Green Biorefineries for protein – bioenergy and biomaterials
good morning and welcome to this um seminar on green refineries for biorefineries for protein bio energy and biomaterials we meet at a very special time in european history when the economy of the european union is challenged by the consequences of putin's invasion in ukraine and the economic and supply chain war that has resulted is giving us in europe a difficult time regarding supply of energy in particular but also feedstock for the agriculture industry and some raw materials we will not talk about all the problems here today but we will discuss those that are related to what is supplied by the agricultural and forestry sectors or what could be supplied by these sectors in a more efficient and for europe beneficial way we have a program that is governed by a very tight time schedule but the organizers have decided to try to give some opportunity for discussion uh after the technical session on biorefinery systems in particular so we might go on until 20 to 12 or even a quarter to 12 but hopefully not longer than that so as a moderator i do hope that the speakers today will succeed in meeting the extremely tough time schedule considering all the content that i'm sure they would like to convey during their few minutes of attention at this seminar i introduced it by describing it as a european challenge and common european interest in successfully developing these bio refineries and as introduces of today's seminars we have two contributions from the european commission one from the gg agriculture and rural development and one from dg energy and i will first hand over the screen to laura messier from dg agriculture and rural development so the screen is yours so good morning everybody so i will indeed present you uh today the the state of the art um of eu plant proteins i don't think you see my my my video my screen but uh never mind i will i will proceed and um and i will uh present you some highlights on the commission work on plan pertains uh the issue of eu uh party deficit is widely known in the commission and the commission is working on that you know an important mind stone was a 2018 report and we will talk about it in a few minutes but before that what is why are planned proteins are in the agenda because we need them as you know to feed a livestock that's the reason we are dependent on imported plant-based protein used for feed in particular soya from south america the graph here describes the level of crude protein used for feeding our livestock in the eu you see that roughage is the main source of protein for livestock that's the green bar at the at the left it is green which means it is produced in the eu the second source of protein for a livestock straw from cereals and and most of it is produced in the eu and the third uh colon show the extent of the eu dependency on soya meals why is it a problem to be dependent on imported plant protein because it comes from regions where soya is participating to deforestation and it is our responsibility to avoid that our consumption contributes to negative environmental consequences in third countries in case of political crisis it also creates a problem of food security you will before presenting you the activities of the commission in the in the area of plant-based protein let me put this topic in the broader context of the green deal presented by the commission in 2019 the green deal include many topics uh and actions and among which agriculture which plays an important role in particular the farm to fork strategy which is part of it it was presented in may 2020 even if the word plant protein does not appear in each page in the farm to fork strategy it creates a favorable context for the development of e-grown plant proteins the the farm to fork set many ambitious targets in this respect and in particular a significant reduction of fertilizer by at least 20 percent by 2030 um and a rediction of nutrient losses by at least 50 percent by that date and the farm to fork plans to boost organic production indeed by 2030 organic production will reach 25 percent that's the objective of agricultural lands the commission report now we are going to tackle the commission report published in 2018 highlights different market opportunities for the for plant protein and and also show some drivers for the development um and then we'll at the end of the report you will find some follow-up actions uh which are listed in the conclusion and and then we'll quickly go through them the first action concern the cap strategic plan the the commission uh planned in that report to help member states integrating plant protein interventions in the cap strategic plans all the plans as you know have been communicated to the commission uh which are examining them some of them have been adopted approved sorry recently and the cap provides several tools for the development of eu plan proteins and it is the members decision to activate those tools or not among those tools you find a coupled income support for protein cramps where you have a special mechanism with a an add-up a sorry a top-up by two twelve person so you could go from uh uh 13 to 15 percent of direct payment as you know uh denmark and sweden decided not to support a couple income structure support or protein crops through income support but at eu level there is a 50 increase of the concern area and 26 percent increase of financial support um as a second tool we could also mention the new tool which is which are operational programs in other sectors what you call other sectors in the past you had the possibility to subsidy investment and some interventions uh done by produce organization in in a fruit and vegetable sector but also in in a smaller scale in a leaf sector and hub sector now this possibility is open to all the sectors this is new completely new um and it allows you know action indeed in investment but also crisis prevention you know support and risk management and we firmly believe that it could be useful for protein crops in particular by making stronger the value chain which is a recognized weakness of protein crop sector but it lasts only friends or i mean it's already good but only friends decided to activate it and the other member states did not activate it for protein crops and they will activate it by 2024 uh and the budget is not yet clearly defined in the initial you know uh captured planet dimension 33 33 million euro per year for those programs but we'll see uh very soon i guess next year they will have to to modify the capacity plan to make it more precise and then another tool which is new are the eco schemes and uh deco schemes uh will certainly reward practices uh uh where you could find legumes which are favorable as you know for uh the the environment and then of course uh the the actions and interventions and the royal development remains and is still an important tool um a second follow-up actions would concern a market analysis transparencies there were several actions in particular in since 2021 we we collect prices concerning some protein crops and all seeds and uh that gives us you know a better understanding