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This paper provides estimates of available agricultural residues at the European level. It complements previous studies by expanding the geographical study area to 36 European countries, and improving the methodology by incorporating temporal variability of the theoretical potential resources and taking into consideration technical and environmental constraints. The amount of residues potentially obtainable from the main crops cultivated in Europe, namely wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, rice, rapeseed and sunflower was assessed. Detailed spatial distribution maps of different crop residue potentials (theoretical, technical, environmental and sustainable) are provided at 1 km spatial resolution. The average theoretical potential was estimated at 291 and 367 Mt DM in the EU and Europe, respectively. Significant yearly variability of crop residue production has been noticed, between 209 and 365 million tonnes dry yr−1 (3673–6389 PJ) in the EU and between 253 and 483 million tonnes dry yr−1 (4434–8453 PJ) across Europe. The average technical potential of crop residue was estimated at 168 million tonnes dry yr−1 (2941 PJ) in the EU and at 212 million tonnes dry yr−1 (3715 PJ) in Europe. The average sustainable potential considering both technical and environmental constraints in each location was estimated at about 124 million tonnes dry yr−1 (2162 PJ) in the EU and at 14 Mt DM (2601 PJ) in Europe.

This paper presents an overview of the development and perspectives of biogas in and its use for electricity, heat and in transport in the European Union (EU) and its Member States. Biogas production has increased in the EU, encouraged by the renewable energy policies, in addition to economic, environmental and climate benefits, to reach 18 billion m3 methane (654 PJ) in 2015, representing half of the global biogas production. The EU is the world leader in biogas electricity production, with more than 10 GW installed and a number of 17,400 biogas plants, in comparison to the global biogas capacity of 15 GW in 2015. In the EU, biogas delivered 127 TJ of heat and 61 TWh of electricity in 2015; about 50% of total biogas consumption in Europe was destined to heat generation. Europe is the world's leading producer of biomethane for the use as a vehicle fuel or for injection into the natural gas grid, with 459 plants in 2015 producing 1.2 billion m3 and 340 plants feeding into the gas grid, with a capacity of 1.5 million m3. About 697 biomethane filling stations ensured the use 160 million m3 of biomethane as a transport fuel in 2015.

Anaerobic digestion is increasingly used worldwide to generate energy from biogas, bringing significant economic and environmental benefits. In particular, in the European Union (EU), biogas can contribute significantly in several countries to reach the renewable energy targets. This study provides an assessment of the spatial distribution of the biogas potential of farm manure from livestock and poultry in Europe, which is a key issue for the location and economic performances of a bioenergy plant. Biogas estimates provided in this study are computed through a spatial analysis algorithm that uses data of livestock and poultry, manure production and collection, leading to the evaluation of the spatial distribution of biogas potential at 1 km spatial resolution. Following this analysis, the theoretical biogas potential of manure was estimated at 26 billion m3 biomethane in Europe (23 billion m3 biomethane in the EU) and the realistic biogas potential, counting on collectible manure, was assessed at 18 billion m3 biomethane in Europe (16 billion m3 biomethane in the EU). Several maps provide the suitable locations and capacity of manure-based biogas plants in two different scenarios. Between 13,866 and 19,482 biogas plants could be built in Europe, with a total installed capacity between 6144 MWe and 7145 MWe, and an average capacity between 315 kWe and 515 kWe.

