sustainability Article Economic Evaluation of Large-Scale Biorefinery Deployment: A Framework Integrating Dynamic Biomass Market and Techno-Economic Models Jonas Zetterholm 1,* , Elina Bryngemark 2 , Johan Ahlström 3 , Patrik Söderholm 2 , Simon Harvey 3 and Elisabeth Wetterlund 1,4 1 Department of Energy Engineering, Division of Energy Science, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden;
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[email protected] (P.S.) 3 Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Division of Energy Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden;
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[email protected] (S.H.) 4 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 13 July 2020; Accepted: 28 August 2020; Published: 1 September 2020 Abstract: Biofuels and biochemicals play significant roles in the transition towards a fossil-free society. However, large-scale biorefineries are not yet cost-competitive with their fossil-fuel counterparts, and it is important to identify biorefinery concepts with high economic performance. For evaluating early-stage biorefinery concepts, one needs to consider not only the technical performance and process costs but also the economic performance of the full supply chain and the impacts on feedstock and product markets. This article presents and demonstrates a conceptual interdisciplinary framework that can constitute the basis for evaluations of the full supply-chain performance of biorefinery concepts. This framework considers the competition for biomass across sectors, assumes exogenous end-use product demand, and incorporates various geographical and technical constraints.