The Fast-Breaking, Full-Court Pressing, Outside-Shooting Bioeconomy

Once upon a time, the biofuels game was all about the Big Dude in the low post. Rotterdam was his home court, and the rules were simple: park yourself near the basket, take the handouts, and drop in the easy points — mandates, subsidies, credits, waivers. Year after year, the same towering franchises dominated the paint.

But that era is ending. The bioeconomy has sped up. The floor is stretched, the tempo is faster, and the outside shooters are draining threes from everywhere. Rotterdam’s three cancelled projects weren’t just bad luck — they were dinosaurs lumbering in a league that has gone small-ball. The Rotterdam Regulars vs the Brussels Bureaucrats has given way to a new style of play from the New York Net Zeroes.

The  Net Zeroes and teams like them are running the floor in full tilt, dominating the scoreboard. Eni in Pavia, LowLands Methanol in Moerdijk, Green Carbon Development in Texas, EcoCeres in Hong Kong — smaller, quicker, global teams sinking shots from every angle.

The spirit in the air is not retreat, but hustle. The fast-break is on. The full-court press is relentless. And the days of slow-footed giants expecting automatic subsidies and soft defenses are giving way to a parity league where any team, on any Tuesday night, can win.

Retreat or redirection?

Why did the Rotterdam projects fail to berth?

The critiques are familiar: policy ambition without bankability, mandates without markets. Kyriakos Maniatis called the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive an “unstable ecosystem that actually hinders investment.” Sarah Wilkin warned that unless the RED biofuels section is revised, “there will be no large-scale investments in the EU on biofuels.”

PhaniKumar Docca added that mandates “must be backed by long-term offtake certainty, harmonized carbon accounting, and clear regional feedstock strategies.” And David Elward, looking at airline procurement practices, observed that “as long as tenders are one-year, it is nearly impossible to secure debt and predictable margins.”

Others were blunter. Raül Sanchis i González called it “madness — all regulation and no focus on feedstock or supply.” Fahad Alsharef blamed “career politicians and interest groups” for choosing emotion over business rationale.

And yet, not everyone declared doom. Paul Martin noted, “There is no shortage of biomass to transition 100% of shipping and aviation to biofuels. The shortage is someone willing to pay a price that is a significant multiple of unabated fossil fuels.” That, he argued, is why companies may “sit out the first half, but they will come back to meet 2030 targets.”

Enter the NBA: parity over dynasties

For years, Europe’s oil majors were the Lakers and Celtics of the bioeconomy — deep benches, big arenas, dominant franchises. Rotterdam was their Madison Square Garden, their Old Trafford.

But the bioeconomy has entered its parity era. The league has expanded. Titles no longer reside in a few storied clubs. Houston has a team now, and so does Pavia. Moerdijk is a rising franchise. Brazil plays with a whole different pace.

Like the NBA, where small-market teams draft well, invest smartly, and rise to challenge the old dynasties, the bioeconomy is becoming more competitive, more distributed, more global. Parity does not mean weakness; it means strength. A league where “anyone can win on a Tuesday night” is a healthier league.

Rotterdam’s stumble is not the end of the season. It’s a reminder that dynasties don’t last forever — and that the sport is bigger than any single arena.

The March of Progress: new ports, new plays

If the pessimists focused on three cancellations, they missed dozens of announcements in the same fortnight. The Digest’s own headlines tell a different story: one of diversification in geography, technology, and use cases.

• New ports:
  In Italy, Eni has approval to convert units at the Sannazzaro de’ Burgondi refinery into a 550,000-ton-per-year biorefinery, using waste and residues to produce HVO diesel and SAF biojet, starting in 2028. In Texas, Green Carbon Development selected Axens’ Vegan® hydroprocessing technology for its Jasper facility, a 10,500 barrel-per-day project designed to flex between renewable diesel and SAF.
• New contenders:
  From EcoCeres in Hong Kong to KazMunayGas and LanzaJet in Kazakhstan, national champions and entrepreneurial SMEs are stepping into the arena. In Moerdijk, 25 kilometers from Rotterdam, LowLands Methanol is building capacity aimed at maritime and inland shipping, bypassing the Port of Rotterdam’s barriers to SMEs.
• New plays and use cases:
  SAF offtake agreements are proliferating — Smartenergy with Q8, ICAO with IRENA, GBTA with corporate travel alliances. Airlines from Finnair to Korean Air are adding SAF capacity, while national governments from Australia to South Korea are legislating billions in new commitments. Meanwhile, biogas, biomethane, and electrofuels are expanding the playbook: Wärtsilä with bioLNG in Sweden, Tesco with biomethane trucks in Scotland, China building methanol-hydrogen cargo ships.

Lessons from the bench

Even the Rotterdam debate pointed the way forward. Manu Pillai argued that Fischer–Tropsch “needs scale to be economical, but biomass feedstock is generally distributed,” meaning smaller, local plants converting biomass close to source make more sense than mega-projects. David Smith suggested the solution is “smaller, modular and more cost-competitive technologies.”

David Elward reinforced that majors have realized they can fulfill mandates more cheaply through co-processing waste oils in existing facilities. And Gijs Bakker, speaking from experience, argued that Rotterdam itself may not be the best place to build: “We are opting for Moerdijk, where Capex is lower and the biowaste infrastructure is excellent.”

Bust, boom, and learning

Every sport has its losing seasons. Every fleet has its storms. The test is whether you learn from them.

Rotterdam taught us that billion-euro greenfield projects are fragile in a world of volatile feedstocks and unstable regulation. The rebound shows us that smaller, modular, and geographically diversified strategies are the way forward.

Boom and bust are not failures, but the engine of innovation. Each bust clears the way for smarter builds; each boom teaches where scale is sustainable.

Capital in flight, not fleeing

So yes, Rotterdam lost three teams. But the season is far from over. Houston is breaking ground. Pavia is in design. São Paulo is scaling. Hong Kong is planning. Even Moerdijk is putting points on the board.

The critics who shorted Rotterdam shorted the whole league. But the league is global now, the season long, and the rosters deep.

Capital isn’t fleeing the bioeconomy. It’s playing in more stadiums.