Expect to use biofuel by 2012: Accenture   |  January 26, 2009  

By Peter Wolchak

Accenture is predicting that, in four short years, a global biofuels supply market will emerge as bioethanol and biodiesel producers become net exporters. That means the fuel for your next car may be grown instead of pumped out of the Earth.

But getting there won’t be easy. The company said that, as with the Internet, there will be a boom and then a bust, with many companies folding before the dominant players emerge. It said the winners will be companies flexible enough to deal with the uncertainties in this evolving market, including the emergence of second-generation technologies, the development of the hybrid automobile market, and what specific actions energy consuming nations such as China, India and Japan take.

Accenture also noted that, while the success of the industry depends almost entirely on the creation or refinement of enabling technologies, innovation can also be a stumbling block. “Our research shows that technology is the biggest uncertainty in the future of the biofuels industry,” said Melissa Stark, a senior executive in Accenture’s Energy industry group. “Technology will continue to improve the economics of biofuels development, but it is still uncertain which technologies will have the most impact and what the ultimate scale of the industry will be.”


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