Biofuel market from cellulose not seen before 2015

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The widespread commercial use of "second generation" biofuels from cellulose is still about eight years away, Rabobank said on Wednesday.

Biofuels from grains, sugar cane and oilseeds will eventually not be able to meet demand because of limited acreage, Rabobank analyst Stephane Delodder said.

Firms are experimenting with new techniques to ferment the cellulose, or fiber, from plants, such as wheat bran or straw.

"The second generation will not be commercially viable before 2015," Delodder told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference organized by analysts F.O. Licht.

An official from Royal Nedalco, a Dutch ethanol maker, told the conference the firm had already developed a second generation technique which could be cost competitive within five years for some feedstocks.

Delodder said the scarcity of energy will eventually force the industry to move beyond the second generation as well.

"As the need becomes more urgent and fossil (fuel) stocks become emptied then also research will be forced to quicker develop the third and fourth generation of fuel," he said.

Scientists could learn how plants store energy and mimic it, Delodder said.

"We use nature to extract energy stored in wheat, rapeseed or wood and with industrial processes we extract energy and make it available for cars."

"If we can find a way to ...capture the energy without having to use these plants and we just directly know by looking at these plants how they convert energy into starch or cellulose then we could on an industrial scale produce cellulose or starch," he added.

Other man-made renewable energy sources like solar cells also capture the sun's energy directly -- like plants -- but Delodder said the third generation of biofuels will be more efficient.

"What you look at in fuels, it is a lot more concentrated and can be stored for much longer," he said.

"We are quite a few steps away from it."