of the market and we'll of course we publish them uh on the agree dj agree portal and also uh we worked together with europe stats on the new regulation which is called the c c i c a i o regulation you know that that uh reform uh the um the statistics collection in the eu concerning agriculture and there will have new information on the human consumption of of uh protein crops um uh on or so feed and beer biotin all you know and in particular of will receive more detailed information on a more regular pace on grassland and grazing that's quite important and this uh s aio regulation um is nearly adopted it should be adopted in uh early october uh or early autumn at least um and then there is another tool that has been developed uh in the framework of those transparency uh actions that's uh the eu feed program balance sheet you see it here and you find the link below i know i hope that some of you know it it's a tool where we list uh all the protein sources in the feed we give some market and balance sheet information on the those products you know for all the detailed products here you just have the main lines but in fact you have all the details when you you go into the the the sheet and you will see for all the products all the cereals you know wheat all the oil seeds so yeah different form of soya you see all what is here produced in the eu imported exported but then what is interesting what is used for the feed and there is a coefficient a conversion coefficient to to calculate the crude protein content and volume for all those feed and eventually we have a total figure um that gives us the total volume of proteins which is used by a livestock in europe for the moment as you see it it's uh 73 million tons of crude protein of which 56 are coming from the eu and i recommend you to have a look at this tool it's quite quite interesting and of course the development of sustainable food system will only take place if all actors invest in research and innovation only in the first hours in europe work program 2021 three research program innovation directly concerning you know protein crops uh are planned for total amount of 23 million euro yesterday i attended to a kickoff meeting of the first program which is called uh valpo path and that's just started yesterday and it's to tell me your 10 million euro programs they have a website i recommend you to have a look at it um and as actions also it's a promotion of the benefits of of plant proteins that's a simple way to reduce dependency on imported plant-based protein to um but reducing also it wouldn't would would mean also perhaps a reduction of the livestock but the resolution of the livestock is not a simple solution uh and it will not be efficient as such because we need to mention also to reduce um to change the consumer diet if you do not change the consumer diet towards a more a plant-based diet then we'll end up by importing uh more you know livestock from third countries and it will not uh help for the the environment it would not help you know for uh uh uh uh iuw agriculture as such so really the first thing as it is recommended in the farm to fork strategy is to accompany the consumer to change its diet to a more plant-based diet with less red and processed meat and with more uh food vegetable and and pulses this is why also uh we the commission announced in the uh in the farm to focus strategy that it will review its policy on the promotion and we are in the process of doing it it's not yet you know the commission hasn't yet published you know uh the uh its proposal in this regard but i can tell you that we we have the intention but it should still be clear to tackle a problem uh uh under the current legislation that where where we finance you know some um sorry the the promotion activities uh of a great actual products are not targeting all the the products which are plant-based there are some restrictions and we'll go over that furthermore when we when we promote pulses for human consumption currently we mostly promote imported pulses because 40 percent of the chickpeas are imported sixty per person the lentils are imported for instance so that we will have also to tackle you know and then knowledge exchange uh there's been a couple you know of activity organized by the commission and there will be some more activity organized by the commission in the future on on the exchange of information on protein crops now let's have a very quick look because i just have three more minutes on the initiatives of different member states just to mention that some member states had a strategy a strategy for developing the protein crops and they've published them i here mentioned france netherlands belgium but but then there is also of course the danish one that was published in 2018 and also the german one there was also uh the initiative you know france for instance in in ireland on the climate change to where there were specific actions for the development of of protein crops and pulses and also i would like to mention uh an um an opinion that is prepared for the moment by the economic and european economic and social committee um which is uh an opinion towards a sustainable plan pertains and planned all strategy for the eu i think it has it has some interesting and courageous you know recommendation and it should be published in october and i recommend you to to to have a look at it when it will be published in uh in october and last um we have also other ongoing initiatives at the eu level uh the first one would be the review of the 2018 report the report where for which i detailed the actions and the commemoration took the uh the decision uh to revise this report he took this decision in the food security uh communication published in in march and but uh it's not yet clear or not yet defined uh and and we cannot yet talk about the form the report will take the timing and the scope in any case there is uh many stakeholders when to broaden the scope compared to the 2018 report it was really focusing on a high sorry rich plant rich protein plan so those plants with more than 15 percent proteins and now this report will be extended certainly to all the sources that uh you could find in the uh in the protein feed balance sheet that's just showed you there were there was also i just mentioned that the the pap revision of the rules that was adopted last year and also the legislation on legislation and feed additives and then uh last but not least we started in june a study here in the commission to further identify the opportunities and limitations for diversifying feed sources and of course with a particular regard to protein feeds and this study should deliver its first results end of 2023 thank you very much and i guess we'll now give the flow to the next speaker and process the question later later on if i well understood thank you very much lauren i was a bit worried when you had many points left halfway through your presentation but you did excellently in completing on time and we did understand the european uh commission focus on increased utilization of plant protein in an efficient way to improve the efficiency of the land use