The Biobased Economy

Biofuels, Materials and Chemicals in the Post-oil Era

Johan Sanders, Hans Langevald, Peter Kuikman, Marieke Meeusen, Gerwin Meijer, Hans Langeveld

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781844077700
• eBook ISBN: 9781136543487
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Energy Industry
• Index: Business

The impending threats of catastrophic climate change and peak oil are driving our society towards increased use of biomass for energy, chemical compounds and other materials - the beginnings of a biobased economy. As alternative development models for the biobased economy emerge, we need to determine potential applications, their perspectives and possible impacts as well as policies that can steer technological and market development in such a way that our objectives are met. Currently, it is still far from clear what will be the most sustainable routes to follow, which technologies should be included, and how their development will affect, and be affected by, research, public opinion and policy and market forces.

This groundbreaking work, edited by a group of leading researchers originally from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands, sets out to unpick the complex systems in play. It provides an illuminating framework for how policy and market players could and should drive the development of a biobased economy that is effective, sustainable, fair and cost efficient. Starting with a state-of-the-art overview of major biobased technologies, including biorefinery and technologies for the production of biofuels, biogas, biomass feedstocks for chemistry and bioplastics, it discusses how different actor groups interact through policy and markets. Information from case studies is used to demonstrate how the potential of the biobased economy in different parts of the world, such as North America, Europe, and emerging economies like China and Brazil can be realised using research, debate, policy and commercial development. The result is an essential resource for all those working in or concerned with biobased industries, their policy or research.

SECTION FOUR

TRANSITION IN ACTION

Introduction to Section IV

J.P.M. Sanders and J.W.A. Langeveld

Introduction

So far, this book has presented materials on biobased innovations, their application, and steering mechanisms. Section I introduced principles of biobased economy, as well as processes related to the introduction, application and implementation of biobased related innovations, plus aspects of sustainability that might be affected as a result. Other chapters in Section I discussed processes determining crop production, and showed how genetic potential, input use and agro-ecological conditions determine crop yield. Yields affect issues of sustainability, in particular nutrient emissions, application of agro-chemicals and are thereby major factors of energy and GHG balances.

Next, in Section II, we introduced the principle of a biorefinery: separation of biomass into different fractions to be applied in such a way as to optimize utilization of their potential – in terms of material use, as well as energetic and economic value. Elaborating from the potentials offered by biorefinery, the section discussed the production of chemical building blocks, of chemicals, transportation fuels and biogas.

Several innovative processing technologies have been defined, and research is done to generate more innovations than might be expected over a period of 10 to 15 years. But effective application of an innovation requires a number of preconditions. The issue of biomass availability has been addressed in Section I, where it is shown that while there is considerable potential to increase current production levels, this does not guarantee efficient and sustainable feedstock generation or biomass conversion that is economically feasible or socially desirable. There is more to it than increasing crop production levels and copying available technologies in existing production chains.

That would be an oversimplification. On the whole, the contrary is true: each biobased innovation does not just thrive on feedstock availability, it provides output markets to feedstock producers that require new production chains. Whether replacing fossil-based products (chemicals, materials, fuels) or defining new products (following the principles of biobased transition), implementation of new innovations at the niche level will always be influenced by, and have implications for, higher scale processes. As such it will provoke reactions from a range of actors – not just those involved in the new production chain.

This principle has been further elaborated in Section III, which demonstrated the way policy making, production chain organization and public debates interact in determining the response of society to new innovations and their application in real life. Leaning mostly on experiences from biofuels, this section offers lessons for innovations involved in a wide range of biobased products. The way we can learn from such experiences, whether successful or not, is demonstrated in the description of the Dutch agrification programme, which allows the drawing of generic lessons that can be translated to conditions in other countries.

Limitations

Doing so, we must be aware of the limitations of this approach. While we focus on generic lessons, trying to look behind aspects which are determined mostly by location and local conditions, or by dynamic and ever-changing developments, it is our objective to identify processes and principles that have a broader meaning, that are in principle applicable in other sectors, in other countries, time-frames, under different conditions (e.g. of economic growth, investment climate and general political, economic and social environments). This is not an easy task, and we are well aware of its limitations. Before we present case studies where the above is demonstrated and tested, we therefore take the time to list some of the shortcomings of this approach.

Although most of these are rather obvious, it will not harm to stress the fact that application of a limited number of innovations in a given sector, no matter how relevant and potentially far-reaching, can never tell the entire story. Processes that affect their success are not solely determined by their technical ingenuity, nor by the potential gains (economic, material, environmental) they represent, or by the state of the economic sector (average profits, level of research and innovative character) they will have to fit in or compete with. Other factors will always play a role, factors which cannot be attributed directly to technological or economic conditions and that, therefore, have not been considered explicitly in the transition framework that we apply in this book.

No matter how many non-technical factors we consider in our analysis, some factors will be attributed to local conditions determined by unpredictable and therefore non-replicable processes. These could relate to elections, or (local) economic disturbances, but also to global processes of fossil oil prices (as determined by political processes in the Middle East, but also sometimes by political or weather conditions in other major oil producing regions such as Russia or the Mexican gulf), to earthquakes or weather-related disasters, to political uncertainty, uprisings, or national developments related to politics, economics, sports and so on. Basically, we try to assess their impact, filtering its relevance so as to maintain our focus on other processes, the ones that can be identified, listed and replicated to a certain degree. But we always need to keep in mind that they are there, and that they may occur again.

This Section

The reader is advised to take note of these considerations while going through the chapters of the next section that discuss implementation of biobased innovative technologies – both existing and future ones – and related changes in different countries. We selected four countries in three continents. Brazil is a well-known example of a successful biobased transition, having already introduced bioethanol to replace fossil fuel imports in the 1970s, and it has maintained a solid policy stimulating both economic and environmental interests for over four decades. Our focus will, however, go beyond the obvious success of the cane sector, currently generating both transportation fuels and electric power. The Brazilian chapter introduces the recent biodiesel programme that aims to combine economic and environmental elements with social issues: offering economic perspectives for poor farmers in drier production areas of the northeast. Among the impacts of this choice that are discussed are the setting of a biodiesel standard and intertwined sustainability issues related to crop production, input use, land-use change and GHG balance sheets.

Germany, the next case study, has a completely different biobased history. Not only did it introduce its biobased legislation almost three decades later than Brazil, it also had a completely different policy background, focused on different production chains and using other instruments. After struggling for decades to increase the input of agricultural feedstocks in industrial production (mainly of chemicals and materials), the German federal government, under pressure of extensive GHG emission reduction objectives dictated by the Kyoto protocol, introduced new and very effective stimulating regulations at the turn of the 21st century. The chapter focuses on the use of renewable resources including woody biomass, waste and arable crops, in the production of chemicals, materials, electricity, biogas and biofuels, discussing issues of feedstock production, policy and chain development.

Germany is known as a very effective producer of biobased fuels, mainly biodiesel, but over the past few years the situation in this sector has shown dramatic changes. Under pressure of reduced fossil fuel prices, combined with cheap imports of foreign biodiesel, perspectives for diesel producers have deteriorated. Perspectives for the application of biobased resources in chemical and material producers are not so gloomy.

In this respect, Germany has similarities with Canada, our next case study. Starting from bioresource energy production to replace expensive fossil fuels in the 1970s, main industrial producers in this country faced economic hardships when oil prices fell dramatically ten years later. Being forced to a reorientation, the two companies found new opportunities in applications such as animal feed and flavourings. The Canada chapter further describes how new driving forces have left their impact on this country with its huge forest and agricultural resources and relatively well-developed biotechnology knowledge base, showing how spiking oil prices and increasing environmental concern coincided to form stimulating conditions by the end of the millennium. It also lists policy measures related to research and market development, as well as new and emerging market initiatives in the field of biofuel, energy, chemical and materials production. The chapter ends with a listing of challenges and opportunities.

In the last chapter of this section, we discuss historic developments, opportunities and threats in the Netherlands. Being close to Germany, having many similarities in economic, scientific, policy and social infrastructure, this country followed a biobased route that in many ways is almost completely opposite to that of its eastern neighbour. Building on its history of agro-food and chemical industrial development, on availability of extensive, and relatively cheap, biomass imports, on its knowledge and transportation infrastructures, and learning from earlier industrial non-food efforts (as described in Chapter 13), the Dutch government tried to combine its strengths with concerted public–private initiatives in setting up new biobased production chains that are supported by favourable economic, as well as environmental performance, records.

Having been a biomass importing nation for hundreds of years, the government realized the potential impact that large-scale imports can have in the areas where biomass is harvested, as well as the relevance of taking action to limit the damage. The Dutch were, therefore, among the first to impose restrictions on biomass imports. Chapter 20 lists both the background of the current biobased policy as well as its features, describing three initiatives in more detail: a second-generation biofuel producer with links to chemical production; PLA polymer production based on biomass; and an initiative aiming to combine current and future fossil, food, feed and biobased production, storage and transport activities in the Rotterdam harbour.

Transition

In the chapters to come, Section IV touches upon a range of issues that were introduced earlier in the book. Transition processes, or the way innovative biobased technologies can be developed and implemented, and the way this leads to adjustments and provokes reactions at higher scale levels, both within and outside of the biobased production chains. Sustainability issues, or the interaction of crop production with its environment, as well as issues of biomass availability or how much can be produced where, by whom and at what (ecological, economic, environmental and social) cost. It also shows how new technological niches can be used in policies striving for a range of completely different objectives, be it security of supply, reducing fossil imports or ties with less favoured states, striving for local rural development – in industrialized or in developing countries – to realize national, social or economic agendas, sustainability and so on. The examples presented below show how all these processes can be intertwined, and how actions and reactions (by policy makers, producers, feedstock traders or processors, by old and new industries, lobbyists or NGOs) are linked in a process finally determining the success, or failure, of innovation implementations in a given sector of a certain country at a specific moment in time. In this way it will demonstrate both the complexity of such implementations, as well as the unpredictability of the many processes involved.

Chapter 17

Biodiesel from Brazil¹

H. W. Elbersen, P. S. Bindraban, R. Blaauw and R.Jongman

Introduction

Brazil is a huge country, covering 846 million hectares (ha). Of this area, 57 million ha (7 per cent) is arable land, 197 million ha (23 per cent) is grassland and 8 million ha (1 per cent) is classified as other agricultural land, mainly perennial crops (2005 data). The remainder of the country, 468 million ha (57 per cent), is natural area, mainly forests. Over the past decades Brazil has made use of its agricultural potential to become one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities. It has become the largest exporter of sugar, ethanol, beef, poultry meat, coffee, orange juice and tobacco, and the second largest exporter of soybeans in the world.

The large agricultural potential of Brazil is also the basis for its very successful sugar cane ethanol programme. The ethanol programme (Proalcool) was established in 1973 to stimulate the creation of a bioethanol industry as a response to the increasing cost of oil imports. The programme has had its ups and downs and has had to deal with many technical issues and a lack of market demand when oil prices were low. In Brazil, ethanol is now added to gasoline at a rate of 21 to 26 per cent. Ethanol (hydrous) is als...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures, Tables and Boxes
• List of Contributors
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Section One – Towards Sustainability
• Section Two – Biomass Refining and Conversion
• Section Three – Actor Involvement
• Section Four – Transition in Action
• Index