). Nominally, 75% of 

the budget is provided by the Ministry and 25% is obtained 

through grants, contracts, and information services. METLA 

is the primary research organization for forest management, 

harvesting, and wood products. In 2007, METLA started a 

bioenergy program that includes projects on forest biomass 

production, impacts of intensive biomass harvesting, supply 

chain logistics, and new forest-based products. In this later 

project category is a project on extraction and uses of glucomannan polymers and oligomers.

MTT Agrifood Research Finland

MTT is also part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 

State financing in 2007 was approximately €30 million, with 

joint project financing of €11 million and other income of 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008
12

about €3.7 million (MTT 2007). MTT staffing in 2007 was 

627 permanent and 203 fixed-term employees. MTT has 

a project titled “From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy” 

focused on improving the profitability of agriculture through 

improved energy efficiency and efficient use of agricultural 

wastes to produce bioenergy or supply raw materials to 

biorefineries.

Biorefinery Science in Finland

As stated in the introduction, two common processes are 

used for converting lignocellulosics into other fuels. The 

hydrolysis route attempts to depolymerize cellulose and 

hemicellulose into component sugars and then uses fermentation organisms or direct chemistry to convert the sugars 

into a liquid fuel or useful chemicals. The second common 

route is thermal conversion, in which carbon-containing 

materials are heated under oxygen-deficient conditions to 

produce an oil or gas. The primary lignocellulosic resources 

for biofuels in Finland are thinnings from forest management processes to improve growth rates of preferred trees 

and other wood wastes from timber harvesting and processing plants. Because the majority of this material is softwood 

and softwoods are more difficult to processes with hydrolysis methods, Finland places less emphasis on these methods 

for production of fuels and more emphasis on the thermal 

routes. This is not to suggest that there is little research 

on hydrolysis and enzyme saccharification of biomass in 

Finland. There is a significant amount of research in these 

areas, but the interests are more for production of higher 

value chemicals and as support for industries that provide 

enzymes, process equipment, and expertise for hydrolysisbased biorefineries.

Tekes is supporting major research efforts in both areas. The 

following sections on biofuels research in Finland are separated into these two technologies—the thermal route and the 

hydrolysis route. In addition, there is considerable interest 

in Finland on products and chemicals that can be obtained 

from wood, whether as lower molecular weight extractive 

compounds or direct use of wood polymers.

Thermal Methods

Finland has decades of experience with wood gasification 

and pyrolysis (oil). This includes considerable effort to implement black liquor gasification and gasification of wastes 

and biomass throughout the 1990s. The pulp and paper industry has several incentives to pursue biomass gasification. 

The industry already operates conventional wood residual 

steam boilers using bark and wood dust generated in processing. Mills often recover convenient logging residuals to 

augment fuel needs and minimize costs. Most Finnish mills 

operate on these biomass fuels with minimal need for fossil 

fuels. One part of the process cannot be fueled directly from 

biomass: the lime kiln, which requires a gas or liquid fuel. 

This provides an incentive to the mills to operate gasifiers 

using the product gas to eliminate the last significant need 

for fossil fuel.

Two major pulp and paper companies are performing 

gasification studies. Stora Enso Oy has formed a joint venture company with Neste Oil Corporation to construct a 

12 MWther oxygen-blown circulating fluidized-bed gasifier 

at the Varkaus mill. Working with Foster Wheeler Energia 

Oy (Bingert 2008) the project will test concepts for gas 

cleaning and a Fischer–Tropsch gas to liquids plant. If successful, the joint venture will construct a commercial-scale 

production plant to be located at one of Stora Enso’s mills. 

VTT is acting as the main R&D partner in this project.

UPM-Kymmene is conducting gasification research working with the Gas Technology Institute and Carbona/Andritz 

to evaluate an oxygen-fired high-pressure gasifier on typical 

Finland forest residuals (Similä 2008). This project is evaluating gas cleanup and the Fischer–Tropsch gas-to-liquids 

processes, as well. In addition, Vapo, a forest fuels, peat 

fuels, and district heating service company, is evaluating 

gasification and Fischer–Tropsch reforming for peat and 

biomass resources.

VTT gasification research has been active since the 1970s. 

Early work included biomass gasification for lime kiln fuels, 

supplementary fuel for conventional steam boilers, black 

liquor recovery in the pulp and paper industry, and now gas 

reforming into renewable-sourced liquid fuels. This research 

includes biomass gasification performance and catalysts 

for tar removal (Kurkela and others 1996, Simell and others 1996). Where there is considerable experience producing Fischer–Tropsch hydrocarbon fuels using product gas 

from coal gasification, there is much less experience using 

product gas from biomass gasification. The Ultra Clean Gas 

(UCG) project started with Tekes funding in 2004 as part of 

the ClimBus program and extended to 2007 (McKeough and 

Kurkela 2008). Among other tasks, it evaluated gasifier designs, product yields, gas cleanup, and Fischer–Tropsch processing to liquid hydrocarbons. The project also evaluated 

the effects of gasifier size (throughput scale) on production 

costs. Scale is a critical economic factor in biomass conversion because high water content and bulky materials cause 

transportation cost to be high, but larger scale processes are 

usually less expensive per unit of output to construct and 

operate. Biomass-based processes need to optimize supply 

availability and transportation costs relative to process capital and operating costs. The project concluded that Fischer–

Tropsch processes in the range of 200–400 MWfeed were 

viable. The VTT project reported an estimated production 

cost of €0.50/L ($2.5/gal) for Fischer–Tropsch liquids at the 

Climbus annual review in 2007 (Kurkela 2007). This analysis was based on a facility size of 200–300 MWtherm with integration to a papermill. Many of these processes have been 

tested in a 500-kW pilot-scale demonstration unit, including 

the gasifier design and gas cleanup. The UCG project also 

evaluated a distributed biomass pyrolysis system feeding a 

300-MWfeed Fischer–Tropsch plant relative to a biomass-fed 

Fischer–Tropsch process of the same size. The evaluation 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185
13

concluded that costs would increase by 20% (McKeough 

and Kurkela 2008).

