The Integrated Biorefinery: the (re) rise of BioPower

Biofuels Digest
Jim Lane June 15, 2011 4

New technologies and diversified feedstocks are turning biomass power generation from ugly stepchild to star
Back in the day, most projects that refined biomass were single feedstock, single product stream monsters. US plants, for example, generally produced ethanol and feed grains from corn, or biodiesel and glycerine from soybeans. When feedstock prices were low, and fuel prices high, all was well – plants were constructed like weeds.

The collapse of the global biodiesel market, and bankruptcies in the US ethanol industry, had as much to do with the facilities as rising feedstock and falling fuel prices. Diversification is the accepted strategy for coping with changing conditions, but the industry was generally locked in by its own technology.

Much has changed. Today, the industry routinely utilizes dozens of feedstocks – fats, oils, greases, corn stover and cobs, bagasse, switchgrass and miscanthus, jatropha, camelina, and energy canes – in addition to traditional crops like sugarcane, corn, soybeans, rapeseed and cassava.

Read more