CanBio Report Clustered together for mutual success Bioproduct clusters can bring value to hubs across Canada. By Christopher Rees ecent bio-related events in Europe have focused on bioproduct clusters and distributed biorefineries. The goal of clusters is to develop the highest degree of value-added bioproducts in geo-graphic areas outside of the largest urban centres and close to domestic sources of biomass. Undoubtedly, the ports will be the likely setting for the largest biorefin-eries involved in significant international r tomoRRow’s bioReFineRies in euRoPe “We seek to expand the Sarnia model to other areas of Canada.” trade flows – much like the oil refineries model. But Europe envisages a host of smaller biorefineries, capable of primary biomass refining and conversion up to in-termediate products, along the full-value chain of materials, chemicals and energy. Such integrated biorefineries may have a biofuel platform or go directly from bio-mass to chemicals and act as suppliers to the larger biorefineries. Europe has already laid the groundwork for this approach by fostering regional “clus-ters,” several of which are focussed on bio-products and related clean-tech. Two prom-inent examples include the Saxony region in Germany and the Champagne-Ardenne region of France. The cluster concept and distributed biorefineries go hand-in-hand, with the cluster providing the overall sup-portive hard and soft infrastructure from which biorefineries can emerge. This concept was outlined and discussed at the Tomorrow’s Biorefineries in Europe conference, held in Brussels in February. It was noted that the fledgling biorefinery in-dustry in Europe relies primarily on starch and sugar-based feedstocks but that the future lies in alternative non-food feed-stocks (cellulosic). This was the thinking that led the Euro-pean Commission to begin three major biorefinery research projects in 2010 whose results were re-ported in Brussels. The three projects, Eurobioref, Biocore and Suprabio, mobi-lized over $100 million in funding and included over 70 partners from academia, research and industry, spread over 15 countries. The funding platform which led to these projects has now been followed by the Horizons 2020 program representing a funding commitment of $118 billion. More detailed work on moving towards the commercialization of the technologies, processes and models developed under the three research projects will continue. canadian aPPlications The application of distributed biorefiner-ies to the Canadian context was discussed by a CanBio Western Members Roundta-ble held in Vancouver in March. Partici-pants were optimistic about the potential for such biorefineries in both B.C. and Alberta over the next 10 years. Feedback from CanBio representatives attending the World Biofuels conference held in Amster-dam in early March and the IEA Task 32 Torrefaction Workshop in Austria in Janu-ary provided complementary information for further Canadian cluster development. CanBio and Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC), which now seek to expand the Sarnia model to other areas of Cana-da, are on the same wavelength in sup-porting bioproduct cluster development from which distributed biorefineries can emerge. Bioproduct clusters and distributed biorefineries will be one of the central topics at the CanBio Annual Confer-ence to be held in Thunder Bay during “Bioeconomy Week” from September 8 to 12. In fact, Thunder Bay provides a great example of the potential for a cluster and distributed biorefinery. The OPG power generation plant has excess heat and space for co-location of new bio-industry ventures. While Thunder Bay does not have the chemical-industry base of Sarnia, it does have a wealth of biomass resources and advanced forest product companies. In addition, it has growing bioeconomy research and devel-opment expertise at Lakehead University and Confederation College, as well as at CRIBE. Attendees at the CanBio Confer-ence will have a chance to see the facili-ties and explore the prospects first-hand. This is an opportunity not to be missed. Registration for the event is now open (see www.canbio.ca). • Christopher Rees is the Advisor to the Chair at CanBio and a Managing Partner at Suthey Holler Associates. Canadian BIOMASS 11
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