Parratt & Associates Scoping Biorefineries: Temperate Biomass Value Chains

2.5 Biorefineries, land and water

The impact from the development of biorefineries will be felt mainly through the production of biomass. Land and water will be required to develop cropping or forestry systems of sufficient scale, and within sufficient proximity to a biorefinery, to ensure economic viability.

The Bioenergy Atlas of Australia²³ identifies and maps areas of current and potential production of biomass across the Australian landscape for regions where the annual rainfall exceeds 800mm. This forms the basis for various predictions on the sustainability of biofuels production within Australia. If biofuels were to play a significant role (>20% of our transport needs), sustainability issues would play a far more prominent role. Various authors and stakeholders have suggested that growing energy crops on marginal lands with poor water resources or poor soil quality could have significant benefits to improve sustainability and avoid indirect land use changes away from food crops. However, this reasoning may be flawed on two grounds. Firstly, marginal land quality generally correlates with marginal yields and long transportation distances. Secondly, climate change could further reduce moisture availability in already-marginal regions, again resulting in poor yields.

Indirect land use change is a controversial subject for sustainable biofuels production. Searchinger²⁴ urges the use of full life-cycle analysis incorporating indirect land use changes associated with biofuels production. Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) occurs when market forces drive land conversion from food/feed crops to biofuel crops. This in turn causes land use change in other regions of the world, in order to make up the shortfall²⁵. Under qualifying assumptions, Searchinger estimated the carbon debt and payback for ILUC for ethanol in the US to be 167 years when a mix of grasslands and forests is replaced by corn ethanol. A carbon debt is created from the ‘cost’ of changing from one agricultural system to another. Ethanol from switchgrass (a second-generation feedstock) has been estimated to have a carbon debt of 52 years if it displaces cropland in the US. However, Kim has shown these periods can be reduced dramatically – in some cases to 3 years – by the use of crop residues and ‘no till or no till with crop cover’ agricultural techniques²⁶, both practices are commonly used in Australia.

Existing oil refineries are significant consumers of potable water: estimates vary between 0.5L and 1L per 1L of petrol produced. Estimates for ethanol production suggest between 4–7L of water is consumed per 1L of ethanol²⁷ produced at the biorefinery. This remains a little-considered issue by many of the proponents of ethanol production in Australia, despite Australia’s poor water resources. Locating biorefineries close to wastewater treatment facilities could increase access to water required during the production of bioproducts.

2.6 Biorefineries and the application of Industrial Biotechnology (IB)

The World Economic Forum report on Biorefineries²⁸ identifies four underlying and irreversible trends that it believes will drive the market for biobased products – a market that is expected to grow very strongly over the next 20 years. Factors that will most likely increase demand include the deteriorating economic returns from fossil-based fuels; the growing need for energy and geopolitical security; increasing pressure for environmental sustainability; and rapid changes in the demography and economic aspirations of developing countries.

With significant foresight, and in the context of a dynamic national and international policy framework, the Australian government set out an Industrial Biotechnology Strategy in 2007²⁹, listing a number of potential applications of industrial biotechnology. The strategy listed three major areas to be targeted;

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  chemicals and plastics;
  
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  textiles and leather; and
  
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  industrial (hazardous) waste treatment.
  

Implicit in this strategy, and within the context of the national security of resources, sustainability and economic prosperity, is the clear need to find replacement sources to carbon-based fuels for the production of chemicals and materials as fossil fuel resources either dwindle or become prohibitively expensive.

Industrial biotechnology offers an opportunity to move companies toward sustainability. Energy and waste-intensive processes can be significantly altered to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while improving profitability. The IEA Bioenergy Task 42³⁰ defines a biorefinery as the action of ‘processing of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and energy’. This definition suggests that biorefineries;

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  capture a cluster of facilities, processes, and industries;
  
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  are sustainable;
  
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  contain different processing steps;
  
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  can use any biomass feedstock;
  
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  can produce more than one product;
  
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  can produce both intermediate and final products, i.e. food, animal feed, chemicals and materials; and
  
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  can co-produce energy as fuels, power (electricity via steam), and/or heat.
  

A coordinated biorefinery development provides the opportunity to;

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  redefine and reconnect the role of agricultural, natural resources and sustainable energy production;
  
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  identify commercial drivers and likely areas of impact (such as improved land management practices and environmental services) to realign or commence research;
  
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  develop decision frameworks to address land and water use tradeoffs across human food, animal feed, water yield, fibre, energy and environmental service needs; and
  
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  move Australia and the world ’from fossil biomass to current biomass’.
  

Biomass, in its many forms, is the resource that underpins the bioeconomy, and hence biorefineries.

This study focuses on a small component of an evolving Australian bioeconomy – i.e. exploring potential new value chains for biorefinery products. The scope of the study is mainly restricted to an examination of temperate forest and crop residues as sources of biomass. Though there is a range of future biomass and energy cropping options under development, they are unlikely to add significant biomass to the Australian bioeconomy until 2020 and beyond.

Extensive studies have been undertaken to define the requirements and potential scale of the biomass/bioenergy industries in Australia. In terms of energy or fuels, CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship has researched sustainable biomass production for bioenergy and biofuels in Australia.³¹ The project aimed to provide robust analysis on a complete range of biomass options for bioenergy and biofuels, present an accurate assessment of Australia’s potential resources, and clarify the sustainability implications of using these within various technological pathways. Sustainability Victoria has mapped out the location and potential supply of agriculture and timber resources across Victoria for bioenergy products.³² The Western Australian Department of Agriculture has undertaken a number of studies examining the economics of biomass conversion for selected crops and crop residues for electricity generation.

The Australian Bioenergy Roadmap³³ provides a high-level strategy for building bioenergy industries in Australia. It also provides an overview of the potential economic and GHG benefits, the current scale of production, the existing biomass sources that can be utilised, and potential products derived from bioenergy. While the target technology pathways are currently focused on biofuels and bioenergy, that report also explores the potential for biobased products^34,. In addition, Warden and Haritos 2008³⁵ reported on the development of the second-generation biofuels industry in Australia.

From a bioproducts perspective, the Biobased Products Report³⁶ describes the current state of the biologically-based products industry in Australia and identifies current biobased product research and development. It also outlines opportunities for Australian agriculture within the international biobased product market, and identifies areas where further research is required. Several studies have been conducted attempting to better understand biomass value chains. Some discuss the biomass processing options as a business opportunity for the production of bioenergy and, in addition high value material products (e.g. Crucial Carbon for Sustainability Victoria, 2008³⁷; Warden and Haritos, 2008³⁸). Other studies focus on technologies for capturing the raw biomass material (Rose 2008³⁹).