Current Tekes-funded projects in this area include fundamental studies of synthesis-gas production based on fluidized-bed gasification of biomass (VTT), BTL-liquid biofuels 

(UPM), and biodiesel from forest residues (Neste Oil). 

Tekes is also funding several projects on pyrolysis, including kinetics of biomass pyrolysis (Tampere), development 

of production and utilization of first-generation bio oils to 

advance use of pyrolysis oil (UPM), and integrated utilization chains of second-generation pyrolysis (VTT).

Hydrolysis Methods

The historic hydrolysis process used mineral acids to catalyze the hydrolysis of carbohydrate polymers into simple 

sugars. Most research has abandoned mineral acids and is 

now focused on the use of fungal and bacterial enzymes to 

catalyze hydrolysis to simple sugars. VTT has maintained 

an active research program in lignocellulosic enzymes since 

the 1980s. Researchers at VTT (Martinez and others 2008) 

and at universities in Finland are among the world experts 

in development and use of industrial enzymes. One of the 

most successful industrial enzyme processes is the application of xylanase to improve bleaching of wood pulp (Viikari 

and others 1994). With the prominence of the paper industry 

in Finland, Tekes provided critical support for this process. 

Researchers at VTT and Finnish universities led the research 

on isolation and testing of xylanase enzymes in this application. With decades of experience in fungal treatment of 

wood, ligninases to delignify wood, xylanases to remove 

xylans and accelerate bleaching, and cellulases to hydrolyze 

cellulose into glucose (Puls and others 1985, Juhas and others 2005) and condition cotton fabrics, Finnish scientists 

are at the forefront of research on fungal enzymes needed 

to hydrolyze lignocellulose to fermentable sugars.

Among projects in this research area, the ClimBus program 

has supported a VTT project to evaluate conversion of various raw materials to ethanol, pretreatment and hydrolysis 

technologies, and economic evaluations of the feasibility of 

ethanol production using the hydrolysis/fermentation route. 

This project has reported yields of barley straw and reed 

canary grass around 10 tonne/ha and good enzyme hydrolysis after steam explosion pretreatment (Pahkala and others 2007). A cooperative effort with MTT, the agricultural 

research institute in Finland, this study was more focused 

on biomass growth rate than conversion efficiency, but this 

is a critical consideration in Finland, where arable land is 

not plentiful and the growing season is short. Projects using 

hydrolysis methods and funded by the Biorefine program 

include the following:

•	 Pretreatments using pressurized hot water in a flowthrough reactor, a joint project being carried out by the 

Finnish Forest Research Institute, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Åbo Acadamy, and KEUDA and 

evaluating Scotch pine, Norway spruce and silver birch

•	 Evaluation of two novel pretreatment processes, carried 

out by VTT and University of Helsinki

•	 Prehydrolysis-kraft pulping, being evaluated jointly by 

Lappeenranta University, University of Jyvaskyla, and 

Helsinki University of Technology

•	 Biorefineries—future business opportunity for forest 

cluster, University of Jyväskylä

•	 Industrially relevant, novel reaction routes for catalytic 

transformation of renewable biomaterials to highvalue-added fine chemicals and complimentary products, 

Åbo Academy

VTT also has a €15 million project focused on the fundamentals of biorefinery—lignocellulose pretreatments, 

enzyme saccharification, and fermentation. A review of the 

literature shows excellent papers on the enzymology of cellulose and hemicellulose and the role of lignin and accessory enzymes in lignocellulosic hydrolysis (VTT) (Benko and 

others 2008) and on production and evaluation of thermotolerant cellulases (VTT) (Ohgren and others 2007).

UPM-Kymmene has teamed with Lassila & Tikanoja Plc. 

in piloting a waste-to-ethanol concept that will use waste 

paper, deinking sludge, or other industrial fiber-rich wastes 

as feed stock.

Value-Added Products

Interest in value-added chemicals and products is considerable. Nearly all the hardwood used by the Finnish kraft pulp 

and paper industry is birch. One project seeks to extract 

value from the bark removed before processing the birch for 

traditional products. Bark in general is rich in suberin, a hydrophobic waxy substance, and birch bark is also rich in betulin, which has anti-malarial and anti-HIV properties. Other 

examples include spruce bark, which is rich in stilbenes, 

and knots, which are enriched in polyphenols, lignans, and 

stilbenes. Many of these are biologically active compounds, 

and several have promise as antioxidants. Hydroxyl-acids 

can be found as degradation products of sugars in kraft 

black liquor. Glucomannan, which can be isolated from the 

process water of thermomechanical pulp (TMP) mills, has 

potential value as a food additive (Xu and others 2008) and 

as biodegradable films.

Projects on fractionation of wood provide interesting opportunities. This is not a new concept and has been a research 

objective of the paper industry and wood hydrolysis R&D 

programs for many decades. In the United States, the Lignol Innovations Inc 10% validation project using the Alcell 

solvent pulping process is based on the premise that there 

is higher value in lignin and hemicellulose (vide infra). 

