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82 4 Prospects for the Bazancourt-Pomacle Biorefinery Between Now and 2030

in terms of strategic monitoring, investment decisions, the development of
knowledge and skills, support for start-up firms, financial engineering, and
reputation building.
More traditionally, local actors and the authors of this book have identified
very concrete avenues upstream and downstream of the biorefinery. Upstream
of the biorefinery, the possibility of setting up an experimental farm nearby
(on land made available by the closing of an air force base, BA 112), would
provide the opportunity to develop improved crop varieties required both by
the biorefinery and local farmers. The farm would also contribute to attract a
new group of industrial firms, equipment makers, engineering and services
firms in addition to those of the IEB. Downstream, a new 60 ha industrial
estate (Sohettes Val des Bois) close to the biorefinery will enable
cooperatives and industrial firms already involved with the biorefinery, as
well as new firms to join the existing biorefinery and benefit from a number of
synergies and by-products.
Finally, Chap. 4 discusses certain conditions of future success, and in partic-
ular that of retaining or renewing some of the merits of the cooperative model
(mutuality, reactivity, patience, risk-taking.)

Abstract In the specific case of Bazancourt-Pomacle, the prospects until 2030 are
promising following three local but world-scale events that took place during the
first half of 2014. These events confirm the first fruits of a genuine knowledge
economy. In this chapter, other orthodox future prospects are identified by the
authors of the study. They include some very concrete possibilities both upstream
and downstream of the biorefinery.

The preceding chapters have shown the Bazancourt-Pomacle biorefinery to be the
result of a process of accumulation and a series of progressive transformations from
its original form.
It has accumulated new activities and actors since the original distillery, which
became a sugar factory and was then joined by a starch processing plant, an alcohol
and biofuel refinery, a research centre, demonstration sites and industrial pilot
schemes.
The transformations have included the integration of industries based on
mechanical, physical and thermal processing of raw materials, and the progressive
incorporation of Life Sciences and complex technological processing of biomass.
Until 2012, the Bazancourt-Pomacle biorefinery could be described as the
superposition of different layers of activity such as that described in Chap. 2,
whose principles are: