by Gerardo Fortuna (EURACTIV.com) Scandinavian governments have raised the bar in their commitment to becoming carbon neutral and several companies have responded by developing new technologies to harness forest resources, widely recognised as the Nordic green gold, in a bid to reduce transport emissions.
Renowned worldwide for their cold weather and iconic timber, Sweden and Finland are now trying to build a reputation as leading countries in the fight to global warming, taking their climate commitments seriously.
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For a country with no gas nor oil resources, wood-based products and forest biomass have come to the Finns’ rescue in their attempt to decarbonise the transport sector, making use of the opportunity afforded by sustainable advanced biofuels.
Advanced or second-generation biofuels are manufactured from non-food biomass like forest residues or pulp and are listed in Annex IX of the Renewable Energy Directive.
In 2018, EU lawmakers overhauled the piece of legislation in order to set a 14% target for renewables in transport, 3.5% of which was reserved for advanced biofuels.
UPM, a major Finnish forest industry company, uncovered the potential of manufacturing biofuels in 2006, making their first investment decision in 2012 and started the production in 2015.
In its biorefinery in Lappeenranta, UPM produces 130,000 tons of renewable diesel and naphtha for road and maritime transportation from the residue of wood pulp, known as crude tall oil and listed in Annex IX part A of the revised RED.
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“First, technology. The Finnish oil company Neste had a special problem when Finnish import of oil was, for historical and political reasons, tied to import crude oil from the Soviet Union,” he (Nils Torvalds, Finnish MEP and rapporteur for the Biofuels directive in 2015) said.
He added that due to the high sulphur content of Soviet oil, the company decided to take a different path, investing in different kind of innovations.
The second reason is the presence of the raw material, namely by-products from forests or waste in Finland.
“Third, you need a market, which can be created either by a blending mandate on EU level or by tax policies of the member state,” he pointed out.
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According to a study commissioned by the prime minister’s office in 2018, Finland will need some 30% liquid biofuels in 2030 to meet a 50% emission reduction target in road transport.
A new biofuels obligation law was approved in March 2019, setting once again more ambitious targets on biofuels than those implied in the RED II.
The total energy share of biofuels in road transport was pencilled in at 30% by 2030, with a sub-target of 10% exclusively dedicated to advanced biofuels. Both targets are also single-counted. READ MORE