The European New Green Deal and the REDII set ambitious targets, aiming to achieve a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. The transport sector is the most critical area to decarbonize, given the rigidity of both infrastructure and end-use technologies, as well as the challenge of reaching cost-effective production of sustainable advanced renewable fuels. Several researchers, stakeholders and groups of interest, such as international and governmental organisations, NGOs, business analysists, scientists and other actors elaborated scenarios on biofuels market penetration by 2050. These studies are largely used by policy makers, even if not necessarily were subject to a rigid peer review and verification process. This work presents an extensive literature review of the main published investigations, to assess and quantify the authors' different visions. These forecasts intend to evaluate the possible future development of the sector based on current and foreseeable policies, as well as industry and investors’ business plans; at the same time, these estimates should also provide policy makers with a sound base for policy development towards achieving climate goals. Through preliminary screening, based on a methodology of a set of ex-ante conditions, this work identified the most relevant publications and structured the analysis of the collected data. A total of 18 publications were selected from the literature review, resulting in 56 scenarios to be examined. This work allowed to achieve a comprehensive summary and quantification of the selected scenarios, all of which focus on biofuel contribution to transport decarbonisation in the period 2030–2050. Given the occurrence of several factors, as the ongoing and future technological development, the adoption of more efficient mobility models, the hybridization and electrification of transports, the Total Fuel Consumption for the transport sector is expected to reduce in Europe: averaged projections from the analyzed scenarios account for 312.8 Mtoe in 2030 and 274.2 Mtoe in 2050. Biofuels are expected to significantly contribute to achieve the EU targets, with a progressive shift towards advanced feedstock: on average, their total contribution is expected to account for 24.5 Mtoe in 2030, and for 48.3 Mtoe in 2050, while advanced biofuels are projected for an average contribution of 8.7 Mtoe in 2030 and 36.5 Mtoe in 2050. This work analysed pre-pandemic published scenarios: the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the global as well as EU economies are uncertain, but there is a serious risk of hampering and postponing investment decisions in the whole energy area, making the achievement of RED and EU Green Deal targets even more challenging in this historical moment.

The use of renewable energy is projected to increase substantially in the European Union to reach a share of 20% in final energy consumption and 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020. The renewable energy contribution is further expected to increase to 55%–75% of gross final energy consumption in 2050. According to the latest reports, the European Union has made significant progress since 2005 and is on track to reach its 2020 renewable energy targets. This paper provides a review of the policy framework for renewable energy in the European Union and an analysis of the progress made by the use of renewable energy as well as the expected developments until 2020 and beyond. It focusses on the contribution of bioenergy, the major source among renewables in the European Union. As biomass availability is a critical issue for the bioenergy production, this paper provides an analysis of the biomass demand for reaching the 2020 targets, in relation with the expected domestic supply and biomass potential.

Energy is a critical issue for Africa, where large number of people do not have access to energy. Energy recovery from waste can play a role in minimising the impact of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) on the environment with the additional benefit of providing a local source of energy. This study was carried out to assess, at the African level, the role which waste could play in providing energy to citizens and provides an estimate of the total potential of energy from waste incineration and from landfill gas (LFG). The results show an energy potential of all waste generated in Africa of 1125 PJ in 2012 and 2199 PJ in 2025. Nevertheless, if energy recovery through LFG is considered, about 155 PJ could be recovered in 2012 and 363 PJ in 2025 if waste actually collected, or projected to be collected, is considered. The electricity generation could reach 62.5 TWh in 2012 and 122.2 TWh in 2025, in case of full waste collection, compared with electricity consumption in Africa of 661.5 TWh in 2010. If waste actually collected is considered, these estimates decrease respectively to 34.1 TWh in 2012 and 83.8 TWh in 2025. Apart from continental estimates, the study provides detailed information at the country level and a vision of the spatial distribution of energy from waste based on the city population in major African cities.

The European Commission has set a long-term goal to develop a competitive, resource efficient and low carbon economy by 2050. Bioeconomy is expected to play an important role in the low carbon economy. This paper provides a review of the policy framework for developing a bioeconomy in the European Union covering energy and climate, agriculture and forestry, industry and research. The Europe has a number of well-established traditional bio-based industries, ranging from agriculture, food, feed, fibre and forest-based industries. This paper proposes an analysis of the current status of bioeconomy in the European Union and worldwide until 2020 and beyond. We estimate the current bio economy market at about € 2.4 billion, including agriculture, food and beverage, agro-industrial products, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry, wood-based industry, biochemical, enzymes, biopharmaceutical, biofuels and bioenergy, using about 2 billion tonnes and employing 22 million persons. New sectors are emerging, such as biomaterials and green chemistry. The transition toward a bioeconomy will rely on the advancement in technology of a range of processes, on the achievement of a breakthrough in terms of technical performances and cost effectiveness and will depend on the availability of sustainable biomass.

