International Conference on Sustainable Biofuels 2018

Introduction

The two day international conference on Sustainable Biofuels is jointly being organized by Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India and Biofuture platform. The event is bringing experts and delegates from 19 countries together in Sustainable Biofuels sector to take stock of current knowledge, share information and best practices, and build consensus on the actions most needed to move forward.

Shri V.K. Saraswat, Member NITI Aayog, said in his address that collective wisdom of all participating countries can foster clean energy revolution. He further highlighted that this event will enable different countries to exchange their experience and share best practices for development and commercialization of advanced biofuels.

Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology & Department of Science and Technology Ministry of Science &Technology, highlighted India ' s interest and progress in all the seven Mission Innovation Challenges and the country workshops organized by the DBT and DST in these challenges. He praised the willingness of investors and industries to take forward the leads provided by R&D community.

Dr. Renu Swarup, Sr. Adviser DBT, welcoming all delegates outlined the aim and objectives of the Mission Innovation and specifically the Sustainable Biofuel Innovation challenge. "It is an honour for us in Government of India to host this International Conference on behalf of Mission Innovation and Biofuture Platform. Collectively all member countries have pledged to work together to meet the objective of producing at scale affordable advanced Biofuels. This is the largest Multilateral Platform to promote Research ,development and Demonstration in Clean Energy "said Dr Renu Swarup

Use of fossil fuels for transportation contributes significantly to global greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. The sustainable biofuels have ability to reduce the GHG emission load and this consideration led to establishment of Sustainable Biofuel Innovation Challenge (SBIC) under Mission Innovation (MI).

Advanced or second-generation biofuels produced from non-food biomass materials and specially grown high yielding plants or algae, if managed sustainably can contribute to significantly reduce emissions. However, many of the advanced biofuels still remain in pre- or an early commercial stage of development and need innovations and breakthrough for low cost sustainable production. The sustainable biofuel innovation challenge aims to accelerate research, development and deployment of low cost, high GHG impacting advanced biofuels.

The sustainable biofuel innovation challenge will build on existing knowledge of individual participating countries and international institutes like IEA, IRENA and in collaboration of Biofuture Platform coordinated by Brazil as program Secretariat. A major aim of this cooperation is to avoid duplication of efforts and define clear areas of collaboration for speeding up of innovations in this area.

This event aims to provide a common platform to Government policy makers, industry, investors and research community to exchange experiences and challenges related to development and scaling of advance biofuels. Besides this the conference is focusing on concerns of the private sectors to speed up large scale production of sustainable biofuels.

About 50 international delegates including country representatives from mission innovation member countries, IEA, Biofuture Platform member countries, IRENA are attending the conference. All co-leads of sustainable biofuel challenge - China, Brazil, Canada and India are very well represented in the conference. These country representatives will present the status of biofuel development in their countries. About 20 companies and organizations have put up stalls in exhibition to show case their activities in the area of sustainable biofuels

The conference will seek to a clear understanding of the development in bio-economy made by participating countries, increase awareness of policy makers about the challenges faced by the industry-investor for commercial scale up of advanced biofuels. The need for collaboration-cooperation to speed up commercialisation and focus on latest R&D in advanced biofuels will be the expected outcomes of this International event.

Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology as a nodal agency coordinating and steering the activities of Mission Innovation in India by Government of India. Mission Innovation India unit has been set-up last year by DBT at ICGEB, New Delhi. DBT has in past taken lead in ushering R&D in advanced biofuels and has set up four large Bioenergy Research Centres.

Source

Press Information Bureau , 26 February, 2018