to food system of europe now the um next speaker is also from the european commission it's uh galin genshev from dj energy i will hand over the screen and the loudspeakers to you okay um so um i'll start basically um uh by uh framing very quickly the policy context also the the different tools what we have at a strategic level and a more legal level in supporting the biogas biomethane in terms of assessing it its footprint certifying traceability etc in order to make uh possible the production and consumption of of these gases and in the second part i'll focus more briefly but more concretely on the ripalo eu action plan from from may this year which targets uh directly by emitting production with the aim to achieve a very ambitious but realistic target of 35 billion cubic meters biometer production annual production by 2030. um very quickly with the policy conflicts as you know everything started with the green deal uh whose ambition and aim was to make it possible to put all the preconditions in order to um ensure that the framework of being carbon neutral by 2050 it mainly um uh entailed uh raising the different targets in the different sectors as well as reforming the system as such in order to achieve efficiencies and support uh the implementation of the of the vision for the future of the energy system which is a system uh um primarily based on energy efficiency first principle on circularity on uh smart grids and in interactions between the different um the different uh energy systems um making it possible uh to achieve synergies in this way uh also on production and on uh cutting uh demand optimizing the demand and the second pillar uh obviously uh deep deep electrification as main tool of the carbonization but very importantly annoying the fact that full electrification would be either not possible or very costly specifically in some areas in the heart to the carbonized sectors also remote geographical areas like rural areas for example some of the rural areas and this opened the room for renewable and low carbon fuels in the energy mix of the future and respectively of gaseous uh sustainable gaseous fuels and this was also supported by the projections for 2050 consumption which show that um and expect 20 percent of gaseous fuels uh uh to be to be also um uh consumed in 2050 and basically this um put uh automatically the objective of how to switch from fossil based to renewable and low carbon uh gaseous fuels uh where the expectation obviously is that the the future mix will be mainly based on biogas biomethane as well as um renewable low carbon hydrogen as well as uh synthetic synthetic methane this vision of the future was supported by the the main strategic documents very briefly on the the uni uh two i'll just mentioned two of the strategic documents the unit in strategy in the energy system integration strategy as you know the meeting the new meeting strategy was about cutting emitting leakages and emissions from from the from the system um but it contained a very important uh area on agriculture since half of the other meeting emissions are coming from agriculture and mainly uh um identified a biogas production as a key mitigation to the mainstream of the vegas production based on on waste and residues from agriculture as a main mitigation tool of cutting emissions as a way of modern waste management transforming basically a burden into an opportunity the energy system integration supported this strategic vision clearly promoting waste and residue-based production of sustainable gases uh and in this in this uh strategic framework the renewable energy directive obviously plays a key role uh the the threat to the red two version is from from december 2018 and already there there are clear clear supporting um tools uh for uh uh for for the for the the certain so the the the uh promotion of the of the biogas uh in waste-based biogas and and respectively operating into biomethane through several tools all they quickly just mentioned the main tool is basically the methodology the way how the emissions are calculated which is a part of the sustainability criteria um they are basically inbuilt um bonuses for waste-based uh production paths which will make them if they if they respect all the sustainability criteria will make them either carbon neutral or if digestate or manure is used into carbon negative using the bonus the definition just something also probably important the definition of food feed crops basically considers intermediary and cover crops as not main crops which basically makes them an additional uh stream for generating biomass which is not cupped uh as you know there is a cup for the first generation uh biogas by fuels uh liquid transport uh to a maximum of seven percent uh but since these intermediary cover crops are not considered main crops this the this kind of debate food feed against energy is avoided this way since there is no additional land uh use of additional land trigger then this is considered as sustainable by additional biomass and this may trigger let's see an additional also production of of biogas uh unimportant also it just proposed um uh of the uh update of the anna x9 as you know this is an option on underrates2 where new feedstocks uh uh could be uh let's say proposed uh and this also has an opportunity for advanced advanced biofuels but also for advanced biogas um as i mentioned uh just for what what in more in terms this bonus means a 45 grams uh co2 equivalent per megajoule if manure is is is used basically um an important work stream which is ongoing right now with the support of the joint research center we are reviewing the annexes five and six and they are also there is part of the work will support the biogas production uh specifically by introducing more uh def several disaggregated values which will help the the better uh calculation of emissions specifically on the manual also some uh the default is this related default values for feedstocks which will help economic operators to to better valorize uh what what they are doing an important pillar of our uh promotion system i would say is the certification since without certification a biogas or biomethane cannot be called sustainable and respectively consumed so in we recently um validated the 13 voluntary schemes uh i recognized that involuntary schemes for certification of fuels in principle and some of them as mentioned on the slide have heaven scope also biogas biomethane certification uh we were also planning to upgrade the biograde calculation tool which will make it possible uh for economic operators to actually easily calculate uh or online their missions and this would help specifically i would say smaller smaller producers uh a very important aspect as well in our system current system we are working on uh it's under article 28 of the renewable energy directive there is this obligation to set up a union database uh tracing tracing transport fuels uh renewable transport fuels it will probably uh if our proposal is accepted it will cover all end users in the end so the let's go fully updated we are planning to put online this database is a huge work in a complex system