However, there are very interesting developments in this 

area. For example, ionic liquids offer new opportunities for 

dissolving and fractionating wood (Kilpeläinen and others 

2007). As a research tool, these processes are quite interesting; but as a potential industrial process, numerous issues 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008
14

will need to be addressed. Supercritical solvent systems are 

also of considerable interest but have been under study for a 

decade. Success with these concepts will depend on getting 

the high value for the lignin and hemicellulose fractions that 

was anticipated but not realized in the Alcell project.

Biorefinery Research Initiatives 

in the United States

The U.S. biorefinery initiative has been established in a 

number of Presidential directives and legislation. The two 

most recent set the following goals:

•	 The Advanced Energy Initiative (2006) established a goal 

to make cellulosic ethanol cost competitive with corn 

ethanol by 2012 (Bush 2006).

•	 The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 established a renewable fuel standard requiring 36 billion 

gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. This is nominally 

15% of total petroleum use in the United States and nearly 25% of imported oil.

In the United States, four government agencies provide the 

bulk of research funding through competitive grants: U.S. 

Department of Energy (DOE), National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and 

National Institutes of Health (NIH). Several other agencies 

have grant and research funding programs, the largest of 

which is the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). For the 

most part, these programs are more selective and are not 

major funding sources. The exception is DOD, which has 

a very large research budget and is supporting research in 

biofuels. However, DOD research is not public, and little 

information is available on these activities.

DOE, NSF, and USDA all have grant programs in bioproducts and bioenergy. NSF focuses on fundamental science, 

typically without direct applications. DOE usually focuses 

on research development with timelines for commercialization of 5 to 10 years or less. USDA focuses on applied science with commercialization targets of 10 years. The DOE 

biofuels program is the largest in the United States but is a 

small fraction of the DOE research program.

DOE Bioenergy Initiative

The DOE has primary responsibility for setting and coordinating the national research agenda in renewable energy 

and biofuels. Total biomass program funding for 2007 was 

$270 million out of a total DOE budget of $24 billion.1

DOE is concerned with all aspects of the biomass utilization effort, including collection and transportation, handling, 

processing, and product distribution.

1Biomass and bioenergy accounted for $195 million (2008). 

Genomics to life includes $75 million in the Bioenergy Research 

Centers.

In 2006, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory projected a cost timeline for cellulosic ethanol (McMillan 2006) 

in their response to the President’s Advanced Energy Initiative (Bush 2006). This estimated the production cost for lignocellulosic ethanol at $2.30/gal (€0.47/L) in 2005, the base 

year. The projected cost dropped to $1.06/gal (€0.22/L) by 

2012 and $0.63/gal (€0.13/L) by 2020. Embedded in these 

projected costs was an 86% drop in the cost of the enzymes, 

a 75% decrease in converting costs, and a 63% decrease in 

delivered feedstock costs. One expressed concern in that 

cost projection was that delivered biomass decreased to 

$27 per oven-dry ton (odt) (€23 per oven-dry metric tonne 

(odmt)) by 2020, well below the current cost of pulp mill 

wood chips. The base case value for delivered biomass in 

2005 was $50/odt (€42/odmt). The DOE updated the cost 

projection in 2008 (USDOE 2008) with an estimated base 

case cost of $2.43/gal (€0.49/L) for 2007 (Figure 11). The 

projected manufacturing cost in the new estimate drops 

to $1.33/gal (€0.27/L) in 2012 and $1.20/gal (€0.24/L) in 

2017. The projected cost savings in this report include a 

60% reduction in converting costs and a 40% reduction in 

supply logistics. The report projects a 50% increase in the 

grower payment (or stumpage price). The DOE deliberately 

separated the grower payment from the supply logistics 

to make it clear that all savings in delivered biomass were 

in supply logistics and improved conversion efficiencies. 

Actual grower payment increases from $13/odt (€11/odmt) 

in 2005, to $27/odt (€23/odmt) in 2012. Current pulpwood 

stumpage pricing in the United States ranges from $13 to 

$15/odt for hardwoods and $15 to $30/odt for softwoods. 

The delivered biomass cost to the plant is the sum of the 

logistic cost and the feedstock cost. This cost component 

drops overall by 28%, largely because of a projected increase in product yield from 65 gal/odt of corn stover 

(272 L/odmt) to 90 gal/odt (376 L/odmt). Feedstock cost is 

also discussed in an earlier report from DOE, the Roadmap 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

2007 2012 2017

Conversion

Logistics

Feedstock

Price per 

gallon

0.18 0.14 0.27

0.65

0.37

0.33

1.60

0.82 0.60

Figure 11. DOE projected production costs to make 

ethanol competitive with petroleum by 2012. Graph 

reproduced from USDOE (2008).
15

for Agricultural Biomass Feedstock Supply in the United 

States (USDOE 2003). This report proposed a target price of 

$30/odt (€ 25/odmt) as the required delivered feedstock cost 

because this made the cost of glucose from cellulose competitive with the historic $0.07/lb (€0.11/kg) cost of sugar 

from corn starch and sugar crops. This cost goal remains but 

is relieved if converting yields can be improved.

