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Finland is leading the way in sustainable initiatives with investments in carbon-negative biofuels, a promising solution to replace coal and reduce emissions.
A quiet transformation is taking place in Finland. The European country has invested heavily in the world's largest roasting from the continent, which is about to come into operation, promising to change the future of fuels and coal.
Capable of producing 60 thousand tons of briquettes per year (compressed blocks made from waste materials), NextFuel, the factory represents a step forward in the search for cleaner and more sustainable energy alternatives.
Torrefaction, a thermal process that converts biomass into a coal-like substance, is gaining importance as a viable solution for energy-intensive industries such as cement, power generation and even the airline industry.
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The timing could not be more opportune. With the end of the COP29, held last week, and Brazil at the center of discussions for 2025, the world turns its eyes to alternatives that reduce carbon emissions.
The Role of Torrefaction in Reducing Emissions – Will it replace coal?
The urgency to find replacements for coal has never been greater. Global consumption of this fossil fuel reached a record 8,7 billion tons last year, showing that the transition to clean sources remains a challenge.
For Wei-Hsin Chen, a researcher at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, torrefaction is promising because it offers fuels that can be used in existing infrastructure, making it easier to replace coal without major investments.
This potential has caught the attention of companies like NextFuel, a Scandinavian-Austrian consortium that has been developing T to make biofuels viable on a large scale.”To compete with coal, it is necessary to be scalable, profitable and close in energy content”, explains Audun Sommerli Time, co-founder of NextFuel.
According to him, the briquettes produced by the company have a calorific value of between 22 and 28 gigajoules per ton, almost equivalent to coal, which varies between 24 and 31 gigajoules.
Elephant Grass: The Raw Material of the Future
Among the main raw materials explored by NextFuel there is elephant grass, known scientifically as Miscanthus × giganteus.
Capable of growing up to four meters in height in just one season, this plant has high productivity and can be grown on marginal lands.
Studies show that replacing arable land with elephant grass plantations could sequester between two and three metric tons of carbon per hectare annually.
Furthermore, NextFuel briquettes have a crucial advantage: they can be used in installations designed for coal, without the need for expensive or time-consuming adaptations.
“The energy transition needs to be practical and cost-effective,” Time stresses.Our product eliminates the need to build new infrastructure networks, making it easier for governments and industries to adopt."
Global Expansion and Local Impact
With the Joensuu plant set to begin operations, NextFuel is already planning new ventures. A client in East Africa is developing a facility that will use elephant grass and agricultural waste to produce up to 1,5 million tons of briquettes per year.
The goal is to replace coal across the region, which currently relies on imports from South Africa.
According to Araya Asfaw, a researcher at Addis Ababa University, the idea is promising. “Torrefaction can provide clean, sustainable energy while protecting local ecosystems. However, it is difficult to imagine it completely replacing fossil fuels in the short term."
For her, the biggest impact will be on domestic energy use, which represents 80% of demand in countries like Ethiopia.
The varsity of agricultural residues
One of the distinguishing features of NextFuel's technology is its ability to transform different types of biomass into biofuel.
In South America, especially in Brazil, sugarcane waste can be used; in the United States, wheat and corn straw are viable alternatives; while in India, rice straw can be used. This flexibility expands the product’s reach and encourages a circular economy based on the reuse of local waste.
Another promising advance is the possibility of converting briquettes into liquid fuels, such as sustainable aviation kerosene, through the Fischer-Tropsch process. This technology could serve one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize: air transport.
The role of the European Union
The European Union is one of the regions investing the most in the energy transition. By 2030, all member countries must replace 29% of their transport energy mix with renewable sources. In this context, advanced biofuels such as NextFuel have great potential to meet these requirements.
NextFuel’s ambition goes further.”We want our fuel to be the next big thing after fossil fuels have dominated the last two centuries.”, says Time.
While the road to this transformation is still long, he believes it is possible to create a more sustainable future with a growing number of NextFuel factories.
“CAVÃO DO FUTURO” is great. Looking for grammatical quality and graphical correctness can help you.
Cavão is an augmentative of cava. We need a big cava to bury spelling mistakes, or activate the word checker. But they say that for a good listener half a word is enough, and for a bad listener a **** word.