Recent Bioenergy Australia Webinar supported by IEA Bioenergy Task42: Lignin and other sustainable carbon sources as metallurgical coal substitutes

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of metallurgical coal. While Australia is a major player, it is envisaged that over time alternatives to coal will be required if global climate change is to be kept to levels that are not catastrophic to earth’s biosphere.

Due to the specialist nature of metallurgical coal, it typically sells at a significant premium over thermal coal and thus presents an opportunity for substitutes that may be sustainable or can divert materials that would otherwise go to landfill.

On the 30th of April a webinar was organized about the work carried out at the SM2RT@UNSW Centre on various metallurgical coal substitutes, including lignin sources from the production of second generation (2G) biofuel production, that appear to have the greatest potential for meaningful substitution.

Given Australia’s significant endowment of biomass opportunities, utilising lignin as a metallurgical coal replacement has the potential to significantly improve 2G biofuel economics and help the transition from fossil to renewable energy sources.

The presentations can be found here and the recording of the webinar is available here.

The webinar was based on a recently published IEA Bioenergy Task42 report that can be found here.