BiowalkforBiofuels FP7 Project annual meeting

Project description The world energy demand is expected to rise 60% by 2030; oil consumption has increased by 20% since 1994, while the European Union import dependency has reached almost 54% of its energy requirements in 2006. Land filling of biowaste is one of the major sources of methane emissions in Europe, contributing to 2% of GHG emissions in 2007 in the European Union (EU). Biodegradable waste that is land filled should be reduced to 35% of 1995 levels by 2016 according to the EC Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC). Direct and indirect green-house gas emissions (GHG) from industries are currently at about 12 GtCO2-eq. The Council Directive 91/676/EEC, has underlined the need to control the reduction of water pollution caused by nitrates from wastes to protect human health, living resources and aquatic ecosystems. Additionally attention is being focused on the treatment of biowaste, which requires strong support from EU legislation to address difficulties in their direct utilisation, cost-efficiency and its output product pollution. Moreover, the need to focus on ‘non-food’ energy crops for the production of 2nd generation biofuels and develop cost-efficient solutions has been revealed and underlined in the recent report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. In fact, currently, the production of biogas is principally carried out through anaerobic fermentation of (mixed) cereal crops. The European Council, after the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali December 2007, set two ambitious key tar-gets: a reduction of 20% of greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2020; and a 20% share of renewable energies in EU energy consumption by 2020. Hence, the need to further explore new sources of alternative renewable energy and ground-breaking solutions to reduce GHG emissions becomes of the utmost importance. Hence, it appears fundamental to improve the know-how about a “new” biofuel production, in particular regarding 2nd generation biofuels. In order to face this new challenge, this project, “Biowaste and Algae Knowledge for the Production of 2nd Generation Biofuels” will showcase a multidisciplinary approach for biowaste to be used as a feedstock and algae as a catalyst for producing biofuels.