The Agrana Starch Biorefinery Coproducing Highly Sustainable Crop Based Bioethanol, Food, Feed And Chemicals For The Bioeconomy

In Pischelsdorf/Austria a starch biorefinery is in operation to coproduce food, feed, bioethanol and chemicals from an annual wheat input of about 340,000 t. The products are starch, bran, gluten, 3 types of animal feed, bioethanol and liquid biogenic CO2. The purpose of the work was to analyze and assess the life cycle based sustainability of this starch biorefinery in comparison to two reference systems covering technical, economic, environmental indicators. Additionally for the bioethanol the GHG calculation according to the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is applied. Based on the technical and economic characteristics of the single processes the mass, energy and cost balance of the whole value of the starch biorefinery starting with the agricultural land to cultivate wheat to the supply of the product services were calculated. Based on these technical and economic characteristics the method of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) was applied to quantify the most relevant sustainability indicators. In parallel two realistic reference systems were identified that provide the same product services, e.g. gasoline instead of bioethanol. Within LCSA the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to calculate the environmental indicators e.g. GHG emissions, primary energy consumption, the Life Cycle Cost Analyses (LCC) was applied for the economic indicators e.g. cost, revenues. All main data and resulting sustainability indicators of the starch biorefmery and its two reference systems are documented in our unique format of the "Biorefmery FACT SHEET", which enables a fact based interaction with different stakeholders and which is also used in the IEA Task 42 "Biorefming". The FACT Sheet consists of two parts: 1) The Biorefmery Plant and 2) The Value Chain Assessment. The scientific innovation is to integrate and combine the different methodologies for an overall scientific sustainability assessment on an existing starch biorefmery and its real reference systems in a unique cooperation between industry and research. The developed tools and formats for stakeholder interactions are a relevant basis to roll out the bioeconomy with the most sustainable options of using biomass. The case study of an already existing biorefinery will pave the way towards a broad rolling out the bioeconomy successfully by integrating a highly efficient use of sustainable biomass. The results of the assessment show that the value chain of the existing starch biorefinery is highly sustainable, due to the evidence of a very high resource efficiency in using the sustainable biomass a significant GHG emissions and fossil primary saving is reached by creating additional economic value while securing and creating jobs in agriculture and industry. The GHG saving according to the RED methodology is up to 98%, which indicates that the produced bioethanol is highly sustainable. The compact format of the "Biorefmery FACT SHEET" is a valuable tool to communicate and discuss these results with stakeholders from industry, agriculture, research, government, NGO and an interested broader public.