Published on Aug 29, 2015
Lecture 20: Biorefining in North America (PDF with notes)
This lecture looks at biorefining in North America. Over 200 corn ethanol plants have been built in the past about 40 years and the numbers keep growing. Oil refining, on the other hand, is relatively mature and refineries are closing and consolidating instead. It does not make sense to try and build massive biorefineries analogous to petroleum refineries because that scale doesn’t fit the resource. To be successful biorefineries must adjust to the size and location of their resource.