Production of cellulosic ethanol (CE) has not yet reached the scale envisaged by the literature and industry. This study explores CE production in Europe to improve understanding of the motivations and barriers associated with this situation. To do this, we conduct a case study-based analysis of CE production plants across Europe from a global value chain (GVC) perspective. We find that most CE production plants in the EU focus largely on intellectual property and are therefore only at the pilot or demonstration scale. Crescentino, the largest CE production facility in Europe, is also more interested in technology licensing than producing ethanol. Demonstration-scale plants tend to have a larger variety of feedstocks, whereas forestry-based plants have more diversity of outputs. As scale increases, the diversity of feedstocks and outputs diminishes, and firms struggle with feedstock provisioning, global petroleum markets and higher financial risks. We argue that, to increase CE production, policies should consider value chains, promote the wider bio-economy of products and focus on economies of scope. Whereas the EU and its member states have ethanol quotas and blending targets, a more effective policy would be to seek to reduce the risks involved in financing capital projects, secure feedstock provisioning and support a diversity of end products.

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Municipal activities play an important role in national and global CO 2-emission reduction efforts, withNordic countries at the forefront thanks to their energy planning tradition and high penetration of renewable energy sources. In thiswork, we present a case study ofthe Danish municipality of Sønderborg, whose aim is to reach zero net CO 2 emissions by 2029. Sønderborg has an official strategic plan towards 2029, which we compared with four alternative scenarios to investigate how the municipality could approach its target in the most energy-efficient and cost-effective way while simultaneously keeping biomass and waste consumption close to the limits of the locally available residual resources. We modelled all sectors of the energy system on the municipal scale, applying a broad range of energy conversion technologies, including advanced biomass conversion technologies and reversible electrolysis. We constructed five scenarios, each representing a different energy mix for Sønderborg's energy system in 2029. We modelledthese scenarios using the mixed-integer linear optimization toolSifre. We compared the results for the five scenarios using four indicators: annual total system cost, total energy system efficiency, annual net system CO 2 emissions and total annual biomass consumption. The results show that scenarios with a high degree of electrificationperform better on the selected indicators than scenarios with a high degree of biomass utilization. Moreover, the incorporation of advanced conversion technologies such as electrolysis, fuel cells and methanol production further reduces both the total system cost and net CO 2 of the highly electrified energy system. Our sensitivity analysis demonstrates that scenarios with a low biomass consumption and a high degree of electrification are less dependent on changes in energy prices. We conclude that in order to achieve their CO 2 emission goals in the most energy-efficient, costeffective and sustainable way, municipalities similar toSønderborg should compare a wide range of energy system configurations, for example, scenarios with a high degree of electrification and a limited biomass use.

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