In Joensuu, a city in Eastern Finland often described as the ‘Forest Capital of Europe,’ the largest torrefaction factory on the continent is nearing completion. (Torrefaction is a thermal process that degrades organic material into a renewable energy source.)When the factory becomes operational in a few months’ time, it will be capable of producing 60,000 tons per year of a novel biofuel known as NextFuel briquettes, and its construction is regarded as a giant leap forward for a fuel source with the potential to transform industries as diverse as cement, power generation, and perhaps eventually, aviation.
NextFuel’s factory that is being built in Finland.NextFuelBiofuels have been on the agenda at the past week’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29). According to next year’s host Brazil, a country where biofuels in the form of ethanol already make up 25 per cent of all transportation fuels, the continued expansion of biofuels will play a key role in their stated aims to reduce carbon emissions by 67% over the next 11 years compared with 2005 levels.
While Brazil is yet to give concrete examples of additional biofuels which could be used alongside ethanol, it is hoped that liquefied biofuels will continue to displace oil, and various companies have been pioneering new innovations in this sector. One example is the company CoverCress, which received an investment from my team at Leaps in 2015 and is now majority owned by Bayer. Using advanced breeding and gene editing tools, CoverCress has developed a method of transforming field pennycress from a weed into a new cash crop, enabling it to be harvested and crushed into a seed oil that can then be turned into a renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.
Torrefaction is another process that is gaining attention as a way to harvest biofuels because it turns solid biomass into a coal-like substance. Last year, global coal consumption reached a record high of 8.7 billion tons, and finding viable alternatives remains a major hurdle in the push for Net Zero. “The biggest advantage of torrefaction is that it produces this fuel which can be used in similar infrastructure to coal, while it’s also easy to transport and store,” says Wei-Hsin Chen, a researcher at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, who has published various reviews examining the potential of torrefaction.
An Energy Breakthrough
So far, torrefaction’s applications have been relatively limited, mainly because most projects have relied on wood pellets as the dominant source of biomass. While it is impossible for many countries to obtain the vast volumes of waste wood needed to replace coal, the majority of climate scientists and environmentalists are heavily opposed to the burning of wood for energy. As well as being less energy efficient than coal in terms of power, wood actually emits 18% more CO2 for every KWh of energy generated.
But in 2016, a company called NextFuel, which was established as a S