Technology

Exclusive interview with Nathalie Moll, EuropaBio. At EFIB to shape the European bioeconomy

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Nathalie Moll, Secretary General of EuropaBio
Nathalie Moll, Secretary General of EuropaBio

“In order to be commercially successful it is essential to facilitate the introduction of innovative biobased products on the market.  This means ensuring the implementation of the Priority Recommendations from the Lead Market Initiative, to boost the uptake of innovative biobased products on the European market. A good example from the US, in this respect, is the Biopreferred programme, which was established to ensure that US policy is aiding sustainable biobased industries to have a competitive edge through public procurement initiatives. Additionally, we need to foster investments through combined financing”. To say this – in this exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista – is Nathalie Moll, Secretary General of EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries. With Moll we discuss about bioeconomy in Europe and the next edition of EFIB, the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and Bio-based economy, which will take place in Reims (France) from 30 September to 2 October. “This years’s EFIB – says Moll – will provide the forum for dynamic discussion around the year’s biggest and best joint ventures, with high profile consumer brands.  It will also provide a snapshot of how policy is being put into practice through the most significant developments in scale up of commercial biorefineries around the world”.

Interview by Mario Bonaccorso

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Total and Amyris bio-based jet fuel ready for use in commercial aviation

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Total's headquarter in Paris

Total, one of the world’s leading energy companies, and Amyris, an industrial bioscience company, begin to prepare to market a drop in jet fuel that contains up to 10% blends of renewable farnesane. This new jet fuel blend meets the rigorous performance requirements set for Jet A/A-1 fuel used by the global commercial aviation industry. 

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Celtic Renewables and Bio Base Pilot Plant together to turn whisky by-products into biofuel

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Bio Base Pilot Plant in Ghent, Belgium

Celtic Renewables, the Edinburgh-based biofuel company, has signed an agreement with Europe’s foremost biotechnology pilot facility to undergo next stage testing of its process to turn whisky by-products into biofuel that can power current vehicles. The partnership, which will allow the company to develop its technology at Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (BBEPP) in Ghent, has been made possible by second round funding worth €1.5million, including more than €1million from the UK Government, to help meet its ambition of growing a new €125 million-a-year industry in the UK. 

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The British plan for the bioeconomy takes a step forward

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The British Parliament in London
The British Parliament in London

The British plan for the bioeconomy takes a step forward. Biome Bioplastics CEO, Paul Mines, has been appointed to the management board of the Lignocellulosic Biorefinery Network (LBNet), a government-funded body tasked with fostering cross-disciplinary communities in the industrial biotechnology sector. LBnet is an active community of industrial practitioners and leading academics generating economic value through novel chemical, material and fuel processes that use lignocellulosic biomass as an alternative to petroleum-derived inputs.

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European Union agrees a deal to limit production of food-based biofuels

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Crescentino Plant View: 2G biofuels biorefinery
Crescentino Plant View: 2G biofuels biorefinery

EU energy ministers agreed a deal on Friday to limit production of biofuels made from food crops, responding to criticism these stoke inflation and do more environmental harm than good. The ministers’ endorsement of a new compromise overcomes a stalemate hit late last year when European Union governments failed to agree on a proposed 5 percent cap on the use of biofuels based on crops such as maize or rapeseed.

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Reims center of gravity of the world bioeconomy. EFIB 2014 goes to France

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The beautiful cathedral of Reims, France
The beautiful cathedral of Reims, France

EuropaBio and Smithers Rapra, in association with IAR, unveil the highly-anticipated agenda for the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology (EFIB) from 1-2 October 2014 taking place in Reims, the heart of Champagne-Ardenne (France). Committed to creating a forum to address opportunities and challenges for the biobased economy, EFIB is consistent in attracting an unrivalled calibre of speakers from across the fields of both policy and business. This year’s high level plenary includes a French ministerial address from this year’s host nation, complemented by the European Commission’s take on the future of the European biobased economy. Followed by a discussion on shale gas and how it is impacting investments and market development in petrochemical and biobased value chains, featuring representatives from Shell and European Bioplastics.

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Addax Bioenergy starts sugarcane bioethanol and power production in Sierra Leone

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Bioethanol project in Sierra Leone
Bioethanol project in Sierra Leone

Addax Bioenergy, a sugarcane-based renewable energy company, announced that its facility in Makeni, Sierra Leone, has started producing sugarcane bioethanol and renewable electricity. The company will produce 85,000 m3 of bioethanol per year by end 2016. The pioneering project involves the development of a Greenfield 10,000 hectare sugarcane plantation, the construction of a bioethanol refinery and a biomass-fuelled co-generation plant to produce green power and contribute about 20% of Sierra Leone’s national electricity requirements. It has been developed in partnership with eight Development Finance Institutions, and is the only bioethanol project to be brought to financial close in Africa.

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nova-Institut: Our Proposals for a Reform of the Renewable Energy Directive to a Renewable Energy and Materials Directive

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Biofuels or biochemicals? nova-Institut proposes a reform of the RED

nova-paper #4 “Proposals for a Reform of the Renewable Energy Directive to a Renewable Energy and Materials Directive (REMD)” presents a reform proposal that aims at creating a level playing field for bio-based chemicals and materials with bioenergy and biofuels in Europe. It is fundamentally different from other reforms of the Directive being currently discussed because it opens the perspective to not only look at energy, but also at bio-based materials.

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Scottish whisky distilleries become more bio-based

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Aberfeldy distillery

The UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has announced £5 million of funding for a pipeline of energy efficiency projects at a number of Scottish distilleries. Half of this will come from GIB, with matched funding from the private sector. Aberfeldy distillery in Perthshire will be taking advantage of the new funding available. This follows GIB’s announcement last year of an investment at the Tomatin distillery, near Inverness. Tomatin is on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by c. 80%. 

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The upcoming elections are crucial for the future of the bioeconomy in the European Union

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European Parliament, Brussels
European Parliament, Brussels

From Thursday to Sunday we European Union citizens will be called to elect a new parliament. These elections are important, not only because for the first time will decide who will lead the European Commission. But mostly because the next 5 years represent a crucial point to understand whether the European Union will remain nothing more than a geographical expression (as Metternich called Italy in the Nineteenth century, before its Unification), or will be able to achieve a common economic and monetary policy, and with it a tax policy, a labor policy, etc. In one word: Policies.

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