ABSTRACT
The production of biobased products starts with biomass. In the case of bulky products a lot of biomass is required. The question is how businesses can buy this biomass and turn it into biobased products. There is already a market for biomass, which is traded internationally for food and animal feed. This trade involves producers of biomass, international traders and processors, and ultimately retail and consumers. What form will that chain take for the biomass for biobased products? Which players are involved and what forms of chain organizations are involved? What considerations play a role in the choice of organization? And how will the new chains be formed? This chapter will review the developments in the biofuel market. It will
provide insight into the biomass for the bioenergy market, the volume of the various biomass flows, the market players involved and the partnerships between those market players. This chapter will also analyse these partnerships and provide insight into the partnerships expected in the future. This chapter has a focus on the biofuel market because in this market many developments have occurred in the past and therefore it is a suitable case. The production of biofuel has drawn much public attention. Many gov-
ernments have formulated ambitious objectives relating to sustainable energy, whereby bioenergy is a major component. The EU is targeting a 10 per cent blend requirement in 2010 and the USA is striving towards 15 per cent biofuels in 2017. Countries such as Brazil have already been active in this policy field for some time. The target figures go up to 20-30 per cent of the fuel needs. We will start with a brief overview of the market, after which we will discuss the players, their role and partnerships with others in the biofuel chains, followed by an explanation of what can be observed. The chapter is based on Meeusen et al (2009), in which four cases have been described: (1) US bioethanol from maize; (2) Brazilian bioethanol from sugar cane; (3) German biodiesel from rapeseed; and (4) biodiesel from palm oil produced in Malaysia and Indonesia. Together, these chains cover
a large part of the market. Finally, in the chapter ‘discussion’ we will discuss the relevance of the biofuel case for the biobased economy.
