Summary statement.

A summary statement from the conference will be published on this home page within a month. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of Biomass and Bioenergy, May - June 1998.

Background

Biofuels are frequently referred to as a carbon dioxide neutral source of energy and a switch from fossil fuels to biofuels thus implies greatly reduced emissions of carbon dioxide. For an implementation we must know when biofuels are an economically viable option and under what conditions and to what extent biofuels really are carbon dioxide neutral. As far as possible, the conference will address these issues based on successful examples of introducing solid biofuels. The conference starts with the whole production chain and then emphasizes important links of this chain. Papers are invited under the following general topics.

Topics pursued

Systems considerations of full energy production chains based on biofuels. In what contexts are biofuels economically viable and/or what carbon dioxide benefits may be expected?
Economics of biofuels; cost effectiveness and transaction costs in relation to biofuels. - Carbon dioxide and other environmental impact of parts of the production chains of biofuels.
Twenty presentations were made on the topics above.

Organization

The conference was organized by:

The Department of Forest-Industry-Market Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Belgian Biomass Association
Joanneum Research, Austria
The conference was organized within the EU funded ALTENER project "Evaluating Biofuels as a Means of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Mitigation"and within IEA Bioenergy Task XV "Greenhouse Gas Balances of Bioenergy Systems".

For more information, please contact:

Folke.Bohlin@sims.slu.se

Folke Bohlin, P.O. Box 7054, S-75007 Uppsala, SWEDEN

Telephone: 46-18-673521 Telefax: 46-18-673522