(45d) Integrated Planning of Low-Iluc Biomass Production and Supply Chains for Advanced Biofuels: Towards the EU Biobased Economy

The increased concern over climate change and the gradual depletion of fossil fuel have led to the search for alternative sources of energy that are both renewable and sustainable. Biofuels and bioliquids from biomass have been used in the transport sector (for aviation, road transport, and maritime) as alternatives to fossils to decarbonise the sector. One of the major drawbacks is the increased demand for land use to cultivate biorefinery feedstock such as biomass for advance biofuel production. To avoid competition with land used for food production, the EU have put in place policies that mandate sustainable biomass supply through introduction of low-indirect land use change (low-ILUC). Low-ILUC risk biofuel are produced from feedstock that avoid food and feed crop displacement through (i) yield increases from improved agricultural practices or (ii) cultivation on areas not previously used for crop production, for example, unused, abandoned or severely degraded land. To speed-up market uptake and certification by international sustainability and carbon certification (ISCC), there is a need for a systematic approach that can assess the benefit of both existing and emerging low-ILUC risk feedstock, for example Brassica Carinata, Perennial crops, Castor oil, etc.

This work proposes a novel and systematic approach to plan the production of low-ILUC risk feedstock, with the aim of designing an advanced biofuel supply chain including the most profitable crop management practice whilst aiming to a minimum ILUC. The approach integrates an optimisation model for crop production that incorporates crop rotation and a mixed-integer linear programming model for the entire biofuel value chain, which includes sourcing of low-ILUC biomass feedstock, biofuel production, and distribution of biofuel from plants to market. The inputs to the crop production model use real-world data for a set of crops, crop management options, and available land, which include fertilizer and energy consumption, market price, production cost, crop yield, and water needs. The model aims at optimising the annual land allocated to each crop/crop sequence over the entire planning horizon considering minimising the risk for ILUC. Likewise, the biofuel value chain model consists of inputs required to estimate capital cost, operating cost, transportation cost, and revenue. The overall objective is to maximise farmers’ profit while satisfying biofuel demand in both local and international markets. Farmers’ profit is maximised with the inclusion of carbon credits derived from optimal carbon practices and by maximising land productivity, which corresponds to the minimum ILUC. The economic analysis incorporate cost related to cultivation of biomass, production of biofuel, and distribution of biofuels.

The capability of the proposed systematic approach is demonstrated using an industrial case study with Brassica napus. Outcomes from this study define benchmarks of crop rotation and crop additionality in the European regulatory context of low-ILUC risk status for use in biofuel from 2020 to 2030; inform primarily the bioenergy and biofuels but also other bioproduct sectors (biochemicals/biopolymers, chemical industry); support the sustainable conversion of the chemical industry; provide policy and market stakeholders with new knowledge; and to remove the most prominent barriers against the market uptake of low-ILUC risk biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels.