In the quest for a sustainable future, energy-intensive industries (EIIs) stand at the forefront of Europe’s decarbonisation mission. Despite their significant emissions footprint, the path to comprehensive decarbonisation remains elusive at EU and national levels. This study scrutinises key sectors such as non-ferrous metals, steel, cement, lime, chemicals, fertilisers, ceramics, and glass. It maps out their current environmental impact and potential for mitigation through innovative strategies. The analysis spans across Spain, Greece, Germany, and the Netherlands, highlighting sector-specific ecosystems and the technological breakthroughs shaping them. It addresses the urgency for the industry-wide adoption of electrification, the utilisation of green hydrogen, biomass, bio-based or synthetic fuels, and the deployment of carbon capture utilisation and storage to ensure a smooth transition. Investment decisions in EIIs will depend on predictable economic and regulatory landscapes. This analysis discusses the risks associated with continued investment in high-emission technologies, which may lead to premature decommissioning and significant economic repercussions. It presents a dichotomy: invest in climate-neutral technologies now or face the closure and offshoring of operations later, with consequences for employment. This open discussion concludes that while the technology for near-complete climate neutrality in EIIs exists and is rapidly advancing, the higher costs compared to conventional methods pose a significant barrier. Without the ability to pass these costs to consumers, the adoption of such technologies is stifled. Therefore, it calls for decisive political commitment to support the industry’s transition, ensuring a greener, more resilient future for Europe’s industrial backbone.
The present review provides a catalogue of relevant renewable energy (RE) technologies currently available (regarding the 2030 scope) and to be available in the transition towards 2050 for the decarbonisation of Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs). RE solutions have been classified into technologies based on the use of renewable electricity and those used to produce heat for multiple industrial processes. Electrification will be key thanks to the gradual decrease in renewable power prices and the conversion of natural-gas-dependent processes. Industrial processes that are not eligible for electrification will still need a form of renewable heat. Among them, the following have been identified: concentrating solar power, heat pumps, and geothermal energy. These can supply a broad range of needed temperatures. Biomass will be a key element not only in the decarbonisation of conventional combustion systems but also as a biofuel feedstock. Biomethane and green hydrogen are considered essential. Biomethane can allow a straightforward transition from fossil-based natural gas to renewable gas. Green hydrogen production technologies will be required to increase their maturity and availability in Europe (EU). EIIs’ decarbonisation will occur through the progressive use of an energy mix that allows EU industrial sectors to remain competitive on a global scale. Each industrial sector will require specific renewable energy solutions, especially the top greenhouse gas-emitting industries. This analysis has also been conceived as a starting point for discussions with potential decision makers to facilitate a more rapid transition of EIIs to full decarbonisation.
Bioenergy represents the highest share of renewable energies consumed in the European Union and is still expected to grow. This could be possible by exploring bioenergy production on Marginal, Underutilised, and Contaminated lands (MUC) that are not used for agricultural purposes and therefore, present no competition with food/feed production. In this paper, the viability and sustainability of bioenergy value chains on these lands is investigated and measures for market uptake were developed. Using three case study areas in Italy, Ukraine, and Germany, a screening of MUC lands was conducted, then an agronomic assessment was performed to determine the most promising crops. Then, techno-economic assessments followed by sustainability assessments were performed on selected value chains. This concept was then automated and expanded through the development of a webGIS tool. The tool is an online platform that allows users to locate MUC lands in Europe, to define a value chain through the selection of bioenergy crops and pathways, and to conduct sustainability assessments measuring a set of environmental, social, and economic sustainability indicators. The findings showed positive results in terms of profitability and greenhouse gas emissions for bioethanol production from willow in Ukraine, heat and power production from miscanthus, and biogas and chemicals production from grass in Germany. The webGIS tool is considered an important decision-making tool for stakeholders, which gives first insights on the viability and sustainability of bioenergy value chains.
This study aims at identifying underutilized land potentially suitable for bioenergy production in Europe by means of remote sensing time series analysis. The background is the Revised Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) requesting that 32% of Europe’s energy production shall come from renewable energy sources until 2030. In order to avoid the food versus fuel debate, we only considered land that has not been used in the previous five years. Satellite remote sensing is the only technique that allows for the assessment of the usage of land for such a long time span at the pan-European scale with reasonable efforts. We used Landsat 8 (L8) data for the full five year time period 2015–2019 and included additional Sentinel-2 (S2) data for 2018 and 2019. The analysis was based on a stratified approach for biogeographical regions and countries using Google Earth Engine. To our knowledge, this is the first work that employs high resolution time series data for pan-European mapping of underutilized land. The average patch size of underutilized land was found to be between 23.2 ha and 49.6 ha, depending on the biogeographical region. The results show an overall accuracy of more than 85% with a confidence interval (CI) of 1.55% at the 95% confidence level (CL). The classification suggests that at total of 5.3 million ha of underutilized land in Europe is potentially available for agricultural bioenergy production.
