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This report discusses optimal use of biomass in Western Europe for greenhouse gas emission mitigation. The analysis is based on the MARKAL MATTER 4.2 energy and materials systems engineering model. The results show that biomass strategies can contribute up to 400 Mt CO2 equivalents of emission reduction in 2030. Biomass use for transportation fuels and feedstocks, energy recovery from waste and afforestation seem the most promising options. Biomass use for energy and materials will increase from 250 Mt in the base case to 600 Mt in case of 75% emission reduction in 2030. Based on the modelling results it is recommended to apply generic pricing instruments, provide a long-term policy target to all market parties and avoid premature technology selection.

This project has been funded by the European Commission, DG Research, n the framework of the 4th framework programme as part of the Environment and Climate programme. This contribution is gratefully acknowledged. ECN has contributed its own co-funding. The EU project no. is ENV4-CT97-0572. The ECN project number is 7.7125.

We would like to express our thanks to a number of people who have contributed to this project, but who are not part of the list of authors of this report. Dr. Jürgen Büsing, the responsible officer at DG Research, has been very constructive in the project management, the formulation of conclusions and the dissemination of the results. Ad Seebregts, ECN Policy Studies, has developed the project Internet site. More than 10 biomass experts from ECN-Biomass have contributed in the characterisation of energy technologies. The bulk of the model input data for biomass has been collected by our project partners at the National Technical University of Athens (Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Koukios and Nick Diamantidis) and by the Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products in Hamburg (Dr. Mohammed Scharai-Rad, Dr. Volker Sasse, Dr. Hans Welling and Lutz Speckels). Finally this report was benefited significantly by comments during an expert review workshop in Brussels

See also Task 7: Energy technology characterization and MATTER site and BRED study.