The volatility of fuel prices and large increase in relative 

costs for petroleum-derived fuels since 2005 have obviously 

made the absolute values of these cost projections meaningless. However, the relative values and needed improvements 

to make cellulosic fuels cost competitive with corn starch 

and fossil fuel are largely unchanged. Even the starch-based 

cost has shown considerable volatility since 2006. The price 

of corn in the United States had been quite stable for years, 

but modern farm practices are energy intensive and if crop 

prices had not increased with the cost of petroleum, the U.S. 

farm economy would have gone into a recession. As it was, 

crop producers were doing much better than meat and dairy 

producers, who were faced with the increase in fuel and 

feed grain costs without a significant increase in product 

prices (USDA 2008). While fuel and grain costs were high, 

lignocellulosic ethanol was cost competitive with petroleum-based gasoline and ethanol produced from corn in the 

United States. But the price of corn decreased substantially 

with the drop in fuel prices and reversed this temporary cost 

advantage. The uncertainty about fuel prices has made it 

impossible to estimate the competitiveness of lignocellulosic fuel investments and has further complicated national 

efforts to develop renewable fuel alternatives. Currently, 

the U.S. government has provided an incentive of $1.01/gal 

(€0.20/L) for production of second-generation renewable 

fuels. DOE has also provided large grants to support the 

construction of demonstration and commercial-scale production facilities.

A large portion of DOE funding is directed into three major programs: establishment of three Biorefinery Research 

Centers ($75 million per year for 5 years), engineering and 

construction of six integrated commercial-scale biorefineries 

(a commitment of up to $500 million), and nine 1/10-scale 

demonstration biorefineries (a commitment of $240 million). Of the six initial integrated biorefinery proposals 

accepted by DOE, two have since withdrawn from further 

consideration, reducing this commitment to $272 million.

These larger scale projects have proposed to use both thermochemical conversion routes, such as pyrolysis oils and 

gasification, and chemical and biological routes, including 

acid hydrolysis, enzyme saccharification, and fermentation. 

Using product gas, there is considerable research support 

for Fischer–Tropsch conversion to hydrocarbons but also 

catalytic conversion to higher order alcohols. A project on 

fermentation of product gas to ethanol was one of the integrated plant projects that withdrew from the DOE grant 

program. The biochemical routes are primarily focused 

on fermentation for ethanol but are also considering other 

chemical products such as butanol, lactic acid, polyhydroxy 

alcohols, and hydroxymethylfurfural.

In addition to these large-scale projects, DOE offers annual 

solicitations for applied biomass fuel- and chemical-related 

research projects. These smaller grant programs fund biomass-related research at the national laboratories and other 

eligible organizations. Applied projects funded by DOE 

typically require 20% or more in matching funds, and the 

development projects require greater than 50% in matching 

support.

Bioenergy Research Centers

The bioenergy research centers are part of the DOE genomics research program and, as such, all include significant 

contributions from genetic discovery and genetic engineering. The three centers were selected in 2007 and are to 

receive $25 million per year for five years.

1. The Bioenergy Science Center (BESC) is organized by 

the DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, 

Tennessee. The center includes research to be conducted 

at the University of Tennessee, the Georgia Institute of 

Technology, the University of Georgia, Dartmouth College and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 

This center will focus on the resistance of plant fiber 

to breakdown into sugars and on energy crop systems 

from poplar and switchgrass. A major focus is to identify 

plants and/or genetically engineer plants with less cellulose recalcitrance. The project is centered around hybrid 

cottonwoods (Populus trichocarpa, P. deltoides, P. nigra). BESC also has a large project on consolidated bioprocessing of plant matter, incorporating the enzymatic 

digestion and fermentation processes within one microorganism. They are working on enzymes and enzyme combinations to improve the rates and yields in hydrolyzing 

cellulose. To accomplish these goals in a timely manner, 

BESC has dedicated considerable resources to develop 

high-throughput screening methods for pretreatments and 

enzyme treatments (Ritter 2008).

2. The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is led by 

the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, 

and includes Michigan State University, the University 

of Florida, Iowa State University and the Illinois State 

University at Normal, Illinois. It also includes two DOE 

national laboratories: Oak Ridge National Laboratory and 

the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This center 

will focus on all phases of biomass production and processing. The biomass production research includes genetic engineering to improve cell wall processing, increasing 

the production of oils in plants, and biomass productivity. 

The biomass processing research includes improved enzymes through discovery and/or laboratory-created modifications and genetic engineering of cell-wall-degrading 

enzymes to be produced by plants. To improve biomass 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008
16

conversion, the center will also work on incorporating 

cell-wall-degrading enzymes into traditional fermentation 

organisms to achieve consolidated bioprocessin

3. The Joint Bioenergy Research Institute is organized by 

the DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It 

includes the University of California at Berkeley, the 

University of California at Davis, and two other DOE 

national laboratories; Lawrence Livermore and Sandia. 

The Joint Bioenergy Research Institute is focused on understanding cell wall formation in rice and Arabidopsis. 

They will be looking for modifications to lignin and/or 

cellulose to enhance enzymatic processing. The center 

will also search for novel enzymes through new discoveries and look for organisms, or genetically modify organisms, to produce fuels such as longer chain alcohols or 

alkanes.

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the Joint 

Bioenergy Research Center include gene modification by directed evolution or rational design in their project portfolios. 

The recently passed Energy Independence and Security Act 

of 2007 directs DOE to add three more Bioenergy Research 

Centers to encompass all six major geographic regions of 

the country. 

Integrated Biorefineries

In February 2007, DOE awarded grants ranging from 

$33 million to $80 million in federal funds to support development of commercial-scale integrated biorefineries. 

