A framework for quantitatively assessing the repurpose potential of existing industrial facilities as a biorefinery

Abstract

Constructing a commercial biorefinery involves significant financial and technical risks that may affect investor willingness to commit funds. Repurposing existing industrial facilities has been proposed as a means to lessen the investment risk in constructing a new biorefinery through reduced financial requirements and startup costs. This research provides a decision‐making tool for estimating the repurpose potential of existing industrial facilities considered for conversion to a biorefinery. It applies well‐established techniques for capital cost estimation of Greenfield biorefinery and pulp mill infrastructure and assets to determine their repurpose potential as a biorefinery. It demonstrates how capital cost reduction is highly dependent on the process technology present in the subject facility. A factored approach is employed to assign valuation to the major capital cost components of a Greenfield biorefinery. Existing facilities are then assessed for their compatibility through an infrastructure and asset analysis to determine an estimated capital percent savings that may be realized through repurposing into a biorefinery. Private and public databases and general facility process designs are used to determine the presence of equipment in each facility assessed. A yes/no analysis is performed to assign full cost to facility infrastructure and assets not present in the biorefinery and no cost to those that are present. This methodology provides an economic valuation tool for facility assessments as a metric for facility comparisons, and may be used to assist in decision‐making regarding the suitability of a facility for repurposing. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Techno-economic analysis for manufacturing cross-laminated timber

“…Outside battery limit equipment and indirect capital costs were estimated using ratio factors (Peters et al 2003). Ratio factors were used extensively for estimating capital costs in the literature (Zhang 2013; de Jong et al 2015;Martinkus and Wolcott 2017;Brandt et al 2018). This method of estimating capital costs had an accuracy of ± 20 to 30% (Peters et al 2003).…”

A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Approach to Facility Siting in a Wood-Based Depot-and-Biorefinery Supply Chain Model

“…Finally, the repurpose potential of existing facilities may be difficult to estimate. Information used to determine the presence or absence of equipment and assets at each facility may be located in national/state sources or datasets and from aerial imagery (Martinkus and Wolcott, 2017).…”

“…This criterion is quantified as the estimated percent reduction in capital construction costs from a greenfield biorefinery through repurposing an existing facility. Percent reductions are determined using a method presented by Martinkus and Wolcott (2017), where a factored analysis is used to estimate cost savings through similarities in infrastructure and assets to a greenfield biorefinery. The total delivered equipment cost for all major processing components in a greenfield biorefinery are required, and all other ancillary assets and infrastructure are estimated as percentages of the total delivered equipment cost.…”

“…To mitigate supply risk in regions of low biomass availability, depots have been found useful for procuring and preprocessing feedstock (Hansen et al, 2015;Lamers et al, 2015a,b). Capital construction cost savings may be found through repurposing existing facilities into a biorefinery when the infrastructure and equipment are compatible with the biorefinery design (Martinkus and Wolcott, 2017). Additionally, operational cost savings may be gained through the selective siting of depots and biorefineries based on location-specific costs such as energy rates and delivered feedstock cost (Martinkus et al, 2017b).…”

A framework for quantitatively assessing the repurpose potential of existing industrial facilities as a biorefinery

“…In the article “A framework for quantitatively assessing the repurpose potential of existing industrial facilities as a biorefinery” (DOI: 10.1002/bbb.1742) , published in Wiley Online Library on 27 January 2017 and in Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining 11: 295–306 , the Acknowledgement statement below was not included during the publication of the paper.…”