Bio-based products are expected to replace materials produced from petroleum in the future. However, the environmental benefits are not as great as one might expect.
A bio-based economy is the dream of many environmentally conscious people, and it is also the objective of European policy – keyword “Green Deal”: Instead of fossil raw materials, on which energy supply and production of goods, renewable raw materials should become the material basis of our lives in the future. Just as it was for thousands of years, but today with advanced technologies.
Countless new biomaterials have been and are being developed in research laboratories, but so far almost none of them have been put into practice – mainly for reasons of price. Furthermore, it is repeatedly questioned whether a complete replacement of fossil raw materials makes sense from an ecological point of view. Bio-based products also have a variety of impacts on the environment, causing emissions and waste.
An international group of researchers led by Emma Zuiderveen (Radboud University, Nijmegen) has now compiled life cycle analysis data from 130 studies for 98 bio-based products currently in development – from bioplastics and basic chemicals to biolubricants and wax esters to lignin powder and tannin glues. On the one hand, the result shows that greenhouse gas emissions from biological alternatives are, on average, 45 percent lower. On the other hand, the different technologies present a very large dispersion – from less than 83 to more than 35 percent; and not a single technology creates “zero emissions”. “Bio-based solutions do not guarantee a reduction in emissions”, is the central conclusion of the researchers (Nature Communications, December 21).
The real disadvantage when it comes to bio-based materials are the raw materials themselves: biomass is a renewable resource, but not inexhaustible. On the contrary, its production competes with areas destined for human and animal food or with natural reserves. And this competition is increasing: according to a current study by the EU Joint Research Center (“Supply and uses of biomass in the EU”; EUR 31727 EN), biomass production in Europe – currently around one billion tonnes of dry matter – is growing steadily. EU researchers note that biomass can only support the “Green Deal” “to a certain extent”.
Simply replacing fossil fuels with bio-based raw materials does not work – many more changes are needed in our economic system.
The author headed the research department at “Presse” and is now a science communicator at AIT.
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