This paper provides a geographical assessment of potential bioenergy production in the European Union from residues of eight agricultural crops (wheat, barley, rye, oat, maize, rice, rapeseed and sunflower). The evaluation is geographically explicit at the scale of 1 km2 and is based on two main computational steps. In the first step the amount of crop residues resulting from statistical assessment based on the methodology developed by Scarlat et al. [1] have been spatially allocated on the EU-27 1 territory using several auxiliary geospatial layers describing, for example, land cover, expected biomass productivity derived from soil parameters, climatic zones and topographical conditions. In the second step the number of model power plants (i.e., plants with a size of 50 MW thermal input and a raw material demand of about 100 kt/yr might be conveniently fed with available crop residues was estimated on the basis of two different allocation strategies implying a different grade of optimization. The results show that the estimated crop residue resources in EU-27 could provide fuel for about 850 plants expected to produce about 1500 PJ/yr. Mobilization needs for the residues are also estimated, leading to a total amount of 1.5×1012–2×1012 tkm are necessary for the full potential exploitation.

According to the renewable energy directive 2009/28/EC, the European Union Member States should increase by 2020 the use of renewable energy to 20% of gross final energy consumption and to reach a mandatory share of 10% renewable energy in the transport sector. This study aims to quantify the impact of 2020 bioenergy targets on the land use in the EU, based on the projections of the National Renewable Action Plans in four scenarios: Scenario 1. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs; Scenario 2. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, no second generation biofuels; Scenario 3. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, reduced import of biofuels and bioliquids; Scenario 4. Bioenergy targets according to NREAPs, high imports of biofuels and bioliquids. This study also considers the credit for co-products generated from biofuel production. The analysis reveals that the land used in the EU for bioenergy would range between 13.5 Mha and 25.2 Mha in 2020. This represent between 12.2% and 22.5% of the total arable land used and 7.3% and 13.5% of the Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA). In the NREAPS scenario, about 17.4 Mha would be used for bioenergy production, representing 15.7% of arable land and 9.4% of UAA. The increased demand from biofuels would lead to an increased generation of co-products, replacing conventional fodder for animal feed. Considering the co-products, the land used for bioenergy would range between 8.8 Mha and 15.0 Mha in 2020 in the various scenarios. This represent between 7.9% and 13.3% of the total arable land used in the EU and 4.7% and 8.0% of the UAA. In the NREAPS scenario, when co-products are considered, about 10.3 Mha would be used for biofuels, bioliquids and bioenergy production, representing 9.3% of arable land and 5.6% of agricultural land. This study further provides detailed data on the impact on land use in each Member State.

Renewable energy use is growing at a much faster pace than the rest of the economy in Europe and world-wide. This and the dramatic oil price increases in 2005 have lead to a remarkable re-evaluation of the renewable energy sector by politics and financing institutions. Despite the fact that there are still discrepancies between the European Union and the USA how to deal with climate change, renewable energies will play an important role for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the world wide introduction of tradable green certificates. Apart from the electricity sector, renewable energy sources for the generation of heat and the use of environmental friendly bio-fuels for the transport sector will become more and more important in the future.

