FORUM

Mr. Venendaal is CEO of BTG Biomass Technology Group BV, based in the Netherlands, and has been professionally active in the field of bioenergy and biofuels since 1991. Mr. Venendaal has been educated as chemical engineer (process technology) at Twente University (Prof. dr. ir. Wim van Swaaij). Parallel to this study, he completed a thesis on technology transfer at the faculty of Business Management, also at Twente University. Mr. Venendaal has an excellent overview of thermochemical processes and is well aware of what is going on in this field worldwide. He is very familiar with all the critical failure and success factors determining whether a technology can be (further) developed, scaled-up and commercialized eventually. He has been involved in many thermochemical technology development and commercialization processes worldwide, either through own spin-off companies or all types of external assignments.

Mr. Lars Waldheim (M. Sc. in Chemical Engineering) is a self-employed consultant based in Stockholm, Sweden, with clients representing industry, research organizations and agencies both inside and outside Sweden. He has a background in R&D in thermal conversion technologies for biomass and waste for the purpose of production of biofuels as well as for power and heat applications. He is an advisor to the Swedish national research program on gasification and the Swedish representative to the IEA Bioenergy task group on gasification. Prior to establishing himself as a consultant, he was one of the founders of TPS Termiska Processer AB where he managed the technical and commercial development of a proprietary biomass and waste gasification technology, also including the realization of two gasification plants at industrial scale. Prior to the formation of TPS he was a project manager at the national laboratory, Studsvik Energiteknik AB, engaged in gasification R&D at pilot plant including also engineering/application studies for CHP and biofuels.

Mr. Dario Giordano  is a Chemical Engineer by education, graduated at Polytechnic Of Turin in 1988. Named inventor in 19 patents on PET and on biomass conversion/biochemical production and author of multiple publications on Biomass conversion to Advanced Biofuels.Dario joined Mossi Ghisolfi  Group in 1990. Within Mossi Ghisolfi Group, he has had several positions: PET Production Technologist in Cobarr S.p.A.; Start-up Manager, Process Engineer and Technology Transfer Manager in Sinco Engineering S.p.A.; R&D Director of M&G Group and  CTO for Biochemtex S.p.a. Currently, he is member of the Mossi Ghisolfi Executive Committee (B.O.D) and Beta Renewables CEO.

Mr. Ilmari Lastikka is an Expert on EU Climate and Energy Policies linked to renewable energy and biofuels. He has a deep business understanding of oil refining, biofuels and bio refining industries and vast experience on sustainability related issues around fossil and biofuels, food crops and GHG life cycle assessment and sustainability certification. Mr. Lastikka has a long background in working with Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Intergovernmental organization on sustainability issues (IGOs). He is board member in European Biodiesel Board, Immediate Action Committee (IMC) member of FuelsEurope and member of Alliance on Synthetic and Paraffinic Fuel Europe. Among his competences is his proven track record in building cross industry initiatives and alliances. He is also an Expert in Communication and advocacy.

Dr. Arthur Wellinger is managing director of Triple E&M, an internationally operating consulting company located in Aadorf, Switzerland. Prior to Triple E&M, he was for 16 years’ founder and director of Nova Energie, a research and consulting company located in Switzerland. He is best known for his contributions in the development of AD processes for agricultural wastes, industrial and municipal waste water and MSW including gas upgrading utilities. He has also merits in coaching of industries and communities, teaching as well as policy making acting on national and European level. He is member of a number of national and international research committees and organizations. He is President of the Swiss Quality Assurance association for compost and digestate and managing Vice President of the Swiss Biomass Association (Biomasse Suisse). Until January 2014 he was founding president of the European Biogas Association (EBA).

Mr. Dekker holds a Master of Business Science from Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He worked as a Global Marketing Manager for Ciba Specialty Chemicals where he developed and implemented the flame retardants marketing strategy. Since 2007 he has been working in the biofuels market, and has close experience with the evolution and the structure of the industry, also developing the bio-methanol market. In 2014 he founded Conker, a company aimed at accelerating the development, production and application of advanced sustainable fuels. Together with the Methanol Institute, he has been actively working on the use of methanol as a diesel substitute in heavy vehicles for freight, buses and in the marine sector. Mr. Dekker, in order to ensure the fuel is renewable, he is working closely with various international stakeholders to accelerate the production of Power-to-X technologies, which is also an important strategy to enable Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU).