Six projects were initially announced by DOE, but two 

have since abandoned their projects. Besides establishing 

operational processes for converting lignocellulose to liquid 

fuels and chemicals, the integrated biorefinery initiative and 

1/10-scale biorefinery initiative (vide infra) are intended to 

initiate the development of biomass collection and handling 

methods, and the infrastructure for biofuel distribution and 

sales (DOE2 2008). Some of this is not needed for forest 

biomass that has been collected, transported, stored, and 

handled at reasonable full scale in the paper and lumber 

products industries, but the DOE effort is largely focused 

on agricultural residuals, corn stover, wheat straw, and dedicated fuel crops such as switchgrass. A potential problem 

with this focus is that it generates the renewable fuels industry in the same region as the existing corn ethanol industry 

and further aggravates the distribution problems the country 

already faces with ethanol transportation fuels. The projects, 

however, are not limited to agricultural residuals and several 

will use wood residuals as the primary feedstock. For both 

wood and agricultural residuals, we need improved methods 

to reduce handling costs for fuel grade materials; establishing harvesting and collection networks is one way to make 

progress on these problems and get energy crop agriculture 

started. 

1. Abengoa Bioenergy received $76 million to build an 

11.4 million gallon per year lignocellulosic ethanol plant 

to use 700 tons per day of agricultural residuals (corn 

stover, wheat straw, and switchgrass). The proposed plant 

is adjacent to an existing corn ethanol plant. The proposal 

includes a gasifier to provide energy for the lignocellulosic ethanol plant, with excess energy to supply the corn 

ethanol plant. The long-term strategy is to produce additional ethanol from the product gas. At their pilot facility 

in Nebraska, Abengoa is developing engineering data to 

scale the Kansas plant and a similar 1.3 million gallons 

per year cellulosic ethanol plant co-located with a grain 

ethanol plant in Salamanca, Spain. The ethanol yield in 

Spain can be estimated at 54 U.S. gallons (205 L) per 

tonne of lignocellulosic feedstock.

2. Alico Energy, LLC, was to receive $33 million to construct a gasification–ethanol facility in Florida. The method would have used a gasifier to provide the product gas, 

which was to be fermented to ethanol (Ahmed and Lewis 

2007) using the organism and process developed by Bioengineering Resources, Inc., of Fayetteville, Arkansas. 

Alico has abandoned the project.

3. BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc., Irvine, California, received 

$40 million for a proposed 19 million gallon per year 

concentrated acid hydrolysis and product sugar fermentation plant in Southern California. The process uses ion 

exchange media to collect the acid without diluting the 

sugar and then collects and reconcentrates the acid for 

reuse. They project a yield of 92 gallons (350 L) per 

tonne of biomass and a sulfuric acid makeup requirement 

of about 40 kg per tonne of biomass. The company has a 

continuous process pilot plant in Japan that has been operating for several years and can provide the engineering 

data for scale-up.

4. POET Project LIBERTY will receive up to $80 million to 

add a corn cob and stover lignocellulosic ethanol production line to an existing dry grind corn ethanol plant. The 

plant plans to use 700 tons per day of corn cobs and corn 

stover and produce 25–30 million gallons of ethanol per 

year. In their pilot-plant announcement in spring 2008, 

they indicate the expected yield is 80 gallons per ton 

(330 L/odmt). POET has Novozymes North America 

and E.I du Pont de Nemours and Co. as partners.

5. Iogen Biorefinery Partners, LLC, was to receive up to 

$80 million to construct a plant using mixed agricultural 

residuals and switchgrass to be sited in Idaho. Iogen is 

an enzyme manufacturer and has considerable experience with cellulosic ethanol production from wheat straw 

using a pilot plant in Ontario, Canada. The Idaho plant 

was proposed to use 700 odmt per day of lignocellulosic 

biomass to produce 18 million gallons per year of ethanol; 71 gallons (270 L) per tonne. This project has been 

suspended, but Iogen is proceeding with a facility in 

Canada.

6. Range Fuels, Inc., will receive up to $76 million to 

construct a gasification plant, with product gas being 

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185
17

reformed into mixed alcohols. The process is to be implemented in two phases, with the first demonstration-scale 

facility producing 20 million gallons per year of ethanol 

and the full-scale facility using 2,500 tons per day of 

waste wood to produce 100 million gallons per year of 

mixed alcohols (ethanol and methanol). The raw material 

usage and plant output suggest a yield of 110 gallons per 

ton (460L/odmt).

Of the integrated biorefinery plants, Abengoa Bioenergy, 

BlueFire Ethanol, and Iogen Biorefinery already have 

operating pilot or semi-commercial experience with their 

processes. Alico and Range Fuels intend to start at smaller 

scales. POET started a pilot-scale facility in South Dakota 

in late 2008.

10% Validation—Small-Scale Biorefineries

In January 2008, DOE announced four awards for demonstration lignocellulosic fuel plants to be sized at 10% of 

anticipated commercial scale.

1. ICM, Inc., will receive $30 million to construct a lignocellulosic biorefinery to be co-located by an existing 

50 million gallon per year corn ethanol plant. The plant 

is to use varied agricultural residuals and switchgrass and 

a biochemical processing method. Novozymes is among 

the collaborators. There is insufficient information to 

estimate the process yield.

2. Lignol Innovations Inc will receive $30 million to construct a solvent pretreatment plant based on the Alcell 

pulping process, with subsequent saccharification and 

fermentation of the cellulose. The plant will be colocated by an existing petroleum refinery and will use 

100 odt per day of hardwood and softwood to produce 

over 2 million gallons per year of ethanol (55 gallons per 

tonne, 240 L/odmt). Engineering and construction planning for this plant has been suspended due to problems 

raising additional funds in the current economy.

