The Methanol Institute is hosting a webinar titled Fit for 55: Power-to-X in Europe´s Energy Transition. The webinar will feature speakers from the eFuel Alliance, Liquid Wind, and CEFIC. They will elaborate on the implications of the Fit for 55 package for the production of fuels and chemicals sourced from renewable electricity (RFNBOs) and their allotted role in the energy transition of industry and mobility.

The 13 policy initiatives collectively labeled “The Fit for 55 Package” tabled by the European Commission this summer mark the Union’s path towards climate neutrality by 2050. In recognizing that climate progress is contingent upon the rapid integration of renewables into mobility and industry, the Commission’s proposals aim to elucidate the regulatory landscape pertaining to production and market use of Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin (RFNBO). Webinar speakers will interpret these policies and give their views on the direction taken by EU legislators on the role of RFNBO critical to the energy transition of the bloc.

To attain its climate objectives, the European Union has set mandates which represent a gap in supply for millions of tons of renewable and low-carbon fuels moving forward to 2050. Full-scale integration of alternative fuels across mobility segments, complimentary to direct electrification, is the only resort to fill the gap. The Fit for 55 package aims to affirm the status of RFNBOs in mobility and industry, create market conditions for their use as a feedstock for the production of sustainable chemicals and as an energy carrier, and address controversies surrounding the validation of their renewable character. But to what extent is the Fit for 55 package successful in obtaining its objectives? Should RFNBOs be reserved solely to propel ships and aircraft? Does the regulatory framework enable European RFNBO production or impede it? Will chemical producers be rewarded for sourcing RFNBOs? This and more in the Fit for 55: Power-to-X in Europe´s Energy Transition webinar, second in a series of three webinar on the Fit for 55 package hosted by the Methanol Institute.

Join the webinar on, November 18th to find out more about how methanol is increasingly becoming a diesel substitute.

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Philip de Smedt is currently Director Petrochemicals Europe at Cefic. He is seconded from TotalEnergies. 

Before joining Cefic, he has worked in various engineering functions at Shell, Jacobs Engineering, and TotalEnergies. 

Since September 2008, he is also a Visiting Professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Gent, Belgium, where he gives courses on how to design (petro)chemical plants.   

Caroline Båth works as Public Policy and Business Development Manager at Liquid Wind. Liquid Wind is a Power-to-Fuel Development Company committed to reducing carbon emissions. The company develops, finances, builds and manages replicable facilities for the production of eMethanol, to accelerate the transition to carbon neutral shipping and transportation.

Caroline Båth Halldén, Speaker

Public Policy & Business Development Manager 

Philip de Smedt, Speaker   

Director Petrochemicals Europe

Tim Chan, Moderator

Assistant Director of Government & Public Affairs Asia & Middle East 

Tim Chan joined the Methanol Institute (MI) as the Institute’s Manager for Government Relations and Business Development for the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions and now serves as the Assistant Director of Government & Public Affairs for Asia & the Middle East. Tim works on the Institute’s government relations strategy in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, as well as looking into new applications for methanol to drive the expansion of the industry.  He has experience in climate change issues at various national government and inter-governmental levels. His focus to date has been on how the global climate change discourse and national regulations are affecting the transport sector, primarily in the transport sector’s transition to cleaner fuels.  

Ralf Diemer is Managing Director of the eFuel Alliance e.V. based in Berlin and Brussels. During his law degree in Tuebingen, he worked in the Baden-Wuerttemberg state parliament and in the European Parliament. He then started his professional career in Berlin as an Office Manager in the German parliament. After moving to the German Association of the Automotive Industry, he headed the Brussels branch there for ten years and then the department for Economic, Trade, and Climate Protection Policy in Berlin. He was involved in numerous legislative processes on a national and European level, with a focus on climate, environmental, and trade policy. Political interest and involvement in politics have always been of central importance to him. Ralf Diemer is Director at the consulting company von Beust & Coll. Beratungsgesellschaft.

Ralf Diemer, Speaker

Managing Director