Biomass and Energy Crops can provide feedstocks for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), green manufacturing and construction materials. Biomass and Energy Crops are therefore important for not only renewable energy and transport fuels, but also for the decarbonisation of agriculture and other industries.
In response to the urgency of the climate emergency, biomass and energy crops are becoming an important part of the portfolio of negative emissions technologies, needed for meeting net zero targets. As a result, the size of the Biomass and Energy Crop community has significantly expanded in recent years. For example, in the UK this has been through the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme, the Greenhouse Gas Removal Demonstrator Programme, the Supergen Bioenergy Hub and the AI for Net Zero Programme.
Our objective is to bring together researchers from these communities in the UK along with researchers involved in similar international programmes, and importantly industrialists and policymakers, to exchange ideas and foster closer collaboration, and to thereby ensure that Biomass and Energy Crops can fulfill their potential for people and planet.
The conference provides an ideal forum for researchers, agricultural advisors, bioenergy industry representatives, policy makers and research funders, NGO’s and environmental organisations to meet and discuss the state of the art in Biomass and Energy Crops, and how these crops can be optimised and sustainably scaled up.
This event includes standard talks but also the opportunity to visit energy crop experiments and demonstrations at IBERS including one of the Biomass Connect Hub site demonstrating different energy crops and varieties.