Future bioenergy options in the EU

Other conference contribution, 2006

An increased use of bioenergy is at present being promoted in the EU. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether different policy objectives underlying the promotion of bioenergy in EU25 (cost-effective climate change mitigation, employment creation and reduced dependency on imported fuels) agree on which bioenergy options that should be used. An energy- and transport-system model is combined with supplementary analysis. The analysis show that the different policy objectives do not seem to agree on the order of priority among bioenergy options. The maximization of climate benefits cost-effectively prescribes the use of lignocellulosic biomass in the stationary sector, while maximization of employment creation requires biofuels for transport based on traditional agricultural crops. From a security-of-supply perspective, the priority among bioenergy options depends on how oil and gas import dependencies are weighed, relative to each other. Thus, there are tradeoffs that need to be addressed by policymakers promoting the use of bioenergy. The importance of bioenergy in relation to employment creation and fuel import dependency reduction needs to be further addressed.