Biofuels from Willows

Abstract

The Green Energy Cluster, an organization in Romania with 75 members from business, academia, and the public sector, acts as a business and market developer, an educator and a trainer for specialists, as well as an executor of research, innovation, and facilitator of international cooperation in renewable energy. Its focus is on the use of bioresources for energy in rural areas. Biofuel based on short rotation cultivation (SRC), herewith, provides an economic bioresource which substitutes mineral fuels in a sustainable manner; if marginal land is used and low-input agroforestry is applied. This case shows practices in the Covasna region. Subsequent steps in short rotation cultivation are introduced followed by processing into biofuel and its use in communities, as well as an economic regional strategy based on the experiences.