News
October 2011: Within the BfN-sponsored project “Implementation of biodiversity targets in sustainable bioenergy use“, the Öko-Institut in cooperation with the Dutch Agentschap NL and the Swedish Energy Agenvy held the Joint Workshop on Extending the RED Sustainability Requirements to Solid (and Gaseous) Bioenergy on October 12, 2011 in Brussels. The presentations and further information is given here.
August 2011 - A UNEP-Report finds that bioenergy’s water demands are in large part linked with the cultivation and processing of feedstocks, such as crops, which in turn have important implications for sustainable agriculture, land use and food production: Available at http://www.unep.fr/energy/bioenergy/documents/pdf/waternexus_summary.pdf (with contributions by Öko-Institut and IEA Bioenergy)
January 2011 - Indirect Land Use Change and Biofuels;
Fritsche, Uwe/Wiegmann, Kirsten; study prepared for the European
Parliament's Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety;
IP/A/ENVI/ST/2010-15; Brussels
December 2010 - "Development of strategies and sustainability standards for the certification of biomass for international trade" a Project on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency (Germany) - The summarizing final report is now available http://www.uba.de/uba-info-medien-e/3961.html
November 2010 Fritsche, Uwe R.: What would it
take to unlock the full potential of biofuels?
A contribution to the Comment:Visions online discussion
August 2010: Fritsche, Uwe R., Hennenberg, Klaus, Huenecke, Katja: The “iLUC Factor” as a Means to Hedge Risks of GHG Emissions from Indirect Land Use Change; Working Paper of the project "Bio-global: Sustainability Standards for internationally traded Biomass“ sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Environment through the German Federal Environment Agency; Darmstadt: Öko-Institut 2010 PDF 434 kB or http://www.oeko.de/oekodoc/1030/2010-082-en.pdf
Information on our new biomass EU projects under http://www.biomassfutures.eu/ and http://www.crops2industry.eu/
Dec 2009 - Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15: Renewable Energy Technology Deployment Side Event: Presentation by Uwe Fritsche "Better Use of Biomass for Energy" PDF-Document (900 kB) and the position paper by Uwe Fritsche for IEA RETD & IEA Biomass PDF-Document (400 kB)
December 2009: Öko-Institut conducted the sub-project "GTZ-Project for the Practical Implementation of the BioSt-NachV - Subproject Spatial Requirements (Art. 4-7 + 10)". The sub-project is part of a joint project lead by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Environment (BMU). Research papers prepared within the sub-project can be found here
Information on the International Workshop "Aquatic Biomass: Sustainable energy from Algae?" held at the UBA in Berlin on November 2, 2009 Agenda 52 kB - further reports and presentations please find under http://www.bioenergywiki.net/Sus_BioAlgae
Information on the "2nd Joint International Workshop on Bioenergy,
Biodiversity Mapping and Degraded Lands" in Paris July 2009 please see:
http://www.bioenergywiki.net/index.php/2nd_Joint_International_Workshop_Mapping
May 2009: GBEP Workshop on Indirect Land Use Change (iLUC) on 15th May 2009 in New York: information with background documents, presentations and list of participants http://www.globalbioenergy.org/events1/gbep-events-2009/other-events-2009/en/
March 2009: A summary of present results from the project "Development of Strategies and Sustainability Standards for the Certification inter internationally traded Biomass" can be found under http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/3741.pdf
March 2008: WIREC Side Event: Sustainability Criteria for Biomass
January 2008: Brussels Workshop 'Sustainability requirements for biofuels - German Perspectives'
Our report for WWF is now available: Sustainability Standards for Bioenergy (PDF 1,5 MB)
"How much bioenergy can Europe produce without harming the environment?" The EEA Report No 7/2006 is now available, please see http://org.eea.europa.eu/news/Ann1149688459/index_html and http://reports.eea.europa.eu/eea_report_2006_7/en/eea_report_7_2006.pdf - Our background paper "Environmentally compatible biomass potential from agriculture"was also published
//reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2007_12/en/Estimating_the_environmentally_compatible_bio-energy_potential_from_agriculture.pdf
Additionally there is a EEA background paper on wood to be found for download:
http://biodiversity-chm.eea.europa.eu/information/database/forests/EEA_Bio_Energy_10-01-2007_low.pdfnergy_10-01-2007_low.pdf
Publication in "entwicklung und ländlicher raum 2006": Europe: a new market for biofuel exports or a vibrant competitor? (PDF 517 kB)
Publication in "entwicklung und ländlicher raum 2006": Potential challenges and risks of bio-energy production for developing countries (PDF 637 kB)
Publication in "entwicklung und ländlicher raum 2006": Is Brazilian biofuels experience a model for other developing countries? (PDF 1286 kB)
Potentials for sustainable bioenergy in Europe - "Potenziale für nachhaltige Bioenergie in Europa": Öko-Institut and european partners in connection with Topic Center Air and Climate Change of the EEA work together on an analysis of sustainable bioenergy. The report will be available mid June 2006 onthe website of www.eea.europa.eu
Öko-Institut and several partners work on different follow-up projects:
- Naturschutz bei der Biogasnutzung (sorry, only in German)
- Potenziale und Hemmnisse der nachhaltigen Biogasnutzung (sorry, only in German)
- Restraints and acceptance of bioenergy - (Hemmnisse und Akzeptanz von Bioenergie als Teilfrage des EU-Projekts) Create Acceptance
Criteria for Assessing Environmental, Economic, and Social Aspects of Biofuels in Developing Countries in ecological, social, and economic terms
This expertise was produced in order to contribute to the ongoing debate on the economic, development, climate and energy policy dimensions of biofuel imports, e.g. from Brazil, and the associated consequences for the environment, industry and local populations. This work was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The paper can be found on our website under reseach results
Bioenergy - New Growth For Germany - our brochure is now available here and in print: please order directly at BMU by email (service@bmu.bund.de) - it is free of charge.
The project has been successfully completed and was presented on May 4th, 2004 in Berlin at a BMU Press conference.
Several presentations are already available in German - please see 'Präsentationen' on the German website.
Eva-Maria Schmidtlein leaves TU Munich-Weihenstephan, and - therefore - also the project. We wish the very best for here future career, and are grateful for here work in the project. As of June, Sonja Simon starts to work in the Munich team.
The matrix for biomass technologies in the project is given (in German) in download
Various reports, and studies on biomass energy prepared by the project partners, are now available for download
The University of Dortmund, and FICHTNER are now subcontractors to the project - we welcome Joachim Neumann, and Sandra Osowksi as well as Birgit Jahraus to the team (see contacts)
For more details, see project info.