One question that arises from the announcement by the UK government that new diesel and petrol cars will be banned by 2040 is what it means for biofuels. According to Raffaella Ocone of Heriot-Watt University, co-author of a recent UK-government-funded report into the biofuels industry by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the 2040 ban could be viewed as an opportunity for the biofuels sector. Article courtesy The Conversation.
If cars running on fossil fuels will be substituted by electric cars, it could imply that all liquid transport fuels will be eliminated.
Around 5% of the volume of the average British tank of petrol or diesel comes from biofuels at present. It is produced from various sources, including corn, wheat, sugar beet and waste ranging from rotten vegetables to used cooking oil.
Biofuels in the UK by feedstock type
The large-scale use of biofuels dates back to the 1970s, when they were first introduced in Brazil through government incentives to build vehicles that could run on 100% ethanol produced mainly from sugar cane. Brazil remains a leader in biofuels, despite ups and downs over the years. More than a quarter of petrol content must comprise ethanol – and most vehicles can run 100% ethanol if they choose to.
The transport system is about far more than roads. Aviation, shipping and haulage are all significant and they have a much more limited scope for electrification
Elsewhere biofuels have enjoyed varying fortunes. They became a popular possible alternative in the 1990s as a consequence of the rise in the oil price. More recently, more than 60 countries across the world require some blend of biofuels at the fuel pumps as part of their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and have also launched biofuel production programmes.
Yet progress has become very slow in many countries. Among the reasons are the period of low oil prices and the fact that it uses much more farmland to increase biofuel proportions in fuel tanks.
Biofuels RIP?
So will anyone bother to keep striving towards sustainable liquid fuels now that the end of petrol/diesel vehicles appears in sight? The answer has to be yes, for a couple of important reasons.
The first is hybrid vehicles, which have been far more successful than purely electric ones to date. These engines that run on a combination of liquid fuels and recharged batteries will play a major part in the transition towards complete electrification. If the UK is to move towards a complete ban on fossil fuels in transport, new hybrids are likely to increasingly depend on biofuels.
The second point is that the transport system is about far more than roads. Aviation, shipping and haulage are all significant and they have a much more limited scope for electrification. They will continue to rely heavily on liquid fuels – to which end the US navy recently launched its first biofuel-powered aircraft carrier, for example.
So if we’re still going to need biofuels, how do we make the most of them? I was a member of a working group of the Royal Academy of Engineering that recently produced a report about the sector commissioned by the UK’s departments for transport and energy.
The report, which involved a meta-study of a number of research papers about the sector, said biofuels would undoubtedly play an important role in meeting the UK`s commitments towards climate change. It called for a combination of incentives and careful regulation to avoid risks and unintended consequences, such as crops being diverted from food production.
By prioritising the right kinds of biofuels through subsidies and caps, we can minimise their drawbacks and maximise their advantages over petroleum fuels
It proposed incentives to encourage so-called second-generation biofuels – those which predominantly come from waste and have a far better emissions profile than biofuels from dedicated crops such as soya or corn. It proposed to incentivise growing biofuel crops on land that was unsuitable for food production, while generally capping crop-based biofuels to help prevent them from taking up space that could be for food crops. It also proposed that the minimum blend level in the UK be increased from its current 4.75% (more work is required to determine what might be realistic).
If the government approached biofuels in this way, there could be indirect benefits – giving farmers an extra incentive to plant more crops, for example, as well as improving crop yields and making farming processes more efficient. The amount of land dedicated to farming could also rise as a result.
My message is therefore that we will need biofuels for the foreseeable future despite the UK government’s 2040 ban. By prioritising the right kinds of biofuels through subsidies and caps, we can minimise their drawbacks and maximise their advantages over petroleum fuels. The 2040 ban, far from meaning the end of liquid biofuels, should be seen as an important opportunity for the sector.
Editor’s Note
Raffaella Ocone is Chair of Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University (HWU) in the