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Plenary Sessions Preview by
Heinz A. Ossenbrink
Former Head of Unit of European Commission,
Joint Research Centre, EUBCE ExCo Member, ITALY
The EUBCE 2025 is only 4 weeks away, and we hope you have already registered. To water your appetite to participate and join us in Valencia, we bring you today a “sneak” preview of the plenary talks we scheduled for you on Monday, June 9th, and Tuesday, June 10th.
We have three major strands of the EUBCE covered by these plenary sessions, the resources, the policies and the development of intermediate carriers. The plenary presentations are reasonable generic and address to the non-specialized audience, so whatever is your speciality, it will be worthwhile to attend all of them.
Preview Monday & Tuesday
Biomass Availability Perspectives for Bioenergy and Bioeconomy
Plenary Session AP1 - Monday 13.45-14.45
The very first plenary talk on Monday afternoon is titled “Can Agriculture in 2050 Source Enough Biomass for the Bioeconomy?” and given by Berien Elbersen from Wageningen Environmental Research in the Netherlands. The title already points to the pressing question of everyone engaged in bioenergy or bioenergy at large: There should be enough for us all? (Quote from the song “Rive Runs Red”, by Midnight Oil, 1990). Whether or not, and at which conditions or sacrifice, the team from Wageningen will certainly offer you some well justified and elaborated answers. They analysed all agricultural land according to its present and future use to assess trade-offs or synergies between a sustainability goal and biomass production for the bioeconomy. Not surprisingly, the study calls for effective territorial instruments.
 Another modeling of future biomass availability is presented under the title “The Role of Biofuels and Bioenergy in the Decarbonisation of the EU Energy System: insights from the POTEnCIA model”. The team of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (Italy and Spain) will report on alternative pathways for the EU’s Energy system. This model predominantly includes the pathways for energy use of biomass, suggesting a significant increase of advanced biofuel consumption by 2050. It will be interesting to learn from the presentation by Marco Buffi to which extent bioenergy together with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) will contribute to the final 2050 zero-carbon goal, when bioenergy will continue to play a significant role in electricity and heat generation.
The last plenary talk of this session on Biomass availability will be given by Walter Zegada-Lizarazu who looks in detail on the production feedstock for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). This biofuel product sees currently a remarkable increase, since airlines are now required to gradually decrease their CO2 footprint. The team of the University of Bologna (Italy) proposes in their talk titled “Designing Mixed-Cropping Alternatives for the Production of Suitable Feedstock for SAF” to source much of the required feedstock from agricultural byproducts of a mixed set of crops. From the abstract it appears that there is a positive effect on the growth of monocrops, when grown in combination with legume species rather than oilseed crops. Still at a relative low technology level, it promises to assist in the foreseeable difficulty in supplying sustainable feedstock for the tremendous anticipated growth of SAF use.
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Policies and Sustainability
Plenary Session BP1 - Tuesday 10:15-11:30
We are coming now to the first plenary session on Tuesday morning, which will highlight the policies in place or being necessary for a sustainable bioeconomy, with focus on the crucial aspects of sustainability and accountability within the bio-based industry, particularly concerning biofuels and growing media. We start with the scene-setter given by of Politecnico Torino (Italy), titled “Biomass to Carbon Accounting: Exploiting EU Policies Towards a Common Approach on Sustainable Biofuels”.
 The common approach which is proposed here considers the multiplicity of uses of biomass, regarding the climate goals in transport. The presentation will explain what difference it makes to apply carbon accounting either by the volume-based or the footprint calculation. David Chiaramonti promises to present some examples, and we are sure that you can profit from some important take-aways.
In the context of footprint accounting, it will be of major importance to establish not only a harmonized approach but also standards to certify the calculation, as it constitutes an important economical factor when it comes to subsidies or penalties in national implementation. It will be very interesting to listen, therefore, to the talk “International Certification for Sustainable Growing Media”, which will be given by Julia Ostrowski of MEO Carbon Solutions (Germany), a consultancy organisation specialized on environmentally and socially responsible supply chains. The talk will explain HORTICERT, a scheme under which companies have the possibility to decide whether they want to certify the entire quantity of raw materials, growing medium components, or growing media produced, or only a partial quantity. We will hear details on how HORTICERT calculates the carbons footprint, which allows for statements on the greenhouse gas savings of peat-free and peat-reduced growing media.
