## 4.1 Logistics

The purpose of logistics in a biobased economy is to provide the right amount of biomass of the right quality at the right time to the right place. To meet the requirements of the industrial biobased products market (biofuels, bioenergy, biochemical and biomaterials) by delivering a steady, reliable, and year-round supply of biomass (of the right quality), is a huge challenge. The relatively high moisture content and the low bulk density of biomass coupled with a seasonal supply, in small quantities, spread over a large number of locations, makes it even more complex to meet all these requirements. Logistical planning is necessary for overcoming challenges of storage, handling, and transportation. Logistical activities can add significant costs to the sourcing of biomass and must therefore be done as cheaply as possible to limit overall costs of producing industrial biobased products. Because of its low bulk density biomass must often be densified to reduce transportation costs. Also other pre-processing activities may be necessary to transform biomass into more suitable forms for specific conversion technologies.

Reduced to its basic components, the industrial biobased products value chain begins with harvesting or collecting a feedstock, which is then transported and brought together at a central location for processing into one or more biobased products. This processing may involve both pre-processing and one or more stages of primary processing and secondary processing, resulting in one or more biobased products, including energy / fuel, materials and chemicals:

An expanded biobased products value chain generally consists of the following parts: cultivation, harvesting, pre-processing, storage, processing and biorefining, market distribution, product utilization and recycling, and local and long-distance transport between these different links in the chain. A schematic representation of these activities is as follows:

| Each link has its own characteristics that affect the logistics activities throughout the supply chain. In the following, the main characteristics that have direct implications for logistics are mentioned shortly.

Cultivation and harvesting
Cultivated biomass has to be transported to a more centralized location, because the supply of this primary biomass is coming from several regionally dispersed areas. Due to the fact that cultivated biomass can be harvested only in certain periods of the year, a buffering in storage facilities is often necessary.

Pre-processing and storage
Advantages of pre-processing of biomass can be a higher material density, favourable dosing and flow properties, low moisture level, better stability during storage, less dust during handling and standardization of quality. Examples of pre-processing that have a qualitative and logistical cost advantage to the supply chain include dryingor compressing of biomass. Transport of dry biomass e.g. is much cheaper and a higher bulk density due to chipping the biomass also leads to lower handling and transport costs.
Storage of biomass is important for buffering due to a seasonal supply and a continuous demand. Central or decentral storage depends on the characteristics of the biomass and the requirements of the user of biomass.

Transport
Transport of biomass can be distinguished in local and long-distance transport. For long-distance transport normally pre-processing activities have to be done at the initial supply locations. Multimodal logistical networks make use of a combination of transport modes (e.g. first by truck, then by ship) to deliver the biomass at the right place.

Processing and biorefinery
The optimal use of biomass for biobased products has led to complex networks of supply chains instead of pure biomass chains. Residues for instance can be used at several places in the chain. This has implications for the logistics of the flow of biomass.
Central or decentral processing of biomass is also an important question that has to be solved. The answer depends not only on the characteristics of the biomass, but also on the market requirements of the resulting biobased products.

Market distribution
The location of the market of our biobased products determines the place where we produce, from where we get the biomass and what kind of transport we have to use.

Product utilization and recycling
Recycling can take place at all links in the chain. Logistics plays an important role in the coordination of all these different flows in the supply chain.

Summarised we can say that the design of an effective and efficient biomass supply chain results in a large amount of logistics questions. Important questions are for example:

- What kind of biomass has to be used and from what sources?
- Where must pre-processing activities take place?
- What kind/type of pre-processing is most suitable?
- Where do we have to store the biomass or the pre-processed biomass?
- What kind of storage is most suitable?
- How much storage capacity is needed?
- Where can we dry the biomass?
- Which combination of transport modes is the most optimal one?
- Where do we locate the conversion/processing plant? Central or decentral?
- What is the most optimal scale of the processing plant?
- What are the costs of all the components of the logistical chain?
- Which streams can be recycled?

Answering these questions starts with a detailed analysis of the biomass chain. For example, a question could be whether to process organic waste centrally or to process it decentrally close to the source. Clearly, such a question requires an analysis that includes transport and processing, and possibly also pre-processing and recycling. On the one hand, central processing could be efficient in terms of having a good mix of material quality and quantity over time, but could lead to a lot of transport. On the other hand, decentral processing could reduce the transport requirement significantly, but could also cause economic and/or environmental processing inefficiencies due to loss of economies of scale and fluctuations in material quality and quantity.

This illustrates that an integrated supply chain perspective is often essential, and simulation and optimisation techniques can be used to support the required supply chain analyses and provide quantitative input to decision makers

In the opinion of the scientific and technological commission for the biobased economy, a transition to a biobased economy will result in a redesign of cultivation, harvesting, and production of biomass (WTC, 2011). This means that the redesign of the agricultural chains will:

- change the forms of cooperation;
- lead to new business models;
- lead to cooperatives or even vertical integration;
- lead to a redistribution of added value; and
- lead to geographical shifts.

Source: WTC (2011), Naar groene chemie en groene materialen; Hoofdstuk 5. Beschikbaarheid en logistiek van biomassa, Rapport Wetenschappelijke en Technologische Commissie voor de Biobased Economy, pp. 79-89.

(Author of chapter 4.1: Renzo Akkerman, Wageningen University)