We referred earlier as to what may be a turning point in bioenergy utilization. This idea needs perhaps to be further developed and motivated. During the industri­alization period, started in England in the middle of the eighteenth century, fossil fuels gained increasing importance, offering the scale, efficiency and reliability needed to change production systems radically. The supremacy of fossil fuels was reinforced with the advent of the automobile and the choice of oil as the source of liquid fuels to move those engines. This process continued with full speed until three decades ago when oil-producing countries, in a concerted action, forced oil prices up to appropriate larger rents for a resource that the world economy so heavily relied upon.

After the oil price shocks, intense efforts were made to deploy new energy technologies based on resources other than oil, and to improve the efficiency of energy generation, distribution and consumption. Parallel to these efforts, however, a very significant amount of research continued being made on fossil-fuel-related technologies and nuclear power. As a result, while renewable technologies were indeed developed, the relative position of fossil-related technologies was constantly improved both on the supply as well as on the demand side. In addition, most of the non-fossil energy generation capacity added in the last few decades comes from nuclear power, an area that also received significant attention of governments and researchers.

Nevertheless, the balance of efforts made in the last few decades includes a portfolio of renewables, in parallel with a significant decrease in the energy intensity of many segments of the economy, and a trend of decarbonization mainly due to the shift from coal and oil towards natural gas and increasing use of nuclear power (Silveira, 2001). Whether positive trends will persist and be further improved depends on what efforts are made next. For example, recent studies reveal that increasing amount of investments is no guarantee for improvements in energy intensity, as expanding industries can, in fact, become more energy intensive (Miketa, 2001). We are also used to the thought that the energy intensity of developing countries shall increase as a result of industrialization and moderniza­tion. However, if we consider the increasing utilization of combustible renewables and wastes, the energy intensity may have decreased in some developing countries in the past years. Constraints in the utilization of combustible renewables and wastes may be forcing a higher utilization of fossil fuels in developing economies than would otherwise be necessary (Sun, 2003).

When it comes to transport, the sector remains trapped in the oil solution after three decades of research and constant improvements. More recently, the strong dependency of the transport sector on oil resources has received increasing attention due to issues of security, potential oil scarcity in a rather near future, and the climate change agenda (see also Silveira, 2001). In the European Union, for example, security of supply and climate change are two major driving forces to the introduction of renewables. Liquid biofuels provide immediate opportunities to reduce fossil fuel dependency in the transport sector, taking advantage of existing distribution chains for fossil fuels. A major preoccupation is the formation of markets for alternative transport fuels and technologies. However, significant initial steps have been taken recently at the EU level which may have important consequences in the development of markets for liquid biofuels.

But what is actually the turning point that we are referring to? After all, the figures do not indicate any spectacular change in favor of bioenergy. The use of bioenergy is actually growing slower in many cases when compared with other renewable options. Recent trends do not, at first, seem to relate to ambitious future scenarios and identified possibilities for bioenergy options. In fact, the turning point can only be understood as a convergence of factors and tendencies that are likely to favor bioenergy use. Some of these factors are general for all renewables, others are specifically related to bioenergy options. The most important factors are:

• The global climate agenda, which requires a shift from fossil fuels to renewables as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate global climate change;

• Increasing awareness and understanding of the local impacts of fossil fuel utilization on environment and health (e. g. acid rain, respiratory diseases) and intensified search for sustainable alternatives;

• Decreasing policy support for fossil fuels and gradual reduction of subsidies for nonrenewable energy sources;

• A shift from centralized energy planning due to the privatization of electricity and heat markets, favoring local alternatives and decentralized solutions;

• Awareness of the potential of bioenergy options to foster regional development (e. g. through the creation of jobs);

• Enhancing policy support framework for renewables, including bioenergy, in many countries and regions (e. g. various EU directives);

• Better understanding of the potential integration of bioenergy solutions with established industrial processes leading to economic and environmental benefits (e. g. forest industry);

• Integration of bioenergy options with established energy systems for heat, power and transport (e. g. cofiring, ethanol additives);

• Critical mass of examples of good performance of bioenergy systems including biofuel production, heat and power generation, and demand-side technologies in various countries under different conditions;

• Variety of scales, raw material sources and technologies that can be used for the implementation of bioenergy systems depending on local conditions for raw material production, existing demand for energy services and future potential for expansion;

• Improving conditions for new entries and competition as biofuel markets evolve and the commercial attractiveness of bioenergy options is improved, while risks are reduced;

• Readily available conventional solutions and promising development of new technologies for bioenergy generation, and biofuel production and utilization.

These factors are processes which, when combined in different institutional and regional contexts, have varied impacts and effects. They contrast with the set of conditions that allowed the extraordinary economic development in the past decades and which included cheap energy provided by fossil fuels, lack of environmental concerns and centralized energy planning (see also Schipper et al., 1992). Energy was particularly cheap because there was little preoccupation to internalize the various costs associated with its extraction, transport and use, let alone with the sustainability of environmental and socioeconomic systems.

The present conditions are quite different. In particular, it is most likely that both households and industry will experience significant increase in energy costs in the coming years, if international efforts prove fruitful in moving the environmental agenda forward. In the medium and long term, it is possible to improve the overall efficiency of production systems through dematerialization, new industrial organizational patterns and new forms of land use planning. Due to its potential integration into various production segments and its role in social and environ­mental sustainability, bioenergy can become an important element in the process of shifting energy systems. The convergence of factors required to reach a turning point has already been reached. Work lies ahead.