(400d) A Successful Corn Biorefinery: Current and Future Outlook

Since advancing the concept of a biorefinery in the early 1990's to describe bioprocessing of crop derived commodity feedstocks, the term has found wider uses. Most recently it has been extended to encompass processing in addition to commodity crops, other agricultural and forestry residues. In the latest version, biorefineries that produce strictly fuel and chemicals have been envisioned as the model for further developments in these areas. While this version is consistent with the original concept, these developments have lost sight of the need to insure that a successful biorefinery needs to be economically viable. In this presentation I will provide an overview of existing corn biorefineries and discuss the future outlook for their continued economic viability.