This paper provides an overview of the Norwegian biomass resources for bioenergy use, bioenergy market and frame conditions through a comparison with Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which have a leading role in bioenergy production in the European Union. Although the contribution of renewable energy in Norway is among the highest in Europe (58%), mainly due to hydroelectricity, bioenergy has a low contribution to Norwegian energy supply (6%). As the experience from the other EU Member States showed, long-term, stable policies and relatively strong incentives are needed to initiate and build up a bioenergy market. In Norway, there is still a significant available potential for increasing the bioenergy contribution to the energy supply. The abundance and relatively low prices of energy (i.e. fossil fuels and electricity), in connection with the need of high investment costs, did not favour so far bioenergy production. Additional forest biomass may be mobilized in Norway by more intensive management of currently exploited forests. However, there are several limitations related to topography, accessibility and economics. The biomass resources and the full range of technologies available for heat or electricity generation both at small and large scale that can provide good opportunities for increased bioenergy production. The experience gained in Denmark, Finland and Sweden may be relevant for Norway, as well as for other EU Member States, where there is a deficit of mobilization of biomass resources and insufficient industrial integration of bioenergy with other forest-based sectors.

This paper provides a resource-based assessment of availability of biomass resources for energy production in Romania, at NUTS-3 level. The estimation of available biomass includes the residues generated from crop production, pruning of vineyards and orchards, forestry operations and wood processing. The estimation of crop residue availability considers several site-specific factors such as crop yields, multi-annual yield variation, environmental constraints and competitive uses. The evaluation of agricultural residues was based on specific residue to product ratios, depending on crop type and crop yield. An estimate of pruning residues is proposed, based on current orchard and vineyard areas and specific ratios of residues. Woody biomass considers forest and forestry residues (including firewood) and wood processing by-products, taking into account the type and share of the unused part of the tree biomass and technical and economic aspects, including availability and competitive use. The amount of agricultural and forest residues available for bioenergy in Romania was estimated at 228.1 PJ on average, of which 137.1 PJ was from annual crop residues, 17.3 PJ residues from permanent crops and 73.7 PJ/year from forestry residues, firewood and wood processing by-products. The biomass availability shows large annual and spatial variations, between 135.6 and 320.0 PJ, due to the variation in crop production and forestry operations. This variation, which is even larger at the NUTS-3 level, if not properly considered may result in shortages in biomass supply in some years, when biomass is available in a lower amount than the average.

The objective of this paper is to provide a review on the latest developments on the main initiatives and approaches for the sustainability certification for biofuels and/or bioenergy. A large number of national and international initiatives lately experienced rapid development in the view of the biofuels and bioenergy targets announced in the European Union, United States and other countries worldwide. The main certification initiatives are analysed in detail, including certification schemes for crops used as feedstock for biofuels, the various initiatives in the European Union, United States and globally, to cover biofuels and/or biofuels production and use. Finally, the possible way forward for biofuel certification is discussed. Certification has the potential to influence positively direct environmental and social impact of bioenergy production. Key recommendations to ensure sustainability of biofuels/bioenergy through certification include the need of an international approach and further harmonisation, combined with additional measures for global monitoring and control. The effects of biofuels/bioenergy production on indirect land use change (ILUC) is still very uncertain; addressing the unwanted ILUC requires sustainable land use planning and adequate monitoring tools such as remote sensing, regardless of the end-use of the product.

The paper presents the activities of Romanian specialists concerned with CO 2 emissions arising from human activities, primarily the main factors responsible for the rapid climate changes. The first section shows the CO 2 emissions' level for the last years, related to European emissions, concurrently with a comparative presentation of main sources and their contribution to the global CO 2 emissions in Romania. Furthermore the paper presents the prognosis for the CO 2 emissions' evolution in Romania up to 2020. Further, the research activity performed in Romania and the results obtained so far are presented for the development of a suitable CO 2 retention technology to reduce CO 2 emissions from flue gas generated by power plants. The paper also highlights the possibilities for further utilization in industry of the CO 2 retained through application of the technology developed by ICPET-CERCETARE for CO 2 retention.

In the paper is described the explorative research program on CO 2 removal, performed with the aim to review the CO 2 recovery technologies and to obtain the most suitable method for CO 2 recovery from flue gas. Further, the paper presents the activity focused in studying on laboratory scale the chemical absorption with solvents, and activators in order to obtain data on the most advantageous solvents and operating conditions. The CO 2 recovery laboratory facility is in detail presented, together with the experiments performed for the absorption and desorption processes which leaded to the encouraging results.