With a background in biology, Freya started her career in Future Fuels as one of the first employees of LanzaTech, working directly with LanzaTech’s gas fermentation process in the laboratory. She has firsthand experience of scaling and commercializing a new technology, from the R&D stage, through the challenges of fundraising and navigating the legislative environment to deploying new technologies to scale in globally. Today she leads the Government Relations and External Relations teams at LanzaTech and plays a key part in advocacy groups around the world focused on Circular Economy, Carbon Capture and Utilization, the Bioeconomy and Low Carbon Fuels. She interacts across multiple sectors supporting the commercialization of new low carbon technologies, including contributing to reports on scale up and impact and providing insights on what common issues impact the deployment of new technologies. Freya has an MA from Cambridge University.

Karlijn Arts serves as Policy and Sustainability Lead for SkyNRG- making sure that the social and environmental sustainability of their fuels can be guaranteed and that a solid policy framework is mobilized to accelerate the growth of the industry. Motivated to push the aviation industry to a greener tomorrow, she joined SkyNRG to accelerate this hard-to-abate sector three years ago. She has a background in the laws of war, international politics, conflict resolution and psychology, which enabled her to gain a thorough understanding of the complexity of reaching carbon neutrality in a sector which operates across many borders. She is an expert in renewable energy policies, carbon accounting methodologies, sustainability certification and feedstock assessments. She moderates their internal Sustainability Board, the Dutch Aviation Table on Sustainable Fuels and is closely involved with SkyNRG’s NGO network. Next to her activities at SkyNRG she is the Co-Founder of a renewable energy start-up and two foundations.

Mr. Eric van den Heuvel holds a University of Oxford, Saïd Business School (2011) Post-Graduate Diploma on Strategy and Innovation as well as Eindhoven University of Technology (1989) Masters Diploma on Technology Management in International Development and collaborates with EXERGIA in this project. He is a senior expert in the field of sustainable energy and mobility, with a focus on business strategy and innovation on biomass and waste/residues for energy and alternative transport fuels. He has over 25 years of management experience and a track record in building and leading international teams. Early 2015 he founded the independent advisory firm studio Gear Up, supporting organizations in the transition to a low carbon economy, by providing strategic advice, project management services and facilitating stakeholder involvement processes. He applies scenario planning tools to enhance strategic conversation among stakeholders to enable coping with turbulent market and policy environments. He is currently operating as ‘Quarter Maker’ for the establishment of a Platform for advanced sustainable biofuels (for use in road transport, shipping and aviation) in the Netherlands that has helped him to deal with non-technical issues, such as sustainability issues, regulatory settings, public dialogues in the process of new innovative technology developments.

Prof. Jean Michel Lavoie is a Full Professor and the Chairholder of the Industrial Research Chair on Cellulosic Ethanol and Biocommodities (CRIEC-B) at the Univeristé de Sherbrooke. This Chair is one of the largest and most well-funded group dedicated to biofuels in Canada with an average budget of 2-2.5M$ (CAN) per year, with a team of 50+ researchers and students. The Chair is dedicated to produce large scale infrastructure making proof of concept of different processes that his team and their industrial partners designed, such as the scaling up a cellulose process that has a capacity of 100 kL of second generation ethanol per year. At the same time he is also involved as the leader of the Gasification Project as well as of the Integrated Thermochemical Biorefinery Task Force in BioFuelNet, a NCE network funded by the Canadian government and linking all the major researchers in the field of biomass conversion in Canada. He was involved in many collaborative procedures either to link with Europe or with Israel and Brazil. He is a reviewer for many organisms in North America (USDA, NSERC, FRQNT, FCI, etc.) as well as many funding organisms across the world. He has sufficient credibility in Canada and abroad to act as a good cooperation facilitator between Canada and the EU.

Mr. Luc Pelkmans is Technical Coordinator of the IEA Bioenergy Technology Collaboration Programme. He promoted as master of science in mechanical engineering at KULeuven (Belgium) in 1994 and performed an additional programme of environmental technologies in 1995. He worked for the Belgian research institute VITO for 21 years, from 1996 until 2017. His early research focused on alternative motor fuels, development of hybrid electric drive trains and emission evaluation of new vehicle technologies in real-world circumstances. From 2008 his focus shifted to policy oriented studies, project implementation and sustainability analysis, mainly towards biofuels and bio-energy, and later also broadening to biobased economy. Luc gained important expertise on biofuels, bioenergy and other applications of biomass on international, European and national level, often also as project coordinator. Since 2008 Luc is involved in IEA Bioenergy, as Belgian representative in Task 40 (Sustainable Bioenergy Markets and Trade) and between 2012 and 2015 as the Belgian ExCo member. In January 2016 Luc took up the function of Technical Coordinator of IEA Bioenergy, on a half time basis, next to the VITO function of project manager biobased economy. Since 2016 he is also managing director of the consultancy firm CAPREA Sustainable Solutions.

Dr. Adam Brown is an independent consultant with more than 36 years of working with government and business on renewable energy and with a special interest in bioenergy. He is well versed in the technical, commercial, policy and regulatory issues surrounding their development and deployment. He has an up-to-date international perspective on issues affecting the sector globally, most recently through his work for the IEA where he has been responsible for assessment and analysis of renewable energy policy best practice as well leading on bioenergy. He was the lead author for an overall review of renewable energy policy effectiveness, covering electricity, heat and transport fuels (Deploying Renewables 2011) and led the production of the IEA Roadmaps on Biofuels for Transport (2011) and Bioenergy for Heat and Power (2012), and a review of renewable energy for heat (Heating without Global Warming) (2014) as well as many other projects. Previously he was the Technical Coordinator for the IEA Bioenergy Agreement. He has extensive project and team management experience gained through leading roles in large scale projects in the UK and internationally. He is an experienced speaker at international conferences and workshops.

Dr. Calliope Panoutsou holds a PhD from Aston University on strategic management in biomass systems and collaborates with EXERGIA in this project. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bioenergy Group of the Centre for Environmental Policy (Imperial College London) and the Chair of the European Biofuels Technology Platform (www.biofuelstp.eu) Working Group on Biomass availability and supply. Recent work related to renewable fuels policy and market issues includes market analysis for biofuels in EU and Member States within the Biomass Futures (www.biomassfutures.eu) project and integrated policy design for advanced biofuels within the recently finished (May 2016) Biomass Policies (www.biomasspolicies.eu) project. Other work assignments focus on supply, logistics & economic analyses of biomass value chains, market & policy analyses and assessment of sustainability for bioenergy systems. She has coordinated several EU projects involving multi-disciplinary research on bioenergy. She also acts as expert in EU bioenergy, biofuels and agriculture committees.

During his entire professional life, Mr Anders Röj has been active in the field of fuels and lubricants. For the last 30 years he worked as fuel expert within the Volvo Group (retired in 2019), coordinating internal and external fuel related activities and representing his company in numerous industry committees. Key topics have been general fuel quality issues and the relationship between fuels and emissions, as well as biofuels and other alternative fuels. Before joining Volvo in 1989 he spent almost 10 years working on refinery catalysts (with EKA/ Katalistiks BV) and on performance additives for fuels and lubricants (Exxon Chemicals). Anders has been a nominated Swedish expert in the European fuel standardisation (CEN) and he was member of the ACEA Working Group for Fuels and Lubricants for 28 years (chairman 2001-2016). Other long-term industry commitments include CEC, Coordinating Council for Performance Tests (chair 2013-2015), EUCAR Fuels Group and European Biofuels Technology Platform (nowadays ETIP Bioenergy). Anders chaired the BIOFRAC (Biofuels Research Council) activity, as initiated by DG Research and industry in 2004. The BIOFRAC report constituted the foundation of the Biofuels Platform as launched in 2006. Anders has a M.Sc degree in Chemical Engineering from Åbo Akademi Finland (1979) and Lic.Eng from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden (1984).

Nils-Olof Nylund (Research Professor Emeritus) has a Doctor of Technology degree in mechanical engineering (internal combustion engines). His current position is part-time Senior Advisor for Engines and Vehicles at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. He has been involved in several research programmes related to smart and sustainable mobility. Nylund has been working with alternative energies in transport since 1979, and has been involved in the IEA Technology Collaboration Programme on Advanced Motor Fuels since 1988. He is also member of the Steering Group of the European Technology and Innovation Platform Bioenergy.