The report, promoted by Dublin's Research and Markets publishers as "a comprehensive, holistic and nuanced overview of the global biofuel industry," said governments need to make key policy shifts before biofuels can become a principal substitute for hydrocarbons worldwide and make an impact on climate change.

"Biofuels 2010: Spotting the Next Wave" said the need for a move away from oil was crucial to reducing carbon emissions.

"Oil is a problematic energy source for reasons other than volatile prices and diminishing supplies," said the report.

"In recent years, the consensus in the scientific community is that climate change is real and is driven largely by carbon emissions that stem from human behaviors," it added.

One response to climate change would be to regulate the use of carbon fossil fuels with an externality tax or some other policy measure.

"Taxing fossil fuels would drive up the price of petroleum products, making alternative fuels more economically attractive. Yet, can alternative fuels compete without policy

initiatives?" the report's authors asked.

The report examines the role of biofuels as "a legitimate substitute to displace the primacy of petroleum transportation fuels."

The research focused on the different types of biofuels and the relative feasibility of each and looked into questions such as which of the fuels needed more attention from developers of relevant methods and technologies for exploiting those fuels.

The study looked into the financially sensitive question: Will biofuels ever be price-competitive with fossil fuels without subsidies and if so, when?

The authors checked the outlook for biofuels and went into answering a key question: When, if ever, will biofuels displace significant volumes of liquid petroleum products?

The report is based on a series of fact-finding interviews of scientists, policymakers, academics and more than 40 first-, second-, and third-generation biofuel companies.

Its findings surveyed regional and global market dynamics, the strengths and weaknesses of feedstock choices and the economics of each generation of biofuel.

Although third-generation technologies such as algae lag behind second-generation cellulosic biofuels by several years, algae biofuels are truly revolutionary and will almost certainly become an unsubsidized source of energy around 2016, said the report.

However, it warned, algae could only achieve that position if it met certain production challenges.

For example, the report said, algae yields would need to reach 5,000-10,000 gallons of diesel per acre per year. That compares with corn, which yields 350 gallons per acre per year of ethanol, and soybean oil, which provides 50 gallons per acre per year of biodiesel.

Also, said the study, algae would need to be grown on marginal or desert land using brackish or salt water so that algae production for fuel did not encroach on agricultural land or freshwater.

Algae would also need to use carbon dioxide as a feedstock, resulting in the production of algae biofuels being close to carbon neutral.

In addition, scientists and industries would need to ensure algae culture for biofuel production did not compete with human or animal food sources.

Algae oil can be refined into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. This contrasts with other biofuels that are limited to a specific transportation application. Algae can also be used as nutritional and cosmetic supplements, animal feed and other byproducts.

The study predicts that by 2022, third-generation biofuels will be the largest global biofuel source, accounting for 37 percent or 40 billion gallons of total biofuel production.

"In extrapolating our projections in transportation petroleum demand growth in emerging economies throughout the world, we estimate that in 2022, 834 billion gallons of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel-like products will be consumed globally -- 169 billion gallons more than in 2009." said the study.

Biofuel production is expected to make up 109 billion gallons of this amount, accounting for 9.3 percent of the global gasoline market, 12.4 percent of diesel and 17.8 percent of all jet fuel consumed, said the study.

"In the coming years, we believe the global biofuel industry will develop into a market measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and a major sector in the cleantech space," the study concluded.

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