uh tracing basically the the fuels as of january next year uh and this basically would make it possible to trace the uh the megawatt of biomethane uh in such a way allowing the the the cross-border trade since the system will the the the digital system will cover the integrated european grid as one mass balancing system very importantly i have no time to enter into details but very importantly since also biometers is probably about uh as an average one percent of the whole gas uh in in the pipes so it's not about tracing molecules but it's more accounting the injected sustainable capacity in the consume sustainable capacity through basically a mass balancing system this would allow also cross-border trade among the member states and would uh will in this way promote the the production and respectively um make possible the consumption uh of biogas and by meeting in this case uh we're also planning to basically uh connect this this uh in kabul with this digital system also neighboring countries specifically uh uh once the the situation we hope would allow uh to basically connect also ukraine as it's considered as one of the let's say neighboring countries with a higher untapped potential about 20 billion cubic meters of of um of biomethane this is a potential that is untapped and could help basically um the the energy independence as of the you as far as um sustainable gases are concerned and so now and concretely on the republic action plan uh basically uh the the the framework i just uh briefly um described was there before uh the the the the addition of russia on ukraine and the drastically uh worsening geopolitical situation so basically uh in the case of biomethane i would say uh displayed a catalytic role uh making the the need the even even higher and the pressing need uh for being more independent from russia and uh basically um uh cutting uh progressively down to zero the i think about 165 billion cubic meters of of of natural gas imported at at the beginning from russia so the as you know the um uh the the uh the the republican planned plan biomedian was announced um as as part of the of communication and in the package uh with the with the uh ambitious target of uh going up to 35 billion billion meters from 18 already uh envisaged so uh it's it's another uh 70 17 sorry uh billion cubic meters per year uh to be achieved by 2030. um the plan basically tries to this is a let's say an ambitious but realistic target as well uh and in order to be able to achieve it then there are many aspects that needs to be tackled on the on the not only on the production but also on the on promotion uh also on financing on permitting et cetera that's why this plan is very comprehensive uh and um i'll i will not have the time to go into details but we'll see very quickly um basically um the the the core the core objective is um uh to prop to further promote biogas mainstream that potential mainly on waste-based residue-based uh uh paths uh this is expected to be and specifically waste residue based from agriculture as a main entire potential to basically there are member states with where this potential is quite well developed so to to go to the let's say to the maximum uh sustained possible sustainable uh volume but there are other member states uh where there's a huge potential which is untapped so there are not so many projects and that's why this is basically the the main objective is optimize the production of biogas and uh put incentives for its upgrading into biomethane um obviously as well on on on direct biomethane production through gasification but in any case it's it's expected to be a minor minor source a rough estimate of 35 billion euros investment needs um so um as i said no time for going into details but um just there are five pillars in reality in the plan the first is quite important this is the strategic pillar uh where the uh the the main the key actions also linked to the uh to green biorefineries to rural areas and agricultural producers uh linked and basically there are three three main streams i would mention first of all the biometer industrial partnership this is a partnership of the industry the whole value chain organized by the european biogas association but also um this is open to any key stakeholders or interested parties academia ngos and this by me the industrial partnership we are about to finalize the preparation of the european biogas association it will be officially launched a part of the sustainable energy week co poco jacob on the on the agricultural side is active layered there as well as uh on the commission site dj agri and dg energy will be represented at the director's level in the governing board together with industry uh and other other also member states representatives um so this basically this partnership will cover through task forces all the rest of the plan and will try to support through data best practices um best scenarios for production uh and also business models uh uh will support all the other part of the of the plan and very importantly very specifically will support the member states as one of the key task forces will be on developing manuals for uh for developing national strategies of sustainable biogas and bahrain in production um link to what i just said that there are some member states where the untapped potential is huge so focusing on those members states obviously where um there are no strategies there they also um with the idea that either to develop standalone or to have a dimension of this of this um energy strategy into the the national energy and climate plans in the in the ongoing update uh another important pillar of this of this uh story another important stream in this pillar is obviously also the support to promote uh multi-stakeholder engagement uh as you know specifically for the remote areas for rural areas very often that this this these projects it's about um involving a multi-stakeholder engagement which is a precondition for that project meaning local governments meaning farmers meaning let's say um small businesses uh also ngos to to increase the acceptance of such projects therefore this is key that good practices are basically streamlined there and the role uh just last thing the role of farmers and their organizations is key there are many actually agricultural cooperatives developing such projects so the idea as i said at the beginning is basically mainstreaming what is this in order to actually attain the full uh uh sustainable potential for biomethane for biogas and biomethane very quickly as i said the plan would cover different different aspects in a comprehensive way reducing the the red tape and speeding permitting is key in order to to actually allow for quicker development potential um the corporation neighborly countries as i mentioned ukraine will be a key key partner there there's some preparatory work on the certification including ukraine in the future in the traceability system as well as lifting some regulatory barriers in the legislation so this is an ongoing work which we have started through a memorandum of understanding with ukraine and this i hope this will further materialize one