A transition from the current economy which is based on fossil resources, to a biobased economy will have profound impacts on existing production chains. Industries and their workers will have to adapt to these changes, or disappear together with the old economy. At the same time new opportunities are already taking shape. The most evident change is that the production chains are becoming circular, ideally all waste streams will be used as sources in other industries.
Biobased research and production clusters are being set up, for example in the east of The Netherlands and in the biobased delta. The main advantages of these clusters are that infrastructure and knowledge can be shared, which can be crucial for start-up companies. At the same time, the waste stream of one company can be used by its neighbor to produce other products.
With a growing demand for biomass, there is a rising competition for the claims on natural resources. One of the suggested solutions for this might be to divide the chains for food and products or fuel, with different crops for food and non-food. In this way rising prices for biobased products do not immediately lead to an increase of the prices of food. However, this does not solve the problem of the limited natural resources such as land, water and nutrients. A complete separation between the chains might also weaken the needed flexibility of the production chains.
The following figure shows an example of how several chains can be integrated.
Source: Cherubini, Francesco, et al. "Toward a common classification approach for biorefinery systems." Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining 3.5 (2009): 534-546.
To transition to a biobased economy will include implications in transportation of raw materials, agriculture and global trade. Since Europe does not have enough arable land to produce sufficient biomaterial for the domestic production of energy carriers, materials and platform chemicals, biomass will have to be imported.
Not all carbon dioxide release is the same: there is a difference between carbon dioxide in the CO2 cycle and carbon that is added to the cycle. Plants use CO2 to make sugars and need it to grow. When the biomass of plants decomposes, the carbon is released again into the atmosphere until it is taken up by other plants. In this cycle, there is no net accumulation of carbon dioxide. However, one of the biggest problems with fossil fuels is that it brings greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which have not been in the carbon cycle for millions of years.
Cascading is the process of taking the most valuable components from biomass first, until all valuable components are used. The valuable components can schematically be pictured in the value pyramid, with the high value, low volume on top, going down to the lowest value with the highest volume.
(Chances for biomass Integrated valorisation of biomass resources. Cat-Agrofood, Wageningen UR, 2012)
The leftovers can then be burned to produce heat or electricity. Even though it is wasteful to use the biomass before these valuable components are taken out, this still often happens today.
The materials are ideally used in already existing production chains.
The term full valorization (vierkantsverwaarding) is especially used in the pork meat industry, where all parts of the animal are valorized to make the business profitable. This method can also be applied in different sectors.
There are a lot opportunities for rural laborers in a BBE. One of the ways would be by organizing a more decentralized production of biomaterials. This can be done by setting-up bio-refinery plants in close proximity of farms. The refineries can lead to a more efficient use with a higher yield.
The opportunities for small scale farmers in developing countries could increase due to a amelioration of different levels of organization, for example trough setting up co-operations.
Obviously, a lot of jobs in fossil based industries will also be lost, from offshore drilling projects, to refinement and production plants. Some jobs will have a biobased equivalent: while fossil oil refineries will be closing, bio refineries will be needed, to obtain high value chemicals and to produce biofuels with an high energy density trough pyrolysis. New jobs will also emerge, such as “roofdoctors”.
Farmers in the EU are afraid of foreign competition, at the same time NGO’s are concerned about the rights and dispositions of foreign farmers, especially in 3rd world countries.
Investments in the biobased economy are still seen as relatively high risk, for several reasons:
biobased chains require new connections between the agribusiness (plant breeding and processing) and the chemical industry. At this moment, the petrochemical industry does not prioritize the transition to biobased raw materials because of the low oil price, and they see other concerns such as the lowering of production costs, and making the production more efficient and eco-friendly. The different stakeholders in the chains often find it difficult to connect, and understand each other’s needs and production processes.
Farmers and rural communities have often been described to benefit from a BBE.
A BBE could be beneficial for the European economy. A large proportion of the current EU budget goes to subsidies for farmers, around 29 billion € a year. The idea that industrial biotech could make agriculture more profitable and less dependent on subsidies is therefore important to relieve the overall EU budget worries.