The last plenary talk of this session is titled “Revisiting Energy Transition: How Brazil's Bioenergy Successes Defy Conventional Timelines”. The motivation for this talk lies in an assessment of how innovation in biomass technologies can drive the progress towards the energy transition, which is very heterogenous across different countries. Suani Coelho from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) will present quite a few examples, comparing the very advanced use of biomass with the traditional one. It certainly depends on the context and the will, but the talk anticipates how the wide spectrum of biomass usage will contribute to the emission reduction when a pro-active policy reaches out to biomethane, 2nd generation bio-ethanol, sustainable aviation and maritime fuels. As Brazil is a good example for a decided and long-term strategy on biomass, we probably all can learn from the presentation.
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Recent Trends on Developing Intermediate Bioenergy Carriers and Sustainable Biofuels
Plenary Session BP.2 - Tuesday 13:45-14:45
Our third plenary, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, gives some examples of the vast development which is taking place on intermediate carriers. Why “intermediate”? Well, a lot of processed biomasses can serve for many different uses, in particular when directly replacing petrol-based liquids, solids, and gases. Emphasis is given on talks which valorise waste streams with high efficiency, a largely untapped potential.
 Consequently, the first plenary “Hybrid Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production: Integrating E-SAF And Bio-SAF Pathways to Maximize Carbon Efficiency” sets the scene for the fasted growing bio-liquid sector. The team of CANMET Canada combines bio-SAF production through biomass gasification followed by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, Marzouk Benali will explain how such a hybrid solution could enable the scalable production of SAF, the authors claim, and anticipate to solve at least partially the challenge of limited biomass resources and the need for carbon-efficient fuel production.
The next talk will be by Edoardo Tito of the team of Politecnico Torino (Italy), titled “Valorization of Digestate from OFMSW through Hydrothermal Liquefaction”. They propose to enhance the current, well-established treatment of organic-fraction solid municipal waste (OFSMW) by an additional hydrothermal liquefaction. They will demonstrate the advantage by this process when compared to the conventional approach, as it can convert the digestate into biocrude as a suitable substitute for petrol-based fuel oil.
At the end of this session, we will listen to research on biorefineries. “Novel Sn, Ti, and Nb Containing Mixed Oxides as Catalysts for the Valorization of Biorefinery Aqueous Side Streams” is the not very catchy title of the very last talk. Alberto Fernández-Arroyo Naranjo will report how the group of Instituto Tecnología Química (Spain) attempts to increase the efficiency of biomass refinery by using a new catalyst which is made from co-precipitated transition-metal oxides (Sn, Ti and Nb). The advantage would be their superior performance in aqueous effluents as obtained in a fast pyrolysis process. Moreover, these novel catalysts would reduce water consumption during liquid-liquid separation steps of bio-oils.
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Technical Tour
Join us for an exclusive technical tour organized as part of EUBCE 2025, featuring two leading innovation centers in a single, seamlessly coordinated itinerary.
Participants will have the opportunity to visit:
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AIMPLAS – a benchmark in polymer innovation and circular economy solutions.
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AINIA – one of Europe’s foremost technology centers in food, bioeconomy, and sustainability.
Spaces are limited and will be allocated to EUBCE delegates on a first come – first served basis.
Looking Ahead to EUBCE 2025
Building on the success of previous editions, EUBCE 2025 is expected to convene a similar, if not more diverse, array of participants. The conference will continue to serve as a platform for sharing cutting-edge research, innovative technologies, and policy developments in the biomass sector.
See who is attending
To stay updated on conference details, regularly check the official EUBCE website at www.eubce.com.
If you're considering attending or exhibiting at EUBCE 2025 and need assistance with registration, accommodation, or networking opportunities, feel free to ask!
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