Bio-Based Economy

Course goals

• understand the technical, economic and societal possibilities and limitations of biomass to substitute fossil fuels for the production of energy, chemicals and materials, including the complexity of determining the ideal use/cascade of biomass for materials and energy 
• explain the main sustainability challenges that are linked to the production and use of biomass, including the possible contribution that biomass use for energy, chemicals and materials can make to mitigate climate change
• discuss the main uncertainties concerning the opportunities and risks of a BBE, and the related issues to concerning economic and/or environmental policy strategies.

Content

Biomass is an important feedstock to produce food, fodder, materials and energy. Given the environmental concerns of fossil fuel use for the production of materials and as energy carrier, the use of biomass is expected to strongly increase in the coming decades as a feedstock for the bio-based economy. However, developing the bio-based economy is not straightforward: (1) there are limited amounts of feedstock and potential (environmental and other) impacts of feedstock production and biomass use; (2) there are a large-number of possible applications and end-uses; and (3) the (currently often unfavorable) economics compared to fossil fuels make deployment difficult. The course examines the potential deployment of biomass (for a biobased economy) from a system perspective, from feedstock production until final use. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach thereby looking at the physical, technical, economic, environmental and policy aspects involved on the deployment / transition towards a biobased economy.
 
Topics that will be treated during the course include:

• Overview of the historic and current biobased economy in the Netherlands, Europe and the world, including traditional and new uses of biomass for energy and materials;
• EU and global biomass potentials (current – 2100) and key factors determining this potential (including overall land-use patterns and agricultural productivity);
• The role of biomass logistic chains (including pretreatment & storage strategies) and how to optimize them;
• Current and future biochemical and thermochemical conversion routes from various biomass feedstocks to energy carriers and materials and the related types of biorefineries (including integrated bio-refinery concepts);
• Overview of possible end uses of biomass for energy (electricity; heat; road, aviation and marine transport fuels) and materials (including biobased plastics, bulk and fine chemicals, advanced fibers and building materials etc.);
• GHG performance of biomass use for energy and materials, including life-cycle chain emissions (including recycling), land-use change effects and temporal effects (carbon debt and parity concepts);
• Cascading and links with the circular economy concept;
• Other potential environmental benefits and impacts of biomass use for energy and materials;
• Overview of past and current policy strategies to promote and  govern sustainable biomass production and use;
• Micro-economic perspectives and socio-economic aspects of a biobased economy.

Note
This course is especially recommended for students that want to write their MSc thesis on BBE-related topics.