Véronique Hervouet
Biomass & Synfuel Development Manager
Refining & Marketing Strategy & Research
Can you describe the benefits and drawbacks of biomass?
Biomass, which accounts for around 12% of the world’s primary energy, is the leading source of renewable energy and the only one that can be liquefied. Made up of organic matter from living organisms, it has a wide range of disparate properties. However, its low energy density and scattered production increase collection and processing costs, which hampers its use in large amounts. Biomass is a core raw material in a large number of segments, including food, pulp and paper, textiles, construction, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, and using it to produce energy is competitive with its other applications.
Biomass is also a flash point for powerful, sometimes conflicting political issues, such as energy diversification and independence, agricultural policy and world trade, global and local environmental policy (combating greenhouse gases), regional development and rural development, and transportation policy. We can’t overlook
its potential contribution to meeting energy challenges, but we have to carefully evaluate the issues related to the development of new processes, taking an approach that is both global and tailored to the specific features of the local environment.
Tell us about Total’s approach and priorities.
Biomass will inevitably, although only partially, supplement fossil fuels in meeting energy supply in the 21st century. As Europe’s leading marketer of automotive fuel and biofuel, Total wants to expand the use of renewable carbon in products and industrial facilities.
From our point of view, energy conversion processes and technologies have to be chosen primarily in line with local factors such as type and availability of biomass, industrial synergies and legislation, and their benefits and impact have to be taken into account through a life cycle analysis. What we have to do is not identify the best generic process or technology, but select the most appropriate options, in synergy with our operations and the local environment.
Given the diversity of stakeholders and the complexity of challenges, we prefer partnerships with bioresource producers, manufacturers, technology developers, universities and research centers.
Tell us about Total’s partnerships.
In 2005, we launched more than a dozen studies and projects on processes and technologies to develop biomass, most in partnership. For instance, we’ve teamed up with Neste Oil to examine the feasibility of building a unit at one of our European refineries to produce high performance synthetic biodiesel from hydrotreated vegetable oil and animal fat. We are involved in three BTL partnerships in Germany, and are also working with Dutch partners on the innovative
hydrothermal upgrading process, which uses highpressure pyrolysis to upgrade wet biomass to produce a biocrude that could be used as refinery feedstock. We have also signed an R&D agreement with Sofiprotéol, the French leader in producing oilseed crops and vegetable oil methyl ester, and have joined two projects under France’s National Bioenergy Research Program, run by the French National Research Agency (ANR).
