The OECD Rural Agenda for Climate Action
Compendium of Best Practices: Celtic Renewables
Introduction
The 16,000-people town of Grangemouth is the site of Scotland’s largest container port, and a big oil cluster responsible for around one third of the total carbon emissions from Scottish companies. Located in the midst of this heavy industry, is Celtic Renewables a biotech company. The company creates value out of the biological residues and waste generated by other primary producers. Concretely, the company uses residues from local whisky distilleries such as spent barley seeds (draff) and fermentation bi-product liquid (potale). These are of low value to the industry, but full of carbon. The process developed by the company converts the carbon into Acetone, Butanol and Ethanol (ABE) which can be used as either direct replacements or as derivative products to displace petrochemical equivalents in the manufacture of a wide range of everyday items including pharmaceutical, health and personal-care, cleaning products and bio-fuels. In 2017, Celtic Renewables powered the world’s first ever car fuelled with bio-butanol derived from whisky production residues.
A best practice
Back in 2011 at Edinburgh Napier University Martin Tangney, now CSO and President of Celtic Renewables, was looking for a way to substitute fossil fuels in a resource efficient way. He succeeded in the endeavour re-inventing a one-hundred-year-old bacterial fermentation process, which is now used at Celtic Renewables. One ton of bio-solvent produced equals to three tons of carbon saved. In addition, the processes offers ecologically and economically advantageous value creation for many low-value residues and problematic waste. As the first biorefinery in the country, the Caledon Green Plant run by Celtic Renewables, marks a huge step forward towards growing a sustainable bioeconomy locally and contributing to the transition to net zero. Celtic Renewables’ patented technology is a great example of a sustainable circular- and bioeconomy model and provides a timely and effective carbon reduction solution and resource efficiency for the chemicals industry.
Challenges and opportunities
Celtic Renewables addresses the global challenge of replacing petrochemical products and decarbonising transportation. The company also seeks to eliminate emissions from its own production processes, setting itself high sustainability standards. The current fermentation process, for instance, naturally produces biological hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide gas, which produce GHG. To become truly emission neutral, Celtic Renewables intends to capture and utilise these gases, for example in fuel cells to generate electricity and thereby enhancing both the commercial and environmental sustainability of future plants.
Government support, both from UK and Scottish governments, was important for Celtic Renewables, as they enabled the original research and development as well as further developments towards commercialisation. Still, Celtic Renewables is advocating for more public recognition with regards to opportunities new bio-based ingredients offer to replace fossil-fuel equivalents. According to the company, smarter regulation and government investments are needed to bring new technologies to scale and support the development of the bio-economy in Scotland.
Benefits for rural development
Scotland’s first bio-refinery is situated next to a large petrochemical complex. As net-zero ambitions worldwide increase, fossil fuel activities are likely to be reduced against renewable alternatives. This is an opportunity for Celtic Renewables, who can play their part in transitioning the local economy to a net zero. For instance, the company provides jobs for people who were formerly working in the petrol industry, taking advantage of their already existing related skills. The company currently employs 50 people and has ambitions to grow significantly.
Celtic Renewables’ technology and processes can be replicated to foster bio-based rural development in other places and industries. In particular those that generate large volume of organic waste can benefit from the technology developed and deploy the innovation either in new build plants or in existing industrial plants. Celtic Renewables has identified key industries and sectors which have secondary by-products which are suitable as inputs to the company’s process from the food and agricultural sector. In processes where raw material is being generated by another industry, there is a potential to process that biological material into high value sustainable chemicals, thereby increasing the applicability of the technology and advancing the commercial opportunity. Committed to create a new bioeconomy following a circular model, the idea is to expand to places strategically close to multiple sources of feedstocks to minimise the logistics and associated carbon footprint.
“My personal view on climate change is about all the things we can do rather than all the things we can’t. In using biotechnology to grow a new bioeconomy, we will need to innovate. And innovation means it’s new. So, there will be new skills, new jobs. I don’t know yet what they’re going to be because they will be new. One thing I know for sure, is there will be green jobs, green skills helping us to achieve net zero.”
Prof. Martin Tangney (CSO and President)
Future vision
There are huge amounts of biological wastes, residues and co-products generated across the world from distilled spirits, similar to whisky, for instance in North America, India and South-East Asia. Currently, Celtic Renewables is planning to build 4 to 5 full scale plants in the UK and Ireland before rolling out the technology beyond the borders. Each established bio-refinery will create approximately 60 jobs during construction and 30 to 40 full-time jobs to operate the plant. In the medium term, the company estimates, that there is an opportunity to establish 100+ bio-refineries to meet growing demand for ABE bio-solvents. The global deployment of the technology could therefore contribute to the creation of a new bio-refining industry fostering rural development.
“The global potential for replication of this innovation in partnerships across the world is enormous and not restricted to the whisky industry. Our technology can convert wastes and residues from many other industries, for example feedstocks from the food and drinks sector, and agricultural, paper and cardboard processes. Globally there are billions of tonnes of biological waste from these processes that are either discarded entirely, incurring costs of disposal, or sold for secondary use at low cost. Our technology and processes offer local solutions that drive significant environmental and economic benefits to deliver global impacts.”
Mark Simmers (CEO)
