The REFUEL project (January 2006 – May 2008) was an activity designed to encourage a greater market penetration of biofuels. To help achieve this goal, the project has developed a biofuels roadmap consistent with EU biofuel policies and supported by stakeholders involved in the biofuels field. REFUEL is co-financed by the European Commission under the ‘Intelligent Energy – Europe’ programme.
The work, carried out by a consortium of seven European research institutes
with complementary know-how and competencies, comprises:
- quantification of biomass potentials for biofuels for the EU27 plus Ukraine, Norway and Switzerland (EU27+);
- compilation of different scenario's regarding land use in the EU27+ and the subsequent technical and economic potentials for biomass production for biofuels;
- design and construction, using techno-economic market models, of alternative biofuels scenarios together with the corresponding supply chain and market structure;
- analyses of the impacts on the supply side, the larger socio-economic effects, costs and benefits of alternative biofuels scenarios; and
- definition of policies in support of an ambitious European biofuel scenario together with a framework for legislation, fiscal regimes and fuel standards and norms.
The IIASA Land Use Change and Agriculture Program's part of the research has concentrated on
- establishing a spatially detailed and consistent REFUEL land resources database for EU27+;
- a detailed assessment of technical and economic biomass production potentials for the EU27+;
- scenarios of agricultural land potentially available for biofuel agro-feedstocks, incorporating economic factors, land-use, energy- and agricultural policy combining in a coherent manner a number of key drivers.
RESULTS
Results have recently been published in a special
issue of the journal ‘Biomass
and Bioenergy’ including the following papers with contribution from LUC researchers:
- Günther Fischer, Sylvia Prieler, Harrij van Velthuizen, Sander M. Lensink, Marc Londo, Marc de Wit. Biofuel production potentials in Europe: Sustainable use of cultivated land and pastures. Part I: Land productivity potentials. Biomass and Bioenergy. Volume 34, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 159-172. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2009.07.008.
- Günther Fischer, Sylvia Prieler, Harrij van Velthuizen, Göran Berndes, André Faaij, Marc Londo, Marc de Wit. Biofuel production potentials in Europe: Sustainable use of cultivated land and pastures, Part II: Land use scenarios. Biomass and Bioenergy, Volume 34, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 173-187. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2009.07.009.
- Marc Londo, Sander Lensink, André Wakker, Günther Fischer, Sylvia Prieler, Harrij van Velthuizen, Marc de Wit, André Faaij, MartinJunginger, Göran Berndes, Julia Hansson, Andrea Egeskog, Henrik Duer, Jeppe Lundbaek, Grzegorz Wisniewski, Adam Kupczyk, Kurt Könighofer. The REFUEL EU road map for biofuels in transport: Application of the project's tools to some short-term policy issues. Biomass and Bioenergy. Volume 34, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 244-250. doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2009.07.005
Responsible for this page:
Elisabeth Kawczynski
Last updated:
09 Feb 2010
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