Fossil feedstocks economic value

The degree to which industrialized societies have dematerialized can be seen from Figure 1.3, in which the amount of material consumed (expressed as carbon from fossil feedstocks used) per unit of added value (using gross domestic product as a measure of economic activity) has declined steadily over the past 30 years of industrial development. 

In many regions of the world, the industrial realization of value-added conversion of low-cost agricultural feedstocks can provide a certain degree of geopolitical independence for the involved countries. This means that the importing of fossil reserves can be avoided by replacing fossil feedstocks with efficient implementation of renewable resources available in the respective countries. In addition, the creation of different qualified jobs in these regions in the field of biopolymer production from local resources can provide a socio-economic benefit. 

In the United States and most industrialized countries, the practical value of the commercial production of an organic chemical from biomass depends strongly on the availability and price of the same chemical produced from petroleum or natural gas, and occasionally coal. As will be shown shortly, there is no technical barrier that precludes production of commodity chemicals from biomass feedstocks. And it will become evident that many of the more complex organic chemicals are best synthesized from biomass feedstocks or can be extracted from appropriate biomass species. These chemicals can also be synthesized from hydrocarbon feedstocks, but the costs are often prohibitive. In the midst of the fossil fuel era, the less complex, commodity organic chemicals are preferentially manufactured from petroleum or natural gas, whereas complex specialty chemicals are derived from biomass. But commodity organic chemicals are open to entry by biomass feedstocks if they can provide economic advantages. Note that many of the routes described here to commodity chemicals from biomass were in commercial use in the past, are still in commercial use, have recently been commercialized, or have been developed and are available for commercial use. 

---