Page 57 - Biorefinery 2030 Future Prospects for the Bioeconomy (2015)

An Original Business Model: The Integrated 2
Biorefinery

Summary
The biorefinery, considered as a single industrial entity, becomes economi-
cally attractive when different factories making up an industrial ecosystem
are present on the same site, where the firms supply each other with interme-
diate products and/or energy and water. The economies of scale resulting
from the close proximity of the different players become key competitiveness
factors. The biorefinery can thus optimise its procurement and production
depending on markets both upstream and downstream of its activity. This
economic optimisation must be accompanied, or at least is generally
accompanied by environmental optimisation, including the minimisation of
waste and of energy consumption and other inputs.
The Bazancourt-Pomacle Biorefinery is one of the largest in Europe. It brings
together on the same site a sugar factory and dehydration plant; a joint
research centre; a starch and glucose plant; an ethanol producing plant; an
industrial demonstrator; a CO 2 collection centre; a production and research
centre for active cosmetics ingredients; the pilot plant for the FUTUROL
second generation fuel project; and a White Biotechnologies Centre of
Excellence, a partnership between three academic institutions.
Whilst it is often suggested that the common good, good sense and a spirit of
cooperation were the key factors in the development of the site and its
uniqueness, in this chapter we study other significant factors. These factors
are linked to the business environment in which the cooperatives operated.
They are both exogenous, such as the evolution of the CAP and WTO
regulations, but also endogenous, such as increasing financial needs and
strategic and industrial trial and error on the part of the players involved.
We show, for example, that the current situation of the Bazancourt-Pomacle

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# Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 25
P.-A. Schieb et al., Biorefinery 2030, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-47374-0_2