Policy & legislation

The Netherlands

In 2020, renewable energy resources have to provide for a 10% share of the energy demand in the Netherlands. Within the Dutch sustainable energy policy an important role is foreseen for the application of biomass and waste. About 50% of the policy target has to be realized by waste and biomass.

For the long term (2040) the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs has proposed a biomass vision within the   energy transition activities, declaring that 30% of the fossil fuels in the power and    transportation sectors, and 20‑45% of the fossil-based raw materials in the chemical industry have to be substituted by biomass.

Biomass forms the basis for renewable energy carriers and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Compared to the other renewable energy sources, such as wind and sun, biomass has the advantage that stored solar energy can be used at any time.

The use of biomass for the production of transportation fuels, gaseous energy carriers and to a lesser extent power, CHP and heat is still more costly than the use of conventional fossil fuel derived resources.

 

Europe

The basis for much EU policy on renewable energy traces its origins back to the highly influential Commission White Paper ‘Energy for the Future: Renewable Sources of Energy’ published in December 1997. A directive on the promotion of the electricity produced from renewable energy source in the internal electricity market was adopted on the 27th September 2001. The overall indicative target of the directive is to increase the share of renewable energy production to 12% of total energy use and of renewable electricity production to 22% of total electricity consumption in 2010. The directive holds indicative targets for the share of renewable electricity production per EU Member State.

A new European directive adopted on the 17th May 2003 aims to substantially increase the use of biofuels for transport, and in particular for road transport. National measures are to be taken by countries across the EU aiming at replacing 5.75 % of all transport fossil fuels (petrol and diesel) with biofuels by 2010. A great weakness of the directive is that its targets are only indicative and not mandatory, which has led to low compliance so far among Member States.

 

The United States of America

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