We look back on a first successful Biomassafeiten theme day ‘The future of bio-raw materials in the Netherlands’, which was held on March 2 at the Green Chemistry Campus in Bergen op Zoom.
The reason for this event was ‘Green Energy Day’, the day on which all green energy in the Netherlands is consumed. We have been able to run entirely on green energy for two months now, which is largely due to the use of biomass.
During this theme day, we looked at the use of bio-raw materials in a broad perspective and discussed the possibilities & challenges with each other.
The event was held at the Green Chemistry Campus in Bergen op Zoom. A place that is an incubator where entrepreneurs, governments and knowledge institutions work on scaling up biobased and circular innovations.
At this special location, people from the business community, government and non-profit organizations gathered to attend this theme day.
Jeroen de Lange of Green Chemistry Campus welcomed the guests and briefly explained what the Green Chemistry Campus stands for.
John Bouterse gave a presentation about the Biomassafeiten campaign, what has been done and achieved so far and what else they want to do. Good to hear that almost everyone in the room visits and/or comes across Biomassafeiten.nl on the various social media channels.
Simon Klingen has been walking in the woods for more than forty years. He is an authority in the field of forest management in the Netherlands and Flanders.
He explained in an entertaining but also clear presentation what the situation is with the forests in the Netherlands. Why or not to cut down, the growth of forests in the Netherlands and the importance of good forest management.
The third presentation came from Dries Vansteenkiste of BioGrowth Development about the sustainability and complexity of biomass.
The demand and availability were made clear on the basis of figures. Availability will increase in the Netherlands until 2050. BioGrowth’s services were also discussed and which projects they have already realized in the world.
After the break, two applications for the National Growth Fund were presented.
Edwin Hamoen from Biobased Circular was the first speaker after the break. The ambition of BioBased Circular is to set up a new Dutch industry branch that produces circular biopolymers / plastic materials on a large scale. They want to do this by realizing two large demos, setting up R&D and pilot facilities, setting up instruments for relevant technological and non-technological research and a Human Capital agenda for training at university, higher vocational education and secondary vocational education level.
Yannic Wevers gave us an explanation about FutureCarbonNL. The objective of FutureCarbonNL is to set up a leading CCU carbon tech sector in NL. They want to realize development and demonstration in the Netherlands. To enable deployment of CCU processes abroad and in the Netherlands (where this makes sense in terms of energy availability, geostrategic independence).
After these presentations there was a fascinating panel discussion where availability vs applications were discussed.
Time flew by, there was enough material to talk about for a long time.
John Bouterse closed this afternoon on behalf of Biomass Facts and thanked Green Chemistry Campus for their hospitality, Platform Bio Economie and RBCN for their support.
