Partner Search Request: Economic observatory as instrument for developing bioethanol production from innovative sugar crops in small-medium scale plants, Italy

The EU transport sector accounts for more than 30% of the total energy consumption in the Community. It is 98% dependent on fossil fuel with a high share of imports and thus extremely vulnerable to any market disturbance.

The growing transport sector is considered to be one of the main reasons for EU failing to meet the Kyoto targets. On the contrary the EU has a significant potential for the production of biofuels and in particular bioethanol. It is estimated that 4-13% of the total agricultural land in the EU would be needed to produce the amount of biofuels to reach the level of liquid fossil fuel replacement required for the transport sector in the Directive 2003/30/EC. However a multitude of different barriers currently exist, hampering the development of international bioenergy trade. These include economic, technical, logistical, ecological, social, cognitive, legal, and trade barriers, lack of clear international accounting rules and statistics, and issues regarding land availability, deforestation, energy balances, potential conflicts with food production and local use vs. international trade.

On these basis the project aims to study non-technological barriers that actually oppose the development of bioethanol production and use, focusing on:

1. trade barriers in order to create an observatory for international energy crops trade. The observatory aims to:
   1. monitor prices of: bioethanol crops, by-products that aliment feed-chains, energy, oil;
   2. analyse energy and agricultural policies;
   3. employ scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis methodologies in order to forecast trends for market and trade of bioethanol.
2. information barriers creating a network between buyers and suppliers of small and medium scale plants. The workpackage aims to stimulate innovative sugar crops, e.g. sweet sorghum and Jerusalem artichoke. These crops results particularly interesting from a sustainability point of view:
   1. improving economic sustainability. By-products availability is abundant. Energetic valorisation of by-products is produced through direct combustion in cogeneration unit or gasification or pelletisation or anaerobic digestion. Its high availability and versatility permit to improve significantly the energy balance of the transformation process.
   2. Improving environmental sustainability. Sweet sorghum and Jerusalem artichoke are usually transformed in small-medium scale bioethanol plants. In fact fresh biomass is hardly preservable and transportable due the high content in sugar (10-20 % w/w) and water (65-80 % w/w) and therefore the transformation plant should be localised nearby fields (maximal distance estimated in 45-50 km) avoiding long distance transport.
   3. Improving social sustainability. Small-medium scale plants localised nearby bioenergy crops field aim to involve the rural sector not only as supplier of raw material but also as transformer. In this manner small bioenergy chains may increase.
3. social barriers assessing socio-economic impacts and professional profiles;
4. cultural barriers analysing the impact on agricultural sector, in particular focusing on conflict with food production, land use and biomass by-products.

Keywords: bioethanol, international bioenergy crops trade, bioethanol transformation plants, bioethanol distribution, scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis

Contact: Francesca VISINTIN, Researcher - francesca.visintin@ceta.ts.it

Expiry Date: 24/08/2008

The Expiry Date is automatically set to 1 year after the date the partner search form was completed unless otherwise specified by the contact

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