3. Pacific Ethanol, Inc., received $24.3 million to design 

and build a lignocellulosic ethanol plant to be co-located 

next to an existing corn ethanol plant in Oregon. Raw 

material is expected to be wheat straw, corn stover, and 

poplar wood residuals. The plant is based on the technology of the Dutch company BioGasol ApS and uses a 

steam/oxygen explosion process for pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification (Novozymes), and a proprietary 

thermophilic bacterium that converts both xylose and 

glucose to ethanol.

4. NewPage Corporation (formerly StoraEnso North 

America) will receive up to $30 million to construct and 

operate a wood-fueled gasifier and Fischer–Tropsch gasto-liquids plant. The goal is 5.5 million gallons per year 

of hydrocarbon fuel using 497 tons per day of woody 

biomass. A key feature of this plant is integration with an 

existing pulp and paper mill complex using waste heat 

from the Fischer–Tropsch plant to supply the heating 

needs of the mill.

In April 2008, DOE announced three additional 10% scale 

awards:

1. Red Shield Pulp & Chemicals, LLC, received up to 

$30 million to install a pre-extraction process that adds 

ethanol fermentation to the traditional pulp and papermaking process. The project will restart an idle pulp mill 

in Old Town, Maine, and install the University of Maine 

pre-extraction process to produce a hemicellulose-rich 

sugar stream for the ethanol plant.

2. Mascoma Corporation received $26 million to build a 

cellulosic ethanol plant in Tennessee using switchgrass. 

The plant was to use Mascoma’s proprietary process, 

probably based on the consolidated bioprocessing concept where one organism provides the saccharification 

enzymes and ferments mixed sugars to ethanol. Mascoma concluded that it is overcommitted and backed out of 

this project. The University has since formed a partnership with DuPont and Danisco to pursue the project.

3. Ecofin, LLC, will receive up to $30 million dollars to 

build a lignocellulosic biorefinery in Kentucky to convert 

corn cobs to ethanol. A unique feature of this plant will 

be the use of a solid-state enzyme process developed by 

Alltech, Inc.

In July 2008, DOE approved two additional 10% validation 

projects, a gasifier with Fischer–Tropsch hydrocarbons to be 

installed by Flambeau River Biofuels, LLC, and a lignocellulosic ethanol plant to be installed by Verenium Biofuels 

Corporation. Verenium has installed a 1.4 million gallon 

per year cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Louisiana 

and has been in testing and start-up since June 2008. The 

plant has a dilute acid pretreatment with a separate 48-hour 

five-carbon fermentation stage and a 72-hour simultaneous 

saccharification and fermentation stage for the cellulose 

(Patrick 2008). Verenium has licensed and proprietary technologies on five-carbon sugar fermentation and cellulosic 

enzymes that they intend to implement in the demonstration 

plant. Flambeau River Biofuels, LLC, is engineering a nominal 500 ton per day feed TRI gasifier with Fischer–Tropsch 

reformulation of product gas to hydrocarbons. This plant 

will be energy-integrated with an existing sulfite pulp mill.

The DOE has several other ongoing research initiatives that 

focus on improving feedstock collection and handling and 

reducing the costs of in-plant processing:

•	 $23 million for continued development of ethanologens 

and other fermentive organisms that are more robust to 

temperature and ethanol concentration (Cargill, Inc., 

Verenium Biofuels Corporation, E.I. DuPont de Nemours 

and Co., Mascoma Corporation, and Purdue University)

•	 $7.7 million for integration of gasification with catalystbased reforming technologies (Emery Energy, Iowa State 

University, Research Triangle Institute, Southern Research Institute, and Gas Technology Institute)

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008
18

•	 $34 million for continued improvements in saccharification enzymes for improved enzyme effectiveness and 

reduced enzyme cost (DSM Innovations Center, Inc., 

Genencor, Novozymes, Inc., and Verenium Biofuels 

Corporation)

•	 $18.4 million for the DOE/USDA Joint Biomass Research and Development Initiative, 21 grants for projects 

ranging from energy crops to production of bio-based 

plastics and composites

The USDA provides research grants through the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) National Research Initiative. The goal of CSREES 

in general is to advance the state of agriculture in the United 

States and support rural communities. The program supports 

applied research with a goal of successful application in 

about 10 years. The National Research Initiative is broadly 

based support of agriculture with two program areas focused 

on biorefinery projects. The Biobased Products and Bioenergy Production program distributed about $5 million in 

grant funds in 2007 and 2008, providing grants in two areas: 

(a) The biobased products area supports discovery and development of biobased products, such as plastic composites 

reinforced with lignocellulose materials, and polymers produced from lignocellulosics or from plants or microorganisms modified to produce suitable oligomers or monomers. 

(b) The bioenergy area focuses on research to improve production of ethanol or other suitable transportation fuels from 

grain-based or lignocellulosic-based feedstocks. The solicitation for 2008 specified lignocellulosics. These projects 

include genetic engineering of microorganisms to

•	 increase tolerance towards ethanol or fermentation 

inhibitors,

•	 increase the ability of specific microorganisms to ferment 

the broad range of sugars obtained from lignocellulosics,

•	 manipulate plant composition and structure to enhance 

enzymatic saccharification,

•	 produce saccharification enzymes using plants, and

•	 improve production of other fermentation products.

The program also supports searching for and development 

of more effective enzymes, kinetic and genetic research on 

enzyme function, and improved processing methods including separations and continuous processing methods.

