IEA Bioenergy organized and participated in the session Waste & Residue valorisation in a circular economy at the IEA Bioenergy Conference 2021, where examples of promising waste-to-energy systems and conversion routes were presented.

The IEA Bioenergy Conference 2021 – a critical part of the path to carbon neutrality was held online between the 29th of November and the 9th of December and the central theme of the conference was the role of biomass in the transition towards a carbon neutral society.

IEA Bioenergy Task 36 had a significant contribution in the session “Waste and residue valorisation in a circular economy” held on the 6th of December and focused on the role of bioenergy from waste and residues in a circular economy through examples of modern waste-to-energy systems and future promising conversion routes such as gasification.

Task 36 leader, Inge Johansson (RISE), moderated the session; Daniel Roberts (CSIRO) Australia’s national team leader summarized the work of Task 36 during the 2019-2021 triennium; while Mar Edo (RISE, Sweden), task member, talked about importance of social acceptance in WtE projects (Task 36 case study). In addition, Michel Chornet (Enerkem, Canada) presented technologies about syngas-to-biofuels and Jikta Hrbek (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria) focused on gasification routes for wastes. The session got good attention and had a total of 301 participants.

Highlights from the session:

The trend to move from a linear towards a more circular economy, processing of unrecyclable waste fractions is no longer only about producing power and/or heat. There are real gains in emerging pathways, such as chemical recycling via gasification.

Chemical recycling of waste can lead to low carbon intensity transport fuels or circular chemicals. Enerkem has developed their technology (gasification of waste, followed by methanol or ethanol production) in the past 20 years and is now in commercial roll-out.