Nätverket GAME gör löpande bevakning av EU:s FoU-satsningar inom hållbar utveckling och verkar för att Västsverige skall bli en betydande deltagare i EU:s forskningsprogram. Att delta kan vara av stor betydelse för hållbar utveckling i Västsverige och kan att stärka både samhälle, näringsliv och forskning.
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Bioeconomy Observatory started
A JRC coordinated Bioeconomy Observatory will monitor progress of the sustainable conversion of biological material and waste – from agriculture, forestry and livestock farming – into raw material and industrial products, including energy. Operational as of March 2013, it will follow the evolution of markets and map regional, national and EU policies, research and innovation capacities, as well as the scale of related public and private investments.
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JRC report on biofuels
The increased demand from 10% biofuels in year 2020 would lead to an increased generation of co-products, replacing conventional fodder for animal feed. Considering the co-products, the land used for bioenergy would range between 8.8 Mha and 15.0 Mha in 2020 in the various scenarios. This represent between 7.9% and 13.3% of the total arable land used in the EU.
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Stories from the biobased economy
A collection of short films tell the story of how biobased innovation is contributing to a more sustainable, competitive and prosperous Europe. They show how the sector is successfully tackling food and energy security, climate change and resource efficiency, whilst creating jobs, regenerating industries and reviving rural communities.
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Chalmers research break-through
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed an integrated motor drive and battery charger that shortens the charging time for electric vehicles from eight to two hours, cutting the typical cost of charging from $2000 to “close to zero, ideally”, said Saeid Haghbin, a postdoctoral research fellow at Chalmers. “If we manage to solve the main problems with the battery and the battery chargers, I think the electric vehicles will succeed.”
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European Bioplastics
European Bioplastics has published data demonstrating that less than 0.006 percent of global agricultural area is currently required to grow feedstock for the bioplastics industry. According to the trade organization, the finding is based on figures sourced from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and calculations made by the University of Hannover’s Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites.
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Hybrid Car Sales Set For Explosive Growth
Sales of electric cars are set to fall far short of official expectations, according to a new report commissioned by the RAC Foundation which says 20 to 50 per cent of cars sold in 2030 could be hybrids. The Committee on Climate Change has previously said it would be “feasible and desirable”, to have up to 1.7 million fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2020.Most industry analysts predict the number will be significantly lower.
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Quest To Be The First Oil-Free Nation
Famous for Volvo, Ikea and Absolut Vodka, Sweden is now on a new pursuit to become the first completely oil-free economy in the world by 2020. The oil crisis in the early 1970s forced Sweden to embark on a quest for alternative energy sources. Its phasing out of oil has proceeded smoothly; in 1970, oil accounted for 77% of Sweden’s energy, but by 2003 that figure fell to 32%.
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The fuel of the future
Drax, in Britain and one of Europe’s largest coal-fired power stations, said it would convert three of its six boilers to burn wood. This energy will get a subsidy, called a renewable obligation certificate, paid on top of the market price for electricity. With incentives like these, European firms are scouring the Earth for wood. Europe does not produce enough timber to meet that extra demand. Prices are going through the roof.