day also two concrete projects um another another important uh appeal of the providing incentive for biblegas upgrading since basically today we have only three billion cubic meters of biomethane majority basically being biogas so the idea is that we uh in parallel increase the the the production of biogas but also the upgrading so changing in some cases this would mean uh revising member states support schemes in order to focus on upgrading since this is biomethane is the most efficient uh let's say energy use compared to biogas but an important obviously in a connection or injection option then this this basically makes up a project non non non workable so that that's uh why um there will be um an effort to uh make this assessment and there will be a task force also in the in the industrial partnership supporting this that in at every member states regional authorities together with the with the uh distribution uh um network operators and uh transmission network operators they do an assessment of the areas where the potential lies for biogas by meeting based on the existing feedstocks or waste or or existing projects or plans for projects and to see what the connection capacity is and basically to adjust the system into the future in order to support this and very importantly a huge increase sudden increase we hope a via meeting and its injection may basically technically uh be impossible if for example the system is not prepared uh to tackle with with the increase uh which also in some cases means reverse flow uh uh in order to basically regulate the the the the pipes uh this also means uh um quality standards for the gas to to basically make it possible to for example to crossbow the transfer of the of the biomethane uh with this is specifically about the oxygen content so all these all these bottlenecks to be to be tackled uh to to have a cost efficient deployment of the of the biomethane uh also this there is a lot on on the horizon 2020 horizon europe on on different aspects on the small scale also but the focus will continue identifying the gaps there will be a task force in the stock partnership as well in order to focus the the future research specifically on the increasing the the the uh the efficiency of the small scale technologies also focusing on on new paths a bit mainstreaming and further improving let's say the use of of uh of gasification of woody biomass for example based on residues and waste from from from wood sorry i'm finished i'm finished sorry for it it's a lot um i'm finished and the last the last pillar is about financing uh where also uh we'll be involved in the europe investment bank basically a mixture from subsidies the the the common agriculture boys through the real development is a key uh let's say support together with some some some uh financial instruments thank you sorry for being alone inside of the european union regarding the multi-top that may be reached by efficient biogas production the rural development the energy independence and the greenhouse gas reductions that are possible and the ambitions are high and have been accelerated by the crisis after putin's invasion in in the ukraine but we also see the issues of sustainability criteria tracing demands and so on which may also provide obstacles to the development we're now going to enter into the uh more technical and more nordic perspective on these issues and the first speaker is martin jan jensen from department of biological and chemical engineering at oregon's university thank you thank you very much and good morning everyone um so i will quickly run through focus in in on the green biorefinery technology the green biorefinery system a quick fly in on on what is it actually the technology is and and can do and the status at the moment um before we give the word uh further to to colleagues um yeah so um well the the green buyer refinery is based on on the well-known concept of green leaf protein extraction where you have a green leaf a grass or clover you have a wet fractionation to a press cake fiber and you have a green juice and then you separate out the protein from the green juice and get a protein concentrate and a residual juice this fairly simple aberration is is affected by a lot of parameters of the plant and the processing and we have been working on this for for quite some years in denmark and also in collaboration with sweden for the last four years in the green valleys project and i'm from the engineering side working with the upscaling from lab to now demo scale that we have been running a demo facility in oaks university for the last three years 10 tons an hour maximum capacity of input of wet grass so our approach has been to develop this fairly well-known technology in in the sense that the focus on simplicity practicality and bulk applications to get it work in to work in agriculture and setting up this grass by refinery that produces a protein concentrate for monogastric animals pigs and and poultry a fiber for ruminant animals or biogas if you don't have any cows and a residual liquid that goes very well in biogas and you can recycle the nutrients back to the field so that's the concept and the drivers are environmental um in in for environmental reasons in in the agriculture for technology development reasons in the industry and for sustainability issues in the feed application and a status in in this green biorefining technology in in denmark where we are probably in the forefront of this concept of green biorefinery um we've been working hard to get the quality of the protein concentrate uh good enough so we can substitute soy this is uh now we we've seen that several times in feed trials that we perfectly fine can substitute uh the soy with the protein concentrate coming from grasses and clovers the fiber press cake for biogas and for rumen and animal feed is also okay it's fairly easy to produce a biogas from from this fiber fraction and the press cake works well as a ruminant feed depending on the incoming raw material of course it will make changes um the commercialization is ongoing in denmark there are two facilities in denmark that have been established commercial facilities and within the last two years they are running in the technology working with it improving it it's still difficult or a challenge to to have a really good positive business case so this is a focus area and the reason for for uh for the not not instantly good business cases that the the yields of the protein concentrate can change a lot depending on the raw material the processing and it's often too low and we are working hard both in oaks university and in with the industry to improve these yields and then there's a great potential in in the the three process streams of protein fiber and this residual juice that we call brown juice in increasing the value of of those thereby increasing the business case so the next three slides uh i will just quickly talk about what what we see as the the possible increases in in the different process streams so if we take the protein part first it's now a protein concentrate for substituting normal soy milk but making specialty feed with extra high protein and optimize amino acid composition through processing or breeding of the raw material get a value out of the lipid content etc or as we also are working on uh change into to food protein so bypass the the monogastric animals and go to the monogastric human beings um this however uh require more process development and also for for the food a novel food approval in the eu which is very important otherwise there is no market however having high value products is good and it helps the business case but having low value bulk products really is important for cashing in on the sustainability aspects for the fiber which is now ruminant animal feed or substrate for biomethane we could think of thermal conversion paralysis biochar lignocellulosic biorefinery making biochemicals biomaterials there are works on insulation materials of grass textile materials of the cellulose fiber etc and so there are good possibilities in the fiber fraction which is 70 percent of the dry matter coming in and then the residual juice which is now for for biogas using membrane technology of concentrating the valuable compounds for fermentation precision fermentation substrate or taking out already available valuable compounds in this liquid residue so so these are what we see as the main value increasing uh technologies for the green bar finally thank you very much an illustration of how we in the nordic countries are actually doing things also and um crystal i'll hand over to you to um continue describing some of the other practical attempts to make these biorefineries real and profitable thank you um okay uh now going to the biomass that goes into this by refinery which is grass grass clover or actually it could be pure leguminous and the thing about this is that i have just started here to say something about crop rotations because this is basic when we talk about agriculture and this is some kind of an engine for when we're producing the biomass and this slide shows what's quite typical in european agricultural areas we have only annual crops and it's dominated by cereals and you have also winter rapeseed here and the possibilities here to have this integrated in the farming land is actually to change crop rotation and get into two three maybe four years of grass clubbers you get the perennial crop and then you go back and have an annual crops you have a higher diversity in your in your agriculture and this actually has many many positive economic gains it's very obvious and for example soil properties weed biodiversity and we could talk a lot about this but it also actually ends up in higher yields having wheat after wheat compared to having wheat after break crop can actually have a yield increase of around 20 percent so actually today we are having slightly two years small yields because we have two uh bad crop rotations here is an example of of the biodiversity and pesticide effects if we have these two non-diverse crop rotation we have for example increasing problem with resistant weeds and also pests like fungus because we actually have a bit too much cereals in the crop rotation here is one example and this might lead to high yield cuts actually it's already doing this in some wheat growing areas in europe and if we look at the landscape scale you can see here a picture from colleagues in france actually but it could also be in in other parts of europe or in southern sweden we have very few crop species and this is bad for biodiversity we know that increasing biodiversity will increase uh the biodiversity in in the landscape another important of growing this grass clubber is that it's perennial and this is a i have learned from my danish friends which is very good but showing just when you have perennial grass we take three or four cuts per year but you always have it green and especially during winter time you don't break it up as you do when you have this traditional annual crops where you have no or very little plants in the winter which is very good for neutral itching and erosion but i end up and just say a few things about very important and that is the potential for carbon removals that is to increase soil organic carbon by growing more perennials and i will show you some examples from swedish field trials here where we actually have looked at for 35 years followed where we had a traditional only cereal and then change into a grass clever rotation where we had three years of gross clubber and one year of cereal and it was actually followed for for um 35 years and in average we had quite six especially in the squander sites is quite high soil carbon increase and it means that with this change we actually for 35 years we are actually taking co2 from the atmosphere and storing it in the in the soil and to be able to do this significantly in agriculture we have to grow more perennials this is a quite big thing talking about how we can have more carbon removals but carbon farming is talked in this green deal and i think it's very important now what we are going to work further on but there are challenging thing here for one thing is that we have too few field experiments to back up we use modeling and the model give different results and there is a very big variation between different sites which is which is how it is can have to do with cultivation history and you can look here for example exactly the same experiment and you had more than double higher salt carbon increase in average in this corner site compared with this westerothalan site just to finish off if we think about introducing this grass by refinery together with biogas that would be very interesting for example in this very serial dominated landscape and there are many of those in europe and and they have problems actually and we have just tried to understand what could happen in an in a in a landscape like this we took schoner where we today have a biogas in you would buy a we have data from our field experiments and we have started now and do quite a lot of calculation what will actually happen if we would integrate more gross clubber crops there and jordan will continue with this afterwards discussion but there are many things that are actually happening with the greenhouse gases when you do this system change so you have here um more than screen by refinery here we have a lot of farmers with potential to change some of the crop rotation that is con change some cereals to gross clubber and deliver biomass input for this green biorefinery what will happen is that at the farm we will have reduced greenhouse gases because of less use of fertilizer and we have soil carbon increase and then we will have protein that can substitute soy meal we will produce biomethane and we will have very important actually bio fertilizer from the biogas which will support uh substitute imported uh fertilizers so there are many benefits actually when you look at the overall system so i will finish here now and here i will talk a bit more about these carbon removals and benefits thank you thank you crystal uh i think that what we now heard during these two presentations was first how interesting it is to study the opportunities of producing multiple products from a single feedstock and then we heard how complicated it can be to actually produce the feedstock because crop rotation is one important factor deciding what will be long-term efficient or even long-term sustainable in the production of the biomass and you can understand the challenges of the european commission and and other european institutions trying to formulate sustainability criteria and how easy it is to confuse the discussion uh i will now hand over to your ambanders to talk more about uh the perspectives and experiences from sweden and sweden in your case i assume the floor is yours thank you tomas so we are following on first from from where crystal uh ended here and it's as an illustration of of what you could achieve in terms of mitigation from from one hectare here with this transition that that crystal described so you will see you go from the serial dominated landscape to the rotation with more of glass globally and you can further by refinery production then produce roughly from one hectare 1.6 ton dimetrogreen protein and roughly 600 cubic meters of biomethane and the greenhouse gas savings here including then also carbon removals since we build carbon in soils and possibly in biomaterials you would be on this is a ballpark number it depends much on how you use the products and what to displace but just to give you a sense from what we on what you could deliver here i also wanted to show you pictures of the heroic modelers that derive all the numbers that we talked about so so the subname is here today andreas is not here i think he's probably busy with modeling uh when we talk about danish swedish perspectives i think as you will see also the strategies for green by refinery development will look different in different countries scenes conditions are also different and not only natural conditions but basically the the structure of forest and our cultural industries and also in general energy infrastructure and not the least political goals what you see here is actually a global picture from from the ipcc 1.5 report
just showing or in in principle what most countries need to achieve in moving towards ambitious climate targets where you need to phase out fossil fuel use of course but also change land use and in many places probably aiming from converting land use activities from a source of emissions into a sink for carbon which is then something you can be more or less successful depending on where you are in the world then if if you look at approaches to try to do the transition and how that has been you could say interrupted or or through now a difficult time due to the ukraine war and the energy crisis uh you could see unfortunate uh distraction in some areas from the strive to reduce emissions but hopefully what you will see with this red curve here it will eventually turn right right up and improve both and the security and the greenhouse gas performance over time so so let's hope that we are now in a phase where we are just learning how to do this better than we are doing currently and here greenblind refineries i think can can be an important part of that then i want to just to spend a couple of slides explaining my question mark here for the swedish perspective how how green by refineries will evolve i think we can say for certain that that we will play towards both the transport sector but also the the industrial sector and materials production and also heat and power so so bio-based materials and and bio-based energy will be important in in most sectors in sweden and and we have also recognized that there is uh almost a competition for for really having the privilege to use the biomass feedstock for europe your own in your own sector that's part of the swedish debate at least where to use biomass when we think about green by refineries and and where we see a place for it we need also to keep an eye on other developments and just to illustrate that this is another group chalmers working with thermo chemical conversion and supporting the transition in in the petrochemical industry where you also need to move away from fossil fuel based systems and where you probably if you implement this in a wise way can actually gradually close the carbon material cycles while shifting from fossil carbon to green carbon to become much more climate friendly but also resource efficient and of course this is this is a huge development that green by refining development needs to to relate to to find its own niche in in sweden here the other example and and diagram that crystal told me to to rip out of the presentation because no one will understand it anyway and i said it it's not a problem just read what beyond sandy and say and you will understand also the diagram here it's it's illustrating how carbon-based alternatives to scarce metals are becoming more and more important in in development and you can see new carbon-based materials like this that probably will lead to what you would call bio-based applications in in new places you wouldn't expect just a few years back and just to give a few examples here on on the future by energy systems or if you would like to call it bio-based energy systems you might see electro fuels that are produced from renewable electricity and probably by generic co2 that has been captured from chp plants and then you would start thinking what is really bioenergy and what is really bio-based and and you see you have many other examples where bio-based systems can actually be part of renewable energy systems but not the type of our energy that we have traditionally looked at i think a few things just to to round off here what what i think we can be certain about and we have discussed it quite much in the in the green valleys project that is that we we as morten also said we need to to really figure out what to do with all the the resources that we bring into the green bar refineries and how we can develop products and not the least products that really preserve the properties of the biomass because that's probably where we can have a competitive edge against other carbon-based materials and we have thought about textiles as one possibly important application in the continuation carbon storage in soils and ecosystems as crystal talked about we need to consider that as a long-term commitment in land use because the carbon will stay in the soil as long as we manage the soil wisely on the longer term if we change land use again we might lose the carbon so we need to develop system with lando systems that deliver products that we want in the long term and here we believe at least that the type of rotation changes that we have looked at in this project they are they are examples of a really promising sustainable lando systems so thomas i can finish here or i can show three slides on how we can save the world from all evil it's up to you actually i give you the three slides without doubt okay uh just to illustrate just to illustrate now going to the european level and showing how you could approach and explore the possibilities for for grass-based rotations or also other ligands lossy crops what we have done in a few years now in studies that is that we have investigated we have targeted problems of current agriculture land use and investigated how you could expand alternative land your systems such as the grass-based systems to address the environmental problems we have looked at soil carbon losses which has been going on for quite a long time nitrogen emissions to water soil caused by water and wind and also problems related to recurring floods so these are examples of challenges that we face in europe where land use change might actually provide mitigation solution and then we have calculated how much biomass and thereby bio-based products that that you could produce if you implement that on a large scale and and here just of course many different products but just connecting them to the repower eu targets and again this is a ballpark number now the biogas that you could get from a large scale deployment here of grass cleverlay it's it's roughly the same total volume as you actually have as a target for biomethane europe not saying that this is a silver bullet that will deliver uh all gas needed but just to illustrate that it's big enough to be taken seriously and looked at more carefully okay so not all evil avoided we'll see what you're saying is that the soil effect is the same as the fossil gas replacement effect is it so so this is by this is the biogas production from the grass that you produce while you also reverse the soil loss process so that would be an additional climate benefit besides displacing russian fossil gas yes yes new importer soil and all the rest of the evil in the world as i said okay thank you thank you joran wonderful illustration of the further opportunities also in the technology sector where carbon-based materials may play a very important role in replacing what is today metals sometimes scarce metals used okay fury and insane the floor is yours thank you i think i'm on yes i will scale down from the european level to a small living lab called denmark um and as you can see danish agriculture has developed a lot we think um but which one that's the one actually our agriculture is highly contested we have a total land cover of agriculture of 62 percent of the total area of the country 80 of that land is on in aerial corps which are the bad ones we have a long coastal line with shallow fjords and we have to tackle the eu water framework directive eu and national climate policies groundwater protection for the drinking water and we have poured that biodiversity and finally this agriculture is not really resource efficient which might be the only thing that might be surprising because the other things are quite well known you think this is really very resource efficient with such a big house and a very efficient wheat field but look at it it's not green it's in the middle of the summer where we should have photosynthesis and that's something i want to stress again most of you have probably heard me saying it before but i cannot say too often that photosynthesis photosynthesis photosynthesis is what we live from and what we will have to live from in in the future uh because this is the most cost efficient cost-effective and scalable process to capture carbon and to deliver food energy materials and negative emissions if anybody disagree with me i would like to know if i'm wrong but i still think this is correct and those technologies that we've seen in the morning and with this focus on increasing photosynthesis from that level of losing almost half of the potential production of an agricultural landscape in denmark because the agriculture has not been developed from a natural point of view a natural science point of view to carbon cap maximizing carbon capture but in order to promote some specific products that was valuable for the market and wars and things have developed there the agriculture so now we could think about developing it from a natural science point of view and therefore we have been doing some different scenarios of how danish agriculture could develop into 2030 and 50 where we have some goals to fulfill and we did business as usual just doing more of what we have been doing for a while they're using more and more of the manure for biogas and the straw for different energy purposes we've been combusting a lot of our store but now we're using more and more of it for for biogas and that we could do more but then we have optimized in the biomass scenario a lot of agricultural parameters like changing from less effective crops into more effective crops to increase the source the size of the cake that we can share the total biomass also we can choose some varieties of grain crops that have more straw without compromising the grain yield and there are many many small things that we can do then we also because this is maybe too much productivity we also have an extensification scenario where we have much more focus on nature as you saw we have very little nature in denmark and there are some eu regulations also to increase that so so this is the focus of the third scenario and then we also uh addressed the elephant in the room the animal production which is starting to becoming more and more debated in denmark whether we should do something or not let the market rule or not but at least it would be nice to see what it means um this is just one slide to show what could happen in a danish landscape if we would try to fulfill the european water framework directive by increasing the production of grassland in the most nitrate sensitive areas then the more dark the color the more annual crops have to be changed into grasslands and you see north of copenhagen everything has to be changed into grassland because there's so little um brain crops already so and there's a big challenge to fulfill the water framework uh directive in that area but otherwise it's around the fjords in the western part of the country that we have the main challenge and we can do a lot by increasing uh grassland area and then quick and dirty the the results from a long um story on on our scenarios there as you can see or i can tell you that today we are producing primary products of that can be eaten by animals or humans in danish agriculture of something like 15 16 million tons of dry matter then we use bio resources for energy and other material purposes like two to three million tons today then our scenario shows that we could you produce and use another maybe 10 million tonnes without compromising environment and climate i haven't got the time to to go into those details but that's something we also calculated um and then there's a lot of variation uh between the scenarios but you can see we could also take the extensification scenario with much more nature without losing the opportunity to still produce much more biomass for for the buyer economy we have allowed an exchange on our import export from with the scenarios um today we import a lot of soil as you can see in the reference 2015-19 but on the other hand we export some uh some grain that changes in the different scenarios but but it also shows that we could we could reduce that import of soil significantly even in some scenarios total
2022-09-26 17:14
