International Activities - Europe 10th European Biomass Conference, Wurzburg, Germany

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Presentation of State Minister Reinhold Bocklet on the occasion of the 10th European Biomass Conference held in Wurzburg on 10 June 1998.

Ladies and Gentlemen.
Right at the opening of this Conference, I said that a great deal of political importance was attached to the non-food use of biomass in Bavaria. This is due not least to reasons of employment policy. A large number of jobs in Bavaria depend on the exploitation of biomass in Bavaria both as a source of energy and as a source of material. This is of great importance particularly when it comes to the employment situation in rural areas. At the moment there are about 170,000 location-based jobs in Bavaria that depend on the use of biomass. The following areas are involved:

Use of biomass as an energy source	18,000
Use of wood as a source of material	150,000
Use of crops, wool and straw as a source of material	2,000

Added to this are the people employed in producing the relevant plants and equipment.

The personnel costs involved in using biomass as a source of energy are on average about 4 to 5 times as high as those of using fossil energy carriers. When it comes to exploiting biomass as a source of material, the situation is different. In this case, higher labour costs are only incurred in the production of agrarian raw materials. On average, we therefore expect two to three times higher use of labour than when using fossil energy carriers and conventional raw materials.

High quality of jobs

The use of biomass offers some highly interesting prospects. in research as is already being made clear in this Conference in production and exploitation of biomass for commerce and services in plant engineering. A wide spectrum of professional fields are represented. Particularly striking and remarkable are:

• the high proportion of engineers and other graduates
• the high proportion of highly qualified skilled work
• the high proportion of self-employed persons
• the high proportion of jobs in small and medium-sized companies
• the broad regional distribution
• the high number of jobs tied to a particular location.

This last point is a very important aspect, particularly in the present phase of upheaval. As the globalisation of industry progresses, there is a growing risk of more and more jobs moving away from Europe to so-called low-pay countries. By developing biomass technologies, we are counteracting such migratory tendencies.

In addition the dependence of biomass on transport is in many areas automatically giving rise to decentralised structures. This is a promising prospect for us in Europe, but also for developing countries for example. Great opportunities are being opened up for biomass as an energy carrier and industrial raw material on European level.

According to information currently available, the most important areas of use would be:

• generation of heat and electricity
• production of fuels and additives
• use as an industrial raw material
• cooling
• desalination of sea-water using biomass as the energy carrier.

The objective of the European Union must be to become the world-wide, technological market leader in the non-food use of biomass. This is why I invited Members of Parliament to Wurzburg the day before yesterday together with the Chairman of the Committee for Food, Agriculture and Forestry in the Bavarian Landtag, Mr. Loscher-Fruhwald, to a round-table discussion. As the organisers of this event, we were very pleased that about 40 representatives of different parliaments accepted our invitation.

The outcome of our talks is embodied in the so-called Wurzburg Charter that was signed by all those who took part in the round-table discussion. I should now like to outline it to you.

Wurzburg Charter

Undersigned by European Members of Parliament attending a round-table discussion held at the 10th European Biomass Conference on 8 June 1998.

1. The undersigned MPs consider the development of biomass technologies and the use of biomass for energy and industry as an effective platform for:
   • creating new promising jobs
   • opening up new outlets for the local economy
   • producing a favourable environmental impact
   • providing help for self-help among countries lagging behind in development.
2. The undersigned MPs consider biomass for energy and industry as a promising approach to the establishment of new, mainly small and medium-size enterprises and the creation of decentralised supply structures with regional material cycles.
3. The undersigned MPs emphasise the need to give priority to the use of the potential currently available in forests and other unexploited biomass. In any event, biomass use must make economic sense, ensuring soil protection at all times.
4. The undersigned MPs call for a new phase of cooperation between industrialised nations and other regions of the world in the field of biomass technology, with such cooperation being based on both the experience and the technical expertise of both sides.
5. The undersigned MPs hold that the European Union needs to develop the most promising product lines in biomass technology to a marketable quality level by the year 2003. In the field of biomass for energy, cogeneration systems should be given top priority.
6. The undersigned MPs urge the European Commission to work on all EU member states to present a viable action programme by mid-1999 with a view to implementing the goal of 8.5 per cent of primary energy to come from biomass, as set forth in the White Paper of the EU Commission on renewable resources.
7. The undersigned MPs urge the institutions of the European Union, European Parliament, EU Commission, Council and all EU member states to identify both obstacles to the cultivation and utilisation of biomass and criteria hitherto unconsidered in public tender rules concerning investment in plant for the production and processing of renewable production, and to suggest and implement concrete measures to remove such obstacles.
8. The undersigned MPs of the Charter demand a Europe-wide energy policy enabling biomass and renewable resources to compete with other sources of energy. First and foremost, an EU directive is required to rule the sale of electricity fed into the grid and to provide adequate tax credits for renewable resources, and biomass in particular.
9. The undersigned MPs call upon the EU Commission to submit a Green Paper for the material use of biomass along the lines of the Green Paper and/or White Paper on Renewable Resources.
10. The undersigned MPs call for a global information and education campaign promoting the use of biomass. They call upon EU member states and regions to make "Biomass Meeting of the Regions", first held in 1997, a regular event.

Broad Consensus

Some greatly differing viewpoints were of course voiced during these discussions. For certain people, this Charter even went too far. For others, it did not go far enough.

The primary consideration for all the signatories is, however, that a new initiative be launched for the non-food use of biomass. Alongside the food industry, the exploitation of biomass as a source of energy and as a source of material can become a vital pillar supporting the economy of the European Union. For this reason, I hope that as many as possible other parliamentarians not able to attend this meeting will subsequently sign this Wurzburg Charter.

We shall therefore take the liberty of sending the Wurzburg Charter to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the governments and parliaments of the 15 EU member states as well as to the relevant different associations asking them for their support. Together with all the signatories of the Charter, I hope that in this way the 10th European Biomass Conference will give effective impetus to a field of technology that offers manifold opportunities all over the world.

I wish the Conference every success as it continues over its last two days.