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Through a comprehensive analysis of regulatory, technological, and societal trends, Sia Partner has forecasted how biofuel and bioplastic production capacities will evolve by 2050 in Europe
Europe has a leading role in biorefining as a result of its dedicated national bioeconomy strategies and agricultural resources. Through a comprehensive analysis of regulatory, technological, and societal trends, Sia Partner has forecasted how biofuel and bioplastic production capacities will evolve by 2050 in Europe.
Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 will require countries, industries and citizens to reduce, recycle and replace fossil-based products across all economic sectors and modes of use. This transformation must be anticipated to lead to opportunities in the energy transition and sovereignty in Europe. Within this context, the study examines the markets of biofuels and bioplastics as they represent the most promising bio-based products for the foreseeable future. This is due to their high potential for growth in terms of incorporation rates, as well as their increasing global demand.
Over the last decade, the bioeconomy has thrived in Europe with the overall bio-based market growing by over 40%. The three main drivers of the bioeconomy in Europe are:
Feedstock availability: Europe has a large diversity of agricultural resources that ensure a certain level of self-sufficiency to produce bioplastics and biofuels, which represent a minimal share in the use of agricultural resources (3%).
Price stability: Europe can count on a reliable supply of feedstocks at a stable price point that is twice as consistent as oil. This will help meet the growing demand for bio-based products.
Environmental benefits: Most bio-based products have lower GHG emissions than fossil-based products, and they can be reduced even more depending on the processes and feedstocks used.
The drivers of the bioeconomy in Europe must be challenged by the growth of bio-based demand in the coming decades and by the need for advanced technologies with greater environmental benefits. In this context, the competitiveness of Europe is affected by 3 trends:
Sia Partners has developed a top-down modelling tool to quantify the evolution of European biorefining by 2050 and investigate key parameters:
Based on the ambitious assumptions of absolute sovereignty (no importation of biofuel and bioplastics) three scenarios were drawn with different rates of deployment of advanced generation (2G+) technologies encouraged by incentives from European governments: conservative scenario, supportive scenario and advanced scenario. To qualify the benefits of biorefining and advanced technologies of production in the fuel and plastic sectors, 5 key parameters were measured for each of these scenarios:
The Supportive scenario would allow significant changes in the European economy and strongly contribute to environmental objectives but would require major agricultural and technological developments to use other resources of feedstocks. Sia Partners proposes three main levers to achieve the challenges of the European demand of biofuel and bioplastics in 2050.
Sia partners recommendations for the oil industry and bio-based industry players.
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