However, a transition towards a biobased economy will not necessarily be positive for everyone. The crop processors will for example need large amounts of reliable and cheap supplies of feedstock, which could go against the interests of farmers. There are already tensions between farmers and the agribusiness, farmers in the European Union have become worried by the idea of foreign competition and lobbied therefore actively against cheap biomass import. This lobby was mostly concentrated against the import of Latin-American biomass. The European farmers want a minimum price on crops and fight against the pressure on them in commercial negotiations.
“This tension was exposed during the recent reform of the EU’s sugar regime. Refunds were already granted to the European chemical industry for its purchases of protected European sugar, since this put it at a disadvantage compared with international competitors who could access the commodity at world prices. Seeing an opportunity to extend this system, EuropaBio lobbied the EU to adopt a two-tier price system whereby sugar for all nonfood would be priced at world market levels and, to improve security of supply, would come through duty-free imports if necessary- a market, albeit a lower priced one, that EU farmers wanted to keep for themselves” (source: Richardson 2012 p288, EuropaBio, 2005)
The growing power of agribusiness
There are two ways in which people have learned two control biological processes into their advantage. The first one is “appropriationism”, in which the growth of crops is controlled by controlling the environmental growth conditions: irrigation instead of rainfall, artificial fertilizer instead of manure and commercial plant varieties instead of indigenous plants.
The second way is “substitutionism”, in which chemical components of plants are produced in factories instead of the traditional field. An example of this is the liquid sweetener corn syrup (HFCS), made from the conversion of starch (from corn) to a glucose-fructose syrup (isoglucose). This process made it possible to not only transfer the production physically from a tropical to a temperate environment but also from an agricultural to an industrial sphere. Sugar cane farmers in developing countries suffered since their export was diminished. This example comes from the U.S., The production of HFCS in the European Union is subjected to a production quota of 5% of the sugar production. This quota protects the more traditional sugar beet farmers, similar in the way of a lot of other agricultural products quota in the EU.
The combined subsitutionism and appropriationism of the modern food industry has given it a lot of power over both the production and the obtaining of the source materials. At the same time the historic connection between food and crop had been separated. The farmers, especially the ones operating on the lower scale, turned out to be on the losing end of the deal. Their autonomy was very much shrunk because of a monopoly of both buyers and suppliers. Because of the falling amount of sugar production in the UK, British Sugar now grows a large portion of sugar beets for the production of biofuels itself instead of buying from farmers. The managing director of British Sugar, Gino De Jaegher has said in 2010: “I know growers hate us doing it but if they were in my shoes, they would do the same. And if I were in their shoes I would hate it with venom – but at the same time I would understand why British Sugar is doing it.”
The growth and monopolization and industrialization (for example with robots) of large farms may also lead to a shrink of rural communities. Jobs of small farmers can also be lost when their product is replaced.
According to the ecological modernization theory, that nature (or the world in general) can and should function in a way to support the human economy. According to this theory, clear human problems can also effectively and permanently be solved with technological solutions. One of the problems which is often overlooked in this theory is that the qualitative role, or the “use value” of living biomass, is overlooked in favour of its quantative or exchange value, the money that is earned by selling the goods.The waste from crops for example also plays a role in renewing soil and forests can hold moisture and stabilize mountain slopes which can help to make certain places more fit for human habitation. When grassland or rainforest is transformed into farmland for biofuels, CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are released from the soil, annulling the greenhouse gas reduction that was to be made with the biofuels.
Sustainable biobased production is stimulated and made more competitive by several financial initiatives, but a shift towards a BBE will also involve a change in the behavior of consumers. The choices of individuals have a lot of influence on the direction and speed of the development of a BBE: through consumer choices (what, how and where people buy things), political choices (what they vote) and the level of acceptance of new technologies.
The choices are made in a combination of self-interest and interest for the public good. In times of perceived crises, people tend to behave in a more self-interested manner.