The Importance of Feedstock

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Maurice Jones
7 years ago
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2 The Importance of Feedstock Cost of Finished Product Cost of Delivered Feedstock Production Cost Seed (10-20%) Other Delivered Feedstock (50-67%) Transport Production (50-60%) Other 2

3 NexSteppe Vision Be a leading provider of scalable, reliable and sustainable feedstock solutions for the biofuels, biopower and bioproduct industries 3

4 Not All Biomass Is Created Equal 4

5 Biobased Feedstocks Oils Examples Soy Palm Jatropha Features Most expensive Transportable (energy dense) Easily refined Starches Corn Grain sorghum Cassava Moderately expensive Transportable & storable Easily converted to sugar Sugars Sweet sorghum Sugarcane Sugar beet Less expensive Direct source of fermentable sugar Must be processed immediately Biomass Biomass sorghum Perennial grasses SRWCs Wastes & residues Cheapest feedstock Transport limited (low bulk density) Storable Most difficult to process 5

6 Yield is THE Major Economic Lever More gallons/btus/tons per acre means Reduced land cost per ton Reduced labor & equipment cost per ton Reduced harvest cost per ton Reduced transport cost per ton (or reduced processing cost through a larger facility and greater economies of scale) Reduced land use footprint Reduced carbon footprint 6

7 Biobased Feedstocks Oils Examples Soy Palm Jatropha Features Most expensive Transportable (energy dense) Easily refined Starches Corn Grain sorghum Cassava Moderately expensive Transportable & storable Easily converted to sugar Sugars Sweet sorghum Sugarcane Sugar beet Less expensive Direct source of fermentable sugar Must be processed immediately Biomass Biomass sorghum Perennial grasses SRWCs Wastes & residues Cheapest feedstock Transport limited (low bulk density) Storable Most difficult to process 7

8 What You Want In A Feedstock Depends on Your Perspective 8

9 What Do You Want in a Feedstock? If You re a Grower Cheap and easy to establish First year revenues Known agronomic practices Registered crop protection products Sufficient yield to generate compelling economics 9

10 What Do You Want in a Feedstock? If You re a Process/Project Developer Low delivered cost Scalability Reliability Replicability Existing supply chain Process-optimized 10

11 What Do You Want in a Feedstock? If You re a Seed Company Potential for significant and rapid improvement Easy and quick to scale-up Seed propagated hybrid Drop-in opportunities Compelling economics for grower and processor 11

12 Why Sorghum? For the grower High-yielding First year revenues Established agronomic systems For the process/project developer Broad geographic adaptation Drop-in for multiple existing supply chains Heat and drought tolerant For the seed company Huge genetic diversity Rapid breeding and product development cycle Established hybrid systems Seed propagated 12

13 Our Products: Sweet Sorghum Annual sugar crop High sugars and juice Range of maturities 13

14 Our Products: High Biomass Sorghum Annual biomass crop High yield Low moisture at harvest 14

15 The Short Game and the Long Game 15

16 Short 1 st gen vs. Long 2 nd gen Biobased products Wastes, existing crops & pure streams Biofuels Tailored crops Existing infrastructure Lowest cost 16

17 The Short Game for Sweet Sorghum Extending the Operating Season for Existing Brazilian Sugar to Ethanol Mills Sweet sorghum extension Jan Apr Current cane crushing season Nov Dec 5 yr cycle means 15-20% of cane land (9M ha) available Increases return on capital Allows production during peak ethanol-price season Increases cane yields 17

18 The Short Game for High Biomass Sorghum Existing Brazilian Industrial Biomass Boilers Production level High biomass sorghum addition Jan Apr Current mill boiler operation Energy demand increasing No cheap natural gas Existing dedicated crop supply chains Nov Dec 18

19 The Long Game Sweet Sorghum Fermentable Sugars Biobased Products & Advanced Biofuels High Biomass Sorghum Biomass Biopower & Cellulosic Biofuels

20 Optimized, dedicated crops are at scale today 20

21 50 Ha of Sweet Sorghum at Leading Brazilian Sugar-to-Ethanol Mill 21

22 NexSteppe Today Country headquarters: US South San Francisco, CA Brazil Campinas, SP Research stations: US Hereford, TX US winter Puerto Rico Brazil Rio Verde, GO Seed production: US Puerto Rico Bolivia Trial locations 22

23 Thank You Anna Rath CEO, NexSteppe

Cellulosic Feedstocks: Mitigating Risk and Cost Through a Portfolio Approach

Cellulosic Feedstocks: Mitigating Risk and Cost Through a Portfolio Approach World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology April 20, 2016 Sam Jackson, VP Business Development Genera Energy Privately held