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REACHING CARBON NEUTRALITY BY 2050 René Venendaal – CEO BTG Biomass Technology Group, The Netherlands
A bioenergy industry perspective towards carbon neutrality and how to address the refining sector.
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ith the Green Deal, the European Commission has set as target to be climate neutral by 2050, in line with the commitment to the Paris agreement. As the Green Deal is presented as a ‘New Growth Strategy’, it also offers plenty of opportunities for the European bioenergy industry. Total greenhouse gas emissions in 18 Be
the EU are in the order of magnitude of 4 billion ton annually1. This includes international aviation and maritime, indirect emissions and excludes LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry). Parties under the EU-ETS scheme (the 11,000 bigger emitting parties in the power sector, industrial plants and airlines) emit about 45% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in
terms of CO2-equivalents annually2. An interesting sector is the oil refining sector, responsible for a significant part of the greenhouse gas emissions. The European demand for oil products in 2018 was almost 640 million tons and the refinery throughput was about the same3. Ten years earlier the demand was about