The Biofuels and Biobased Products Small Business Innovation Grants (SBIR) support small businesses and start-up 

businesses working to complete development or implement 

projects in the biofuels area. These are typically short-term 

development grants with about a two-year application goal. 

Current SBIR grants include projects on membrane separations, pyrolysis oil filtration processes, and fermentation of 

xylose.

Smaller Research Grants

Saccharification

Both DOE and USDA are funding a significant amount of 

genetic engineering research on hydrolysis and enzymatic 

saccharification/fermentation processes. These projects include improving yields on existing fermentation products by 

suppressing competing product pathways, transferring specific metabolic (fermentation) capabilities into other useful 

organisms (Sedlak and Ho 2004, Ingram and other 1998),

inserting cellulase enzyme production into fuel crop plants 

(Biswas and others 2006), and adding cell wall depolymerization (cellulase) capabilities to fermentation organisms 

(Zhou and Ingram 2001). These address some of the specific 

cost issues in the DOE long-term plan. It should be noted 

that similar research is included in the Biorefinery Research 

Centers.

Decreasing enzyme cost has been a DOE focus, and recruiting crops to produce enzymes is one scheme to achieve this 

goal. There is also an initiative to find or produce organisms 

capable of producing the cellulase enzymes and fermenting 

the product sugars—the so-called consolidated bioprocess 

approach. This includes at least two naturally occurring 

anaerobes with these capabilities (Warnick and others 2002, 

Zhang and Lynd 2005) and efforts to genetically engineer 

one organism with all these capabilities (Lynd and others 

2005). The goal in these projects is not only to reduce the 

cost of the enzymes but also to simplify the process to one 

organism and set of process conditions.

A major limitation of existing lignocellulosic ethanol process capabilities is the length of time required to achieve 

high saccharification yields. High yields can be achieved in 

a number of ways but often take two or more days. Several 

efforts are focused on this problem, including many different pretreatment processes and efforts to discover or produce more robust enzymes (Baker and others 2005, Escovar-Kousen and others 2004). Much of this work is focused 

on thermophiles (Zhang and Lynd 2005, Baker and others 

2005, Escovar-Kousen and others 2004) that can have accelerated metabolic processes, have more robust enzymes, and 

are more likely to have been overlooked in earlier efforts 

to find lignocellulose-consuming organisms. The efforts to 

genetically synthesize more robust enzymes through rational 

design and directed evolution extend beyond the nowcommon genetic engineering of transferring existing processes from one organism to another. These techniques 

certainly have endless possibilities, but this itself becomes 

part of the challenge. The enormity of the task and lack of 

an extended track record using these methods make it difficult to judge the probability of success or likely time frame 

needed to achieve it. We do know that millions of organisms 

have been working for millions of years to accomplish 

the same task, albeit with a less organized and efficient 

approach.

General Technical Report FPL–GTR–185
19

Value-Added Products

The primary focus at both USDA and DOE is on transportation fuels from lignocellulosic biomass. At USDA, research 

proposals on starch- and plant-oil-based chemicals and 

plastics—higher valued products that displace fossil-fuelderived chemicals or materials—are still viewed favorably. 

DOE has longstanding interests in other fermentationderived products (Werpy and Petersen 2004) that somewhat 

replicate interests of the U.S. Forest Service (Hajny 1981) 

and USDA. Among these, DOE has active research programs on polyhydroxyalkanoates and converting glycerol 

to propanediols. DuPont’s fermentation process producing 

1,3-propanediol is a notable commercial success in this 

regard. It should be noted that petrochemical routes to this 

chemical are not direct and are costly. It is still not clear that 

a starch-based fermentation route could compete directly 

against fossil-fuel-based chemicals where more direct synthetic routes are available. There are funded efforts for uses 

of starch and/or hemicellulose-based polymers for barrier 

films, expanded products, and other plastics and for use of 

sugars and extractives as pharmaceutical and nutraceutical 

precursors or products. There is considerable research interest in developing product value from lignin (beyond the 

Lignol Innovations project already mentioned). Compared 

with funding for transportation fuels, these research efforts 

are quite small and limited.

Feedstock and Supply

Feedstock and supply are recognized as a critical area to 

reduce costs, and both DOE and USDA support projects 

in harvesting and supply logistics. The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) provided 

$10 million in 2007 to support projects in feedstock supply 

research. Examples include a project on single-pass harvesting, one on overall supply logistics, and one on infrastructure. Although of more interest to USDA, it typically 

does not have large amounts of grant money for this type of 

integrated research effort. Agricultural supply companies are 

fully supportive, and their engineering work on single-pass 

harvesting and other processes for collecting agricultural 

residuals represents the largest investment in this critical 

part of the process. There is no evidence that any company 

or organization has a good concept for lowering the cost of 

forest thinning carried out to improve growth rates or reduce 

fire risks. For natural forests, this type of biomass harvesting does not lend itself to modern concepts in engineering 

because it is small scale, disorganized, and distributed. The 

U.S. Forest Service, U.S. forestry companies, and Finland 

need real progress in this type of forest harvesting. With current methods, harvesting thinnings and other forest residuals 

is more expensive than pulpwood, and this problem is causing concerns among paper companies in the United States.

Summary

Although initially approaching biomass utilization from 

different directions and perspectives, the United States and 

Finland have arrived at nearly the same research focus on 

converting biomass to liquid transportation fuels and to materials and chemicals that replace petrochemical products. 

The overall goals of the two programs are now quite similar, 

differing only by emphasis.

