Studies show untapped potential of biomass waste for transport fuels and energy in Europe
Thu 27 February 2014
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Fuel made from waste could replace 16% of all the fuel used on European roads by 2030 according to a new report by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). The reports findings are echoed in a separate report from Manchester University.
The ICCT paper, whose backers include BA, Novozymes, WWF, and Virgin Airways, says there is significant untapped potential for sustainable waste from farms, forests, households, and industry to be turned into transport fuel, rejecting concerns that there are insufficient quantities of waste organic material to make a meaningful or cost-effective contribution to meeting transport fuel demand.
The researchers calculated that Europeans generate 900 million tonnes of waste paper, food, wood and plant material each year, about a quarter of which - about 220 million tonnes - is available for energy use as long as sustainability safeguards are in place.
This huge waste mountain could provide enough feedstock to produce fuel to displace 37 million tonnes of oil imports each year by 2030, creating an industry that at full capacity could support up to 300,000 jobs and make significant greenhouse gas savings, the report predicts.
Chris Malins who led the analysis for the ICCT said: "Even when taking account of possible indirect emissions, alternative fuels from wastes and residues offer real and substantial carbon savings. The resource is available, and the technology exists - the challenge now is for Europe to put a policy framework in place that allows rapid investment.”
A new report by researchers at Manchester University says that the UK is failing to harness its bioenergy potential and could generate almost half its energy needs from biomass sources, including household waste, agricultural residues and home-grown biofuels by 2050.
Scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at The University of Manchester found that the UK could produce up to 44% of its energy by these means without the need to import.
The study, which is published in Energy Policy Journal , highlights the country’s potential abundance of biomass resources that are currently underutilised and totally overlooked by the bioenergy sector. Instead, say the authors, much of the UK bioenergy sector is heading towards increased reliance on biomass resources that will have to be imported from abroad.
Study author Andrew Welfle said: “The UK has legally binding renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets, and energy from biomass is anticipated to make major contributions to these. The widely discussed barriers for energy from biomass include the competition for land that may otherwise be used to grow food and the narrative that biomass will have to be imported to the UK if we want to use increased levels of bioenergy. But our research has found that the UK could produce large levels of energy from biomass without importing resources or negatively impacting the UK’s ability to feed itself.”
The research involved analysing the UK’s biomass supply chains and investigating how different pathways that the UK could take may influence the potential bioenergy that the country could generate from its own resources up to 2050.
The Renewable Energy Association (REA) says that the UK biofuels industry is currently 'flatliniing' due to uncertainty about the direction of biofuels policy.
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