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Smart Grid Project for a Greener Future
The UK’s largest ‘smart grid’ project has completed the first stage of its research into electricity consumption after establishing a series of ongoing trials with 12,000 customers. The £54m Customer-Led Network Revolution project is testing a number of innovative solutions to ensure Britain’s electricity networks are fit for the future and ready for the mass uptake of low carbon technologies, such as solar PV, heat pumps and electric vehicles. Läs mer =>
Falkenberg, a leading Concerto project
The EU CONCERTO initiative has presented a database of major construction and retrofitting projects being carried out in 58 European municipalities. One of them is Falkenberg, which aims to cut its energy consumption of 1/4 within the CONCERTO core area, by using different techniques of Energy Efficiency (EE) and new methods of clean energy production. Läs mer =>
Finland takes the biorefinery lead
The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, which requires that renewable energy should account for at least 10% of the energy used in traffic by 2020, is creating a boom in biorefinery projects in Finland. There are currently more than EUR 1 billion worth of biorefinery projects underway or planned in Finland. If all the planned projects are realised the production of biofuels in Finland will increase to almost one million tons annually. This would cover 12-20% of Finland’s total traffic fuel needs. Läs mer =>
Europe in 2030
The European Commission took last week the first step towards developing a 2030 framework for EU climate change and energy policies. The Commission also adopted a report assessing the EU and Member States’ progress towards their 2020 renewable energy targets and on the sustainability of biofuels and bioliquids consumed in the EU. Läs mer =>
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Energy efficiency in buildings
New business models with performance-based contracts are a key challenge for achieving energy efficiency in buildings, according to Ger Maas from Royal BAM Group, the Netherlands. “This happens in other industries, such as the food sector, why not in buildings and the built environment?” Read more about it in the free book ‘ICT Roadmap for Energy Efficient Buildings – Research and Actions’
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Efficient energy for cultural heritage
Historic buildings are the trademark of numerous European cities, towns and villages: The project 3ENCULT bridges the gap between conservation of historic buildings and climate protection, which is not an antagonism at all: historic buildings will only survive if maintained as living space. Energy efficient retrofit is useful for structural protection as well as for comfort reasons – comfort for users and “comfort” for heritage collections.
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Biocore, a biorefinery concept
The EU project BIOCORE will conceive and analyse the industrial feasibility of a biorefinery concept that will allow the conversion of cereal by-products (straws etc), forestry residues and short rotation woody crops into a wide spectrum of products including 2nd generation biofuels, chemical intermediates, polymers and materials. Through the development of a range of polymer building blocks, BIOCORE will show how 70% of today’s polymers can be derived from biomass.
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Renewable diesel
UPM Biofuels received the Sustainable Biofuels Award due to its success in developing an innovative production process for an advanced renewable diesel, BioVerno. UPM was the winner because of the product characteristics corresponding to traditional fuel with the greenhouse gas emissions being reduced by up to 80%.
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Success stories
Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, launches a low-carbon contest, calling on creative and innovative minds from across the EU to put their green initiatives to the test. The World You Like Challenge is part of the European Commission’s climate action campaign: A world you like.
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Emission allowances for innovations
The European Commission awarded in December over €1.2 billion to 23 highly innovative renewable energy demonstration projects under the first call for proposals for the so-called NER300 funding programme.
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Hur går det för bioekonomin?
Europeiska kommissionen kommer att inrätta ett observationsorgan som ska kartlägga utvecklingen och mäta effekterna av EU:s bioekonomi.Man ska samla uppgifter om marknadsutvecklingen och kartlägga EU:s, medlemsstaternas och regionernas bioekonomiska strategier, deras forsknings- och innovationskapacitet och hur stora deras offentliga och privata investeringar på detta område är. Läs mer =>
Indirect biofuels emissions
Projections that feedstock-based biofuels will indirectly cause net greenhouse gas emissions in the future have been confirmed by preliminary results from two new studies of past land use change.
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Smart City Management
The Spanish company Indra has designed an Urban Interoperability Platform to integrate and manage all services and solutions comprising at city ecosystem. This management centre aids different systems to exchange information so as to offer a comprehensive activity overview.
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Smart windfarms
Wind farms with a capacity of over one gigawatt of power – to be used over large surface areas – slow down the atmospheric boundary layer, the lowest portion of the troposphere, reducing their performance. An EU-funded project, ACTIVEWINDFARMS address the issue.
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A new intelligent call
Intelligent Energy – Europe (IEE) supports EU energy efficiency and renewable energy policies, with a view to reaching the EU 2020 targets (20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 20% of renewables in EU energy consumption).
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Smart and Safe Batteries
The objective of SmartBatt project is to develop and proof an innovative, multifunctional, light and safe concept of an energy storage system which is integrated in the pure electric car’s structure. The main challenges of this smart integration are the combination of lightweight design with a high safety.
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Drones for environment monitoring
A team of researchers of the Public University of Navarre has developed a technique that enables the processing in real time of 3-D images to be improved. This research into stereoscopic vision has applications in monitoring of the environment in vehicles (unmanned planes and helicopters, vehicles, etc.).
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BAT for heating and cooling
The JRC/ SETIS published a report that maps the “Best available technologies (BAT) for the heat and cooling market in the European Union”. The selection of the BATs was carried out by an interdisciplinary expert team, with experts from the JRC, Bio Intelligence Services, and the Danish Technological Institute.
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A new Environment Action Programme
Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said: “We cannot wait until the economic crisis is over before we tackle the resources, environmental and climate crises. We must address all these at the same time and therefore include climate and environmental concerns into all our policies.”
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Reach; Betweenness; Closeness
The City Form Lab has released a state-of-the-art toolbox for urban network analysis. The tools are aimed at professionals who are interested in studying the spatial configurations of cities, and their related social, economic, and environmental processes
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Smart Cities and Communities
In July 2012, the European Commission launched the Smart Cities and Communities European Innovation Partnership. The partnership proposes to pool resources to support the demonstration of energy, transport and information and communication technologies (ICT) in urban areas.
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Ubiquitous sensing
The potential with nano processors is to enable smart systems that consume very little energy, and coupled with energy harvesting essentially run forever – autonomously, remotely and without a battery. Thus, transforming the socio-economic wellbeing of the European citizen, from reducing traffic congestion and to smart power grids to improved water and air quality monitoring.
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Is the Cloud bad for the Climate?
European researchers are developing a new microprocessor for use in data centres that uses 10% of the energy that chips currently consume. But this saving is cancelled out by the fact that accessing data on the Cloud uses ten times more energy than doing the same task on a PC, as revealed by new analysis.
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EU meet its target
The United Kingdom cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than any other European country in 2011, over-achieving on targets under the Kyoto protocol on climate change. The EU as a whole will meet its target.
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No new EU climate targets
No new carbon dioxide emissions reductions targets for 2030 will be announced until after the next EU parliamentary elections in 2014. “The time is not there,” says Jos Delbeke, the European Commission’s director general for climate. “We will have to be clear on 2030 early in the next Commission period, and that means 2015 or 2016.”
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What Exactly Is A Smart City?
Before you start pushing for smarter cities, it helps to know exactly what you’re advocating for. While some people continue to take a narrow view of smart cities by seeing them as places that make better use of ICT, others view smart cities as a broad, integrated approach to improving the efficiency of city operations, the quality of life for its citizens, and growing the local economy.
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Long life batteries
New German made super-coolant called CryoSolplus can keep EV batteries operating at optimum efficiency even in extreme temperature. This is very good and timely news for the electric car industry since extreme heat (and cold) can be the bane of batteries reducing battery life and efficiency by a substantial amount perhaps as high as 50%.
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Energy Efficiency Directive
EU ministers placed the last piece of the 20-20-20 climate puzzle, agreed in 2007, by throwing their weight behind the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive. The next step for member states is to present their national indicative targets by April 2013. If the Commission does not find the targets satisfactory – reaching the overall 20% by 2020 energy efficiency goal – then member states will be required to re-assess their plans and send another proposal to the Commission or risk penalties.
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Be Prepared
has been the official Scout motto since 1907; a new tool will help city planners do just this in preparing cities to face changing weather patterns, and in creating more sustainable cities. The instrument in question is a web-based planning, prediction and training tool, which can be used to support decisions in long-term urban planning.
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Energy efficiency in historical city centre
SPIN-Energy efficiency & urban development planning project has recently started its activities in Ukraine. The pilot actions are intended to help local actors remove technical and administrative obstacles, improve competences while learning innovative and advanced solutions, and reinforce partnerships among local and regional authorities, experts and companies.
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Green cars, or brown?
It is projected that by 2015, a fully-electrified Nissan Leaf would emit 20 grams of CO2 (g/km) if driven in nuclear energy-reliant France, but 114 g/km in the decidedly less green fields of the UK. Charged in coal-dependent Poland or Luxembourg at approximately 130 g/km – the same as the EU standard for cars in 2015. If we want to have a European market for electric vehicles then for environmental consistency, we have to have a progressive decarbonisation of the grid across Europe.
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Energy Efficiency Directive
“It’s no secret that member states bullied the Commission into watering down the directive before and during the negotiations. ” Riley said that member states have already organised themselves in two, almost secretive, working group – one technical, the ‘Concerted Action Energy Services Directive’, and one political, the ‘Energy Demand Management Committee’.
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