The biorefinery program funded by Tekes and the Academy 

of Finland provides for a strong overall program. Compared 

with funding initiatives in the United States, Finland has 

maintained somewhat less support for hydrolysis methods 

leading to fermentation products and somewhat more support for gasification and pyrolysis. This difference in emphasis is dictated at least in part by the difference in available 

biomass, with hardwoods and agricultural residuals readily 

available in the United States and softwoods as the dominant low-value biomass available in Finland

In spite of the fact that ethanol as a fuel product seems to 

be of less interest in Finland, support for research on ligninand carbohydrate-degrading organisms and enzymes remains strong. Comparing the levels of funding in the United 

States and Finland, non-glucose-based products seem to be 

of greater interest in Finland, and much of the fractionation 

and hydrolysis work is targeted to pharmaceuticals, neutraceuticals, and specialty biomaterials applications.

Finland has made a strong effort to increase the availability 

of low-value wood wastes through programs to assist forest owners in thinning overly dense stands and to create a 

market by encouraging utilities to substitute woody biomass 

for fossil fuels and peat. Where the U.S. DOE has focused 

biomass harvesting on agricultural residuals and agricultural 

energy crops, Finland has carried out considerable research 

in harvesting equipment and methods for wood wastes, 

baling and densification of waste-wood transport bundles, 

and inventory of available woody biomass. The fuel crop 

program in Finland is considerably smaller than that in the 

United States, appropriate to the much smaller proportion of 

land area suitable for agricultural crops. There is an active 

program in producing and harvesting reed canary grass and 

barley straw as agriculturally produced biomass suitable to 

the Finnish climate and growing season.

The program in the United States is more focused on fuels 

than other products and more focused on agricultural residuals than forest and forest products residuals. The program 

support for lignocellulosic ethanol and even projects on 

reforming synthesis gas to alcohols is quite different from 

the major emphasis areas in Finland. The United States has 

maintained an extensive effort on genetic engineering solutions to several of the persistent needs in saccharification 

and fermentation-based processes. Of particular interest is 

whether newer approaches such as rational design and 

directed evolution can provide the needed processing 

improvements.

A large part of the U.S. effort is in 13 ongoing demonstration plants using technologies ranging from gasification 

with gas reforming to enzyme saccharification with 

State of the Art in Biorefinery in Finland and the United States, 2008
20

fermentation. Based on yields shown in the companies’ published literature and stated position in the R&D progression, 

it is not clear which if any of these projects have breakthrough technologies that can approach the 90 gallons per 

ton (376 L/odmt) target yield DOE has established for 2012. 

Several, however, are well established companies with very 

astute R&D and investment track records and very likely 

have cost-effective and presumably profitable technologies 

or ways to implement the technology. Furthermore, larger 

scale continuous processes are needed to serve as platforms 

for routine engineering improvements in heat and material 

use that combine to make a much more efficient process. 

Based on research goals of the DOE Bioenergy Research 

Centers and the research project portfolios of DOE and 

USDA, there is not a conviction among grant agencies or 

the scientific community that critical improvements needed 

to make lignocellulose-based fuels cost effective relative to 

fossil fuels or starch-based ethanol have been achieved. To 

reach the government’s renewable fuels goals, additional 

improvements in biomass logistics and biomass processing 

will be needed. Goals to increase cellulose saccharification 

yield, improve five-carbon sugar fermentation, improve 

gasification, tar minimization, and product gas cleanup, and 

generally reduce costs of lignocellulose-based processes 

remain.

As in Finland, the U.S. DOE recognizes that the pulp and 

paper industry understands biomass management and may 

provide an implementation pathway for forest-based biofuels. Two pulp and paper mills are among the gasification–

Fischer–Tropsch projects, and two prehydrolysis pulping 

projects have been funded by DOE. The DOE is similarly 

looking to the existing corn ethanol industry in the United 

States to help establish the supply side for biorefineries using agricultural residuals. Several of the DOE projects are 

co-sited with existing corn-ethanol plants or are managed by 

corn ethanol producers.

Based on concerns within the United States (petroleum 

availability, energy security, and global climate change) and 

Finland’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and comply with 

EU targets for CO2 reductions in the transport sector, Finland and the United States now have similar research goals 

in biomass energy, and the many similarities in the two 

programs is not surprising. Although there is not a formal 

cooperative process at this point, scientists are cooperating 

on research (Martinez and others 2008, Kilpeläinen and 

others 2007), and we should expect to see this continue. A 

remaining goal of this project is to see biorefinery research 

cooperation between the United States and Finland expand. 

Opportunities exist for shared research and experience in 

gasification, Fischer–Tropsch catalysts, and in particular, 

engineering of smaller scale Fischer–Tropsch plants. Both 

countries have existing projects on characterization of wood 

decay organisms, lignocellulosic decay enzymes, prehydrolysis kraft, and biomass pretreatment methods to improve 

enzyme saccharification efficiency. In general, it is easier 

to collaborate on pre-competitive projects where scientific 

advances can benefit all. As examples, projects in Fischer–

Tropsch catalysts, cataloging wood decay organisms and 

enzymes, and cellulose recalcitrance to enzymes should be 

considered. Sustainability concerns are also shared. In agricultural applications, there is concern over how much biomass can be removed and how much must be returned to the 

soil to maintain soil productivity. The same concerns have 

been raised for forests, where tops and branches (and in 

Finland, even roots) that have been traditionally left in 

the forest are now removed for fuel—and in the future, 

biorefineries.

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