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Petroleum’s vast scale and energy density moves more mass today than any other human-generated resource. As the percentages in the vertical axis show, the 159 liters that comprise an average barrel of oil distribute to provide 75 liters of gasoline, 37 liters of diesel, and 16 liters of jet fuel. The remainder goes to produce other fuels like propane, and non-fuel materials like petrochemical feedstocks, and asphalt.

In terms of energy, a single barrel contains 6.1 gigajoules, or the rough equivalent to the energy contained in one ton of dry biomass. Depending on the crop, cultivation, and rainfall, a typical hectare of land (2.5 acres or 10,000 square meters) might produce the equivalent of 10 barrels of oil.

So will biofuels and biomaterials ever represent more than a drop in the barrel? Today, they replace a vanishingly small amount of petroleum products – just 0.16%, by our count. That’s partially because many first-generation products, like bioethanol fuel and starch-based plastics only approximate the performance of the petroleum-based chemicals that they aim to replace – and almost invariably at higher cost.

As the horizontal axis illustrates, if biomaterials and biofuels reach their maximum substitution potential with today’s technology, they could conceivably replace 92 percent of the products derived from a single barrel of oil – or about 4.8 trillion liters of petroleum annually.

In theory, of course, new technologies yet to be developed could produce biologically-based replacements for all petroleum, which is itself derived from biomass. However, realizing this potential will take more than technological innovation. These new materials will also need to compete with petroleum in terms of cost and scale.

Source: Lux Research report “Biofuels’ and Biomaterials’ Path to Petroleum Parity” (client registration required). To learn more about this graphic and related intelligence from Lux Research, click here.

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