The Biomass

Food production has always been the core purpose of the agricultural sector, and will remain so. In view of the finite nature of fossil fuels, however, biomass is becoming more and more important as a viable solution in energy and raw materials supply.

The major biomass energy sources:

• Wood, including wood-derived fuels such as charcoal and by-products of paper production
• Waste, including municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, agricultural                by-products, and others
• Organic raw material inputs (feed stocks) used to produce bio-fuels

Biomass does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it absorbs the same amount of carbon in growing as it releases when consumed as a fuel. Its advantage is that it can be used to generate electricity with the same equipment or power plants that are now burning fossil fuels. Biomass is an important source of energy and the most important fuel worldwide after coal, oil and natural gas.

Traditional use of biomass is more than its use in modern application. In the developed world biomass is again becoming important for applications such as combined heat and power generation. In addition, biomass energy is gaining significance as a source of clean heat for domestic heating and community heating applications. In fact in countries like Finland, USA and Sweden the per capita biomass energy used is higher than it is in India, China or in Asia.

 

From 2002 to 2013, biomass energy converted to biofuels grew more than 500% as U.S. production of ethanol and biodiesel grew. On average, 60% of the energy in feed stocks is converted to deliverable biofuels. The remainder becomes energy losses or coproducts, which are measured as energy consumed by the industrial sector. Most biofuels are consumed as blended transportation fuel ethanol blended with motor gasoline or biodiesel blended with diesel fuel. Some biodiesel is used as heating oil.

Consumption of wood and waste energy increased just 4% over this period as increases in the consumption of waste energy exceeded increases in wood use. About two-thirds of U.S. wood energy is consumed for industrial processes. Nearly all U.S. waste energy is consumed for electric generation or industrial processes.

The Bioeconomy

The bioeconomy provides an opportunity for European innovation and differentiation. In certain areas, the chemical industry has been using substantial volumes of renewable raw materials. Furthermore, the use of alternative feedstock in the chemical industry is gaining importance in light of increasing oil prices and finite fossil resources. Although our industry will remain predominantly petrochemicals-based in the next decades, there is potential for an increased use of bio-based feedstock - not only for the production of specialty chemicals but also of the key building blocks of high-volume chemicals.

 One key limitation for the bioeconomy to develop in Europe is the availability of  renewable feedstock at competitive prices and in sufficient quality and quantity. The European bioeconomy definitely needs to be based on a mix of home-grown and imported raw materials, due to a foretasted limited availability of biomass in Europe.

Biomass today is already being widely used in the production of food and feed, the pulp and paper industries as well as for the bio-fuel industry. A broad base of locally  developed and imported renewable feedstock will be required in order to develop a successful bioeconomy in Europe.

In order for the demand generation process to be economically viable and sustainable, the approach must be definitely market- driven, by consumers’ requirements and expectations. In this respect, the use of mandatory targets should be avoided. Moreover, taxation policy should not create any distortion of competition or conflicts of interests between value chains, as is presently the case for instance with biofuels, biomass for energy or animal fats incorporated in bio-fuels, clearly detrimental to the use of renewable feedstock in the chemical industry.