For the first time ever, the National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) and Eurofuel (European Heating Oil Association) will host a virtual conference on liquid heating fuels in a carbon constrained world. Manufacturers of heating equipment, liquid fuels now in the market and potential fuels of the future will share their ideas and what steps they are taking to be ready for this future.

Moritz Bellingen, Chairman of Eurofuel, stated “For many years, individuals from the United States have traveled to Europe to participate in our meetings, and I have traveled to NORA conferences in the United States. The COVID-19 crisis makes international and even national meetings difficult, so we decided that we would take that difficulty and turn it into an opportunity. For the first time, our members and partners will meet and talk with their U.S. counterparts over several days and compare ideas and technological advancements.”

The Conference will be hosted on four consecutive Wednesdays in August and September (August 19 & 26 and September 2 & 9) with each session being approximately 3 hours. The sessions will begin at 9 a.m. Daylight Savings Time U.S. and 3 p.m. in Europe (UTC+1).

On the first day of the Conference, August 19, there will be a review of the policy actions being taken in the states of the United States and the countries of Europe including: How the goals of decarbonization will affect the liquid fuels industry and How other aspects of the industry from the producers of fuels to end users of the fuel will respond. Additionally, the visions for industries in both countries will be reviewed.

On August 26, the conference will focus on actions to respond to carbon reduction activities. The views: electricity is the solution to everything; how to subsidize conversions to heat pumps; tax schemes to reward or punish energy based on its carbon intensity and incentives for improvements will be examined.

September 2 will see the conference transition to a focus on the technical changes empowering the liquid heating fuels industry to move forward. Discussions of biodiesel (FAME) and renewable diesel (hydrogenated vegetable oil) will examine supply and which fuel will likely be the predominant fuel of the future as well as technical issues associated with the fuels. This session will also explore the exotic fuels of the future—liquid fuels made from cellulose and from electrolysis.

The wrap-up day of September 9 will focus on the hardware of heating. What are the potential design and regulatory limits of using fuels? And more importantly, what are the world’s leading manufacturers doing to ensure that liquid fuel heating equipment will participate in that future? Will we see integrated solar heating fuels systems or liquid powered heat pumps? The day will conclude with the issuance of a multi-year study from NORA evaluating efficiency gains from the replacement of older equipment with high performing new equipment in homes in the United States. The study will show how important accelerating the turnover of equipment is to reducing carbon emissions.