Der Ethanolmarkt der EU27 und der USA im Jahr 2023

Abstract

This research paper pursues two objectives. Firstly, those factors are identified that have significant impact on the fuel ethanol market of the EU27 and the USA until the year 2023. Secondly, different scenarios are developed which describe various potential states of the named ethanol markets in 2023. The reason for this research project is that the established research institutes share the ex-pectation of a continuous growth of the ethanol market of the EU27 and the USA, although the markets are currently highly unsettled and the ethanol production has dropped in both regions in 2012. This uncertainty among actors of the ethanol market of the EU27 can be traced back to the potential realignment of the political support of biofuels to change the pre-sent ethanol market of the first generation to a market of the second generation. The US-American ethanol market faces uncertainty as well, due to the “blend wall”-problem and a potential reduction of the consumption mandates of the RFS 2. The two named objectives of this study are achieved by using an optimized method of the scenario-technique is divided into three main steps: “scenario-field-analysis”, “scenario-prognosis” and “scenario-construction and -consistency-check”. After the completion of the first step, it becomes evident that while political factors have a particularly strong influence on the ethanol market of the EU27, the future of the US-American ethanol market is determined by the “blend wall”-problem as well as by political factors. In the second and third step of the scenario-technique, the scenarios are developed. The ethanol market of the EU27 in 2023 is described by four different scenarios. On the one hand, the scenarios predict a strong growth of the ethanol market of the first generation and on the other hand a change of the market towards the second generation. As a consequence of this change, the market would shrink and there would not be any more demand for first generation ethanol. Such a development would pose a serious threat to the existing first-generation ethanol industry. The US-American ethanol market in the year 2023 is also portrayed by four scenarios. While a strong growth of the market is predicted as the current consumption mandates of the RFS 2 will remain unchanged, it is also expected that the market will only grow moderately due to the cutback of the mandates. However, in contrast to the ethanol market of the EU27, the existing ethanol industry of the USA will not be exposed to any fundamental risks.