Seminar on the ”Status of the Bioeconomy in Norway”
What are the features of the bioeconomy as a global trend, and will Europe be able to compete? Are we ready for synthetic biotechnology in manufacturing? What are the options for designing a Bio-based economy for Norway? These where the main topics for discussion during a half day seminar conveying policymakers and international experts at Oslo Science Park, on September 2nd.
The seminar was kicked off by the head of the bio-based industries department at Innovation Norway, Inger Solberg. Innovation Norway has launched a Bioeconomy inititive aiming at supporting the development of bio-based innovative industries in Norway. The Initiative essentially focuses on creating well-functioning value chains, market development, the production and processing industries, and on cooperation between sectors and disciplines. The initiative is also to support regional development by providing grants and loans to bio-based companies in rural areas.
Increasingly over the last ten years, governments around the globe are directing their attention on how to meet the potentials of the bioeconomy. There are now over 30 countries in the world which have published bioeconomy strategies or plans. James Philp, an official in the OECD, gave a presentation on the future challenges of the bioeconomy in Europe. He stressed that Europe was risking lagging behind its global competitors, despite the efforts and political attention that the bioeconomy is receiving, not least since the launch of the EU Bioeconomy Action plan in 2012. He highlighted the need to strengthen investor confidence, reduce feedstock costs, ensuring continuity of policy initiatives and the role of investing in demonstration of technologies as some of the main challenges for developing a competitive European bioeconomy. He urged European policymakers to look at initiatives taken in the USA, and mentioned in particular the BioPreferred programme led by the US Department of Agriculture as a successful instrument aiming at increasing the purchase and use of biobased products.[1] The crisis in the European chemistry industry was mentioned as a great challenge that was potentially a threat to a large loss of employment in the coming years. Moreover, James Philp talked about the technological potentials and the policy issues of the emerging field of synthetic biology. In a recent publication the OECD describes synthetic biology as addressing a wide range of industry sectors and types of applications. According to the OECD, synthetic biology has the potential of bringing efficiency to manufacturing (e.g. low production volume, high-value medicines and high volume, relatively low-cost transport fuels) and help meet bioeconomy objectives such as reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, food and energy security. Several countries are now creating roadmaps to advance these technologies (e.g. “A synthetic biology roadmap for the UK”). [2]
Dr. Michael Carus from the Nova institute in Germany, presented options for developing a bioeconomy in Norway. Wood, fish waste and algae were mentioned as promising feedstock for building the Norwegian bioeconomy. Moreover, Dr Carus, made a special case for the potential to use carbon dioxide as feed to develop sustainable aviation fuel by utilising cheap hydroelectricity. He furthermore did not see the Norwegian agricultural sector as a driver for the Norwegian bioeconomy as it appeared difficult to compete with raw material prices with heavily subsidised agriculture. Bioplastics was on the other hand seen to represent interesting commercial opportunities, and several countries are investing in this area. The “hot-spots” of the bioeconomy in Europe are currently France, Italy and Finland which are the countries currently investing the most in biobased sectors. Italy, despite lacking a national strategy in this field, was praised as having come far in developing a bioeconomy. The role of private sector investments has been crucial for Italy’s success.
Johan Sanders from the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, talked about the opportunities and challenges of small-scale biorefining. His main message focused on the importance of reducing capital cost in order to speed up innovation and profit from biorefineries. In this context, small-scale biorefineries have the potential to reduce capital costs significantly compared to large-scale facilities which requiring high capital costs, including considerable transportation costs.
At the end of the seminar, Thomas Malla, from the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries presented an update on the Norwegian bioeconomy strategy process. The bioeconomy is one of the priority sectors of the Norwegian government and a national strategy will be presented late 2015 or early 2016.
Innovation Norway and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries hosted the seminar jointly.
The presentations from the seminar can be downloaded from the Government’s webpage
[1] Read more: http://www.biopreferred.gov/BioPreferred/faces/pages/AboutBioPreferred.xhtml
[2] Read more: Emerging Policy issues in Synthetic Biology, OECD, Paris.
Note: Picture source: Creating a Discussion: Canvas Orientation – RTC Faculty
