02/16/2023

Too valuable for car and heating

The bioeconomy can be a central building block for the transformation of our largely coal, oil and gas-based economy. However, renewable raw materials and synthetic carbon compounds are scarce and expensive. They should be used in areas such as the chemical industry – and not as an energy source. For the transition from the fossil economy to the bioeconomy to succeed, fossil carbon must also become more expensive. ifeu now presents the results of four landmark studies.

"Carbon compounds are still needed in the chemical industry and, in the medium term, also in parts of the transport sector. Here we can use biomass and other renewable carbon sources for chemicals, bio-based products or fuels and thus replace fossil carbon in the form of oil and gas," says ifeu project manager Dr. Heiko Keller. "Bioeconomy provides much more than fuels from agricultural biomass," adds Nils Rettenmaier, also project manager and expert for biomass and bioeconomy at ifeu. However, the resources of the bioeconomy are a scarce commodity. Cultivation areas for renewable raw materials are limited by food production and the protection of biodiversity. Such cultivated biomass cannot cover the long-term need for carbon any more than biogenic residues.

Read the full press release (in German)