oecd
Bioenergy
OECD theme: biofuels, biomass-to-energy and sustainable aviation fuel.
Where it's used
Advanced biofuels (SAF, renewable diesel & biomethane)
Drop-in fuels from waste oils, crops and residues — a stack from feedstock to certified SAF, renewable diesel and grid-injection biomethane.
Anaerobic digestion & biogas from MSW
Industrial-scale anaerobic digestion of municipal solid waste (MSW) to produce renewable natural gas (RNG), drastically reducing methane emissions from landfills while providing baseload decarbonized energy for heavy transport and grids.
BECCS
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage to provide negative emissions.
Bio-commodity spot trading (biomass, biomethane)
Spot trading of biocommodities and biomethane turns physical biological assets into standardized, tradable financial certificates, utilizing blockchain registries and precise gas chromatography to drive the global renewable energy transition.
Biofuel futures & SAF certificates
Exchange-traded futures, options and Book-and-Claim certificate registries that let airlines and refiners hedge the 2.5-4x price premium of sustainable aviation fuel over Jet-A and prove compliance with mandates like ReFuelEU Aviation without physically routing every liter of SAF to every airport.
Biogas and anaerobic fermentation
Microbial anaerobic digestion of farm residues, energy crops and food waste into biogas, upgraded to grid-injectable biomethane (RNG) — a regional biogas industry distinct from MSW-focused digestion.
Biomass for energy
Combusting solid biomass to generate dispatchable baseload electricity and industrial heat.
Engineered photosynthesis and artificial chloroplasts
Rewiring natural photosynthesis — enhanced-photosynthesis trees, C4 rice, and new-to-nature CO2-fixation cycles — alongside artificial chloroplasts and bionic leaves that turn sunlight and CO2 into biomass, fuels and biofertilizer.
Enhanced rock weathering
Crushed silicate rocks applied to agricultural lands to draw down CO2.
Gasification & Fischer-Tropsch sustainable aviation fuel
Municipal solid waste, forestry residue and captured biogas are gasified into syngas and built up into jet-range hydrocarbons via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis — a thermochemical pathway distinct from the HEFA and alcohol-to-jet routes that dominate today's certified SAF supply, with 2026 commercial-stage projects in the UK, South Africa-licensed technology and a first US biogas-to-jet pilot.
Hydrogen fuel from biomass
Thermochemical and biological routes that convert biomass and biomethane into hydrogen — gasification followed by water-gas shift and PSA, bio-SMR of biomethane, and dark-fermentation R&D — anchored by gasification licensors, solid-oxide reformers and energy majors.
Microbial fuel cells & bioelectrochemical systems
Electrogenic bacteria oxidize organic matter at an anode and hand off electrons to an external circuit, turning wastewater, soil or plant root exudate directly into low-grade DC electricity — a technology direction opposite to microbial electrosynthesis, generating power from waste rather than consuming it to make chemicals.
Power-to-X with biological step
Microbial electrosynthesis and power-to-methane: renewable electricity and CO2 fed to electroactive microbes at a cathode that fix CO2 via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway into acetate, alcohols, biomethane and single-cell protein.
Sustainable marine biofuel (biomethanol, bio-LNG)
Bio-methanol and bio-LNG for shipping decarbonization — biomass-gasification methanol and anaerobic-digestion liquefied biomethane burned in dual-fuel marine engines, cutting well-to-wake CO2 by 60-95% under IMO and FuelEU Maritime regulation.