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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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%.
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.
Tetra Pak, the world leader in food processing and packaging solutions, headquartered in Sweden, announced that all of the packages it produces in Brazil are now using bio-based low-density polyethylene (LDPE). Combined with paperboard, the use of bio-based LDPE made from sugar cane increases the content of materials from renewable sources to as much as 82% in a Tetra Brik Aseptic 1000ml Base package, the world’s best selling carton package range for beverages.
Hungary relies on the bioeconomy to grow. Its capital region has vast untapped biomass resources and R&D competencies, states a recent study on the future landscapes of bioeconomy. The paper was accomplished within the framework of the Bioeconomy platform of Climate-KIC, Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change.
The Bioeconomy platform aims to support the transition to a bio-based economy by developing an integrated, holistic approach across entire value chains from feedstock production to efficient processing and conversion, and ultimately the production and marketing of bio-based products. Along these lines the Hungarian study delivers an insight into the emerging field of bioeconomy with emphasis on the opportunities in Hungary by means of assessing natural endowments, key stakeholders and R&D infrastructure from the perspective of relevant Climate-KIC projects. The main European and global drivers as well as the basic technological knowledge are also presented.
“At the moment focus in European policies is to endorse biomass utilization for the energy applications. This is short-sighted, as on those applications biomass does not bring the best added value. Also there is not enough biomass in Europe to meet up all energy and climate target in EU-level. Biomass is more valuable on chemical and material applications”. To say it, in this exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista, is Jukka Kantola, CEO of NISCluster, a Finnish private bioeconomy company with a focus on the woody biomass. With Kantola we talk about the bioeconomy in Finland, the EU policies and the different uses of biomass.
