The EU ILUC directive in 2015 introduced in the legislative framework a new concept for transport biofuels, the indirect land-use change (“ILUC”). Following, the recently issued red ii Directive introduces an exemption for biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels certified as low ILUC-risk toward the phasing out requirement for high-iluc risk feedstocks. The respective delegate act defines as low ILUC risk: ‘fuels produced in a way that mitigates ILUC emissions, either because they result from productivity increases or they come from crops grown on abandoned or severely degraded land’. The aim of the proposed project is to support the EC in the foreseen revisions of REDII by providing evidence, measuring and widely disseminating the market potential of low ILUC risk value chains for biomass, biofuels and bioliquids in Europe. The work will focus on three specific pathways to achieve low ILUC-risk, sustainable value-chains for advanced biofuel production, distinguished among the type of biomass, the cultivation and production mode. The project will map and evaluate both possible productivity increase for crops grown on abandoned or severely degraded land, and the feasibility of a new biogas-to-liquid production route. The core activity of BIKE project will be to investigate on the reliability of identified low-ILUC risk biofuels production routes, assessing the environmental, social and economic sustainability of proposed solutions. A detailed assessment of existing policy and legal framework, influencing the deployment of low ILUC risk value chains will also be performed to inform future policy and decision making in this area.

The use of renewable resources in the process industries is socially desirable and a market pull for products has started to develop in recent years, but renewable products have to compete with identical or similar-in-application products based on fossil raw materials in terms of quality and production cost. One of the main reasons for currently higher production costs of products based on renewable resources is that the production routes involve processing complex dilute aqueous solutions from which the desired products have to be separated during downstream processing. Consequently, a major challenge the process industry is facing, is the development of cost- and energy-efficient water removal and product-recovery techniques. Today downstream processes for products based on renewable resources are often developed using methods from the petrochemical area being insufficiently adapted to the new applications. A re-thinking of downstream process development and the development of suitable methodologies for a fast-track development of tailored downstream processes as well as the optimisation of separation technologies are urgently needed in order to unlock the potential of the renewable-based product market for the European process industry. PRODIAS addresses this challenge by developing and implementing: - a toolbox of highly innovative, cost-effective and renewable-tailored separation technologies; single technologies and/or hybrid systems - novel, optimized apparatus and machinery to enable for and host the developed technologies - in combination with an integrated design approach for the fast-track selection of appropriate technologies. The main advantages of the PRODIAS toolbox and integrated design approach for processes based on renewable resources are - significantly decreased production cost - increased productivity and efficiency - faster process development and commercialization - significantly lower energy consumption leading to less CO2 emmissions.

While the shipbuilding market has been advantaging Asian lower-cost manufacturing in the last decades, AUTOSHIP will build around two EU industrial market and leading technology providers, such as Rolls Royce and Kongsberg, to create a stronger European cluster able to thrust a market worth Billions of Euros in the next decade, bringing new high-skilled jobs and a safer and greener transport in Europe. AUTOSHIP will build and operate 2 R&A vessels and their needed shore control and operation infrastructure, reaching and going over TRL7. Testing will take place during two pilot demonstration campaigns addressing goods mobility from the Baltic Corridor to a major EU seaport and hinterland, which are most relevant areas with growing waterborne transport market demand in EU. Doing so, it will speed-up the Next Generation of Autonomous Ships, by demonstrating in real environment Short Sea Shipping and Inland Water Ways autonomous vessels. The technology package will include full-autonomous navigation, self-diagnostic, prognostics and operation scheduling, as well as communication technology enabling a prominent level of cyber security and integrating the vessels into upgraded e-infrastructure. In parallel, digital tools and methodologies for design, simulation and cost analysis will be developed for the whole community of autonomous ships. AUTOSHIP will help ship operators/owners to improve the economy of scale of their investments, to effectively gain competitiveness and renew their fleets, making them more competitive to replace road transport. The project’s ambitions will leverage on advanced KETs, solid industrial, investment and business worldwide, participation in all major stakeholders’ organisations. The high ambition is to deliver the technology on the market in 5 years boosting ocean and intercontinental unmanned shipping. It is an ambition with a solid base in the involved value-chain and in the financial and commercial commitment discussed in this proposal.