Page 120 - Biorefinery 2030 Future Prospects for the Bioeconomy (2015)

88 4 Prospects for the Bazancourt-Pomacle Biorefinery Between Now and 2030

develop commercially a proprietary technology to produce bio-based succinic acid.
Succinic acid was produced on the BIODEMO site until a dedicated factory came
into service. Today, BIOAMBER is building its first factory at the SARNIA
platform in Ontario, Canada, instead of building it in Europe, causing great excite-
ment among Europeans (from local players to the members of the European
Commission in Brussels). It will be the world’s biggest bio-based succinic acid
production facility, and 90 % of its production will be exported. This is not the place
to go back over the causes of the choice of location, which would be a worthy topic
of a separate study, but the experts seem to agree that funding conditions for the
initial investment and operating costs were undoubtedly more favourable in Canada
than in Europe. Whatever the regrets and the lessons to be learnt from this experi-
ence, from the perspective of BIODEMO, it is a great success.
Here too, 2014 is a turning point. At the very moment when BIOAMBER might
be bringing production to an end at Bazancourt-Pomacle, Global Bioe ´nergies, an
innovated listed French firm, “one of the few companies in the world, and the only
one in Europe to develop a process to transform renewable resources into
hydrocarbons by the fermentation of biomass, announced the success of laboratory
trials on its isobutene process and the launch of the subsequent industrial pilot
7
scheme” ... at ARD, Bazancourt-Pomacle. 8
Thus, BIODEMO’s reputation continues to grow as an open platform, particu-
larly in the sugars sector, in which the Bazancourt-Pomacle biorefinery specialises.
It could be joined by other industrial pilot scheme equipment.

2.3 The FUTUROL Industrial Pilot Scheme

The industrial pilot scheme FUTUROL, led by the firm PROCETHOL 2G, aims to
optimise a second-generation bioethanol production process, based on lingo-
cellulose, in other words forestry based bio-resources: poplar and willow, or
non-food plants suitable for crop rotation processes, such as miscanthus or switch-
grass. The FUTUROL project was launched in 2008 and its industrial pilot scheme
was inaugurated in October 2011, in favourable conditions since it is supported by
11 recognised, complementary partners (ARD, IFPEN, INRA, LESAFFRE for
R&D, the industrials ONF, TEREOS, TOTAL, and VIVESCIA and the financial
investors CREDIT AGRICOLE DU NORD-EST, CGB and UNIGRAINS). Invest-
ment on this project totals 74.6 million euros.
The challenges that need to be taken up if a second-generation biofuel is to be
produced are mainly technological. First, methods need to be developed to split the
components into cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin, and then to transform the
cellulose and hemi-cellulose into fermentable sugars using a blend of enzymes.
Finally, a yeast needs to be found capable of carrying out the fermentation process
efficiently.

7
Global Bioenergies, press release, 4 June 2013.
8
A second industrial pilot unit will be installed at the Leuna platform in Germany.