"Wood Makes Comeback as a Fuel" - IHT New York Times

1 May - As interest in wood pellets is increasing, the Task 40 report, Global Wood Pellet Industry Market and Trade Study [6,186 KB] , has attracted the attention of International Herald Tribune / New York times. The article "Wood Makes Comeback as a Fuel" published in IHT New York Time on 1 May has made extensive use of the Task 40 report, and IEA Bioenergy Task 40 was explicitly mentioned in the article. This article by Kate Galbraith also interviewed a few experts, including the Task Leader of IEA Task 40, Dr. Martin Junginger. Click here to go to the article

Country report 2011

1 May - Country report 2011 for Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States are now available.

Prospective study: Implementation of sustainability requirements for biofuels and bioenergy and related issues for markets and trade

14 March - With all public debate in the past years on potential unsustainable consequences of biomass use for energy (or biofuels), the growth of bioenergy currently goes together with the implementation of a variety of sustainability systems, both mandatory and voluntary. This report [1,002 KB] focuses on the implementation of mandatory sustainability requirements for biomass (liquid, solid and gaseous), and evaluates and summarises the experiences and issues seen or expected both for commercial and administrative actors on the basis of public information, partly provided by T40 members through a questionnaire.


IEA Bioenergy Task 40 Newsletter Issue 1, February 2012

In February 2012, Task 40 newsletter 2012/01 February 2012 [885 KB] was distributed. In case you would like to subscribe to the newsletter, please use this link. It can also be used to unsubscribe from the newsletter.

Developing market of energy biomass - Local and global perspectives

9 February - The thesis [292 KB] explores global and national-level issues related to the development of markets for biomass for energy. The thesis consists of five separate papers and provides insights on selected issues. The aim of Paper I was to identify methodological and statistical challenges in assessing international solid and liquid biofuels trade and provide an overview of the Finnish situation with respect to the status of international solid and liquid biofuels trade. The purpose of Paper II was to provide a quantified insight into Finnish prospects for meeting the national 2020 renewable energy targets and concurrently becoming a largescale producer of forest-biomass-based second-generation biofuels for feeding increasing demand in European markets. Paper III summarises the global status of international solid and liquid biofuels trade as illuminated by several separate sources. The objective of Paper V was to clarify the alternative scenarios for the international biomass market until 2020 and identify the underlying steps needed toward a wellfunctioning and sustainable market for biomass for energy purposes.


Workshop in Berlin, Germany: Biomethane trade

24 January - The workshop “Biomethane Trade” took place on the 24th of January 2012 as part of the conference “Fuels of the future” at the International Conference Center (ICC) in Berlin, Germany. It was jointly organized by IEA Bioenergy Task 40, the funding program of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety “Biomass Energy Use” and the Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR), and the German Bioenergy Assosiation (BBE).
Summary of the workshop
Download the presentation and full programs


Global Wood Pellet Industry Market and Trade Study

31 December - This report [6,186 KB] presents the wood pellet industry and market in Europe and North America. It also includes perspectives of domestic use and trade of wood pellets in emerging markets (Asia and Latin America) and the challenges to ensure a sustainable pellet trade.


Upcoming Task 40 workshop on biomethane trade!

1 December -The workshop will be on January 24th 2012 in Berlin, and will focus on international biomethane trade.


Development of a tool to model European biomass trade - Report for IEA Bioenergy Task 40

1 December - This report [4,736 KB] presents the results of an effort for IEA Bioenergy Task 40 to develop a modelling tool for international biomass trade. Part of this work has also been done in the frame of the RE-Shaping project, and parts of the methodology and the results have also been published as a RE-Shaping deliverable (Hoefnagels, Junginger et al. 2011). In addition, the scenarios for International solid biomass imports were originally developed for the European Commission (Junginger, 2011).

The main aim of this report is to illustrate the approach to include logistic cost of biomass in an energy model and implications to supply and demand of biomass for bioenergy. The costs, as presented in this report, are not intended to and do not always reflect actual (fluctuating) prices of feedstocks, pre-processing and transport of bulk freight.


Joint workshop in Campinas, Brazil: Quantifying and managing land use effects of bioenergy - presentations available for download

6 October - Tasks 38, 40 and 43 jointly organized a workshop on land use effects of bioenergy in Campinas, Brazil on September 19-21 2011. This workshop aimed to bring together state-of-the-art research assessing the impacts of the increasing allocation of land use to dedicated energy crops (e.g. land-use related GHG emissions, and impacts on biodiversity and environment), and providing strategies to mitigate them. Please download the final program [659 KB] with details on the program (including a list of all oral presentations and poster presentations and all abstracts), field trips, hotels, logistics etc. The presentations are now also available for download.


Presentations of the Biotrade equity fund workshop available

14 July - All presentations shown at the Biotrade equity fund workshop held last June in Brussels, Belgium are now available for download.


ExCo65 workshop 'Developing Sustainable Trade in Bioenergy' publication

16 June - The IEA Bioenergy ExCo publication 'Developing Sustainable Trade in Bioenergy', to which Task 40 heaviliy contributed, is now available for download on the IEA Bioenergy website.


Summary, synthesis and conclusions from IEA Bioenergy Task 40 country reports on international bioenergy trade

4 April - Based on the experiences in the Task 40 member countries, this report [252 KB] shows how bioenergy trade has developed during the past 6 years in the member countries, and how it has contributed to increasing bioenergy production and utilisation. Between 2004 and 2007, the absolute amount and share of bioenergy in the total primary energy supply has increased in all countries except for Canada, the US and Norway. In some countries, the increase has been substantial, e.g. doubling in Belgium and Germany. International bioenergy trade has played an important role in this increase: summed up over all Task 40 countries, the total trade volume of both imports and exports has increased by about a factor of 2 between 2004 and 2007. The increase was mainly due to a strongly rising trade in liquid biofuels (164% increase in total imports, 172% increase in exports), while the trade in solid biomass increased more moderately but still significantly (51% and 16%). More details, including policy and market drivers and concise descriptions of the developments in each member country are also included in the report.

A reliable supply of biomass and a reliable demand for bio energy is vital to develop stable market activities, aimed at bioenergy trade. Task 40, under the IEA Bioenergy Agreement, contributes to the development of sustainable biomass markets on short and on long term and on different scale levels (from regional to global). The future vision of this task on global biomass trade is that it develops over time into a real “commodity market” which will secure supply and demand in a sustainable way; sustainability brings a key factor for long-term security.

These webpages provide information about the activities of task 40 and its members. For an overview, see our work programme, the Task 40 leaflet [483 KB] and our latest Task 40 newsletter. The Task is lead by Andre Faaij (Copernicus Institute / Utrecht University) and Peter-Paul Schouwenberg (RWE-Essent), assisted by Martin Junginger (Utrecht University).

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions regarding this website, please contact Martin Junginger (h.m.junginger@uu.nl) or Chun Sheng Goh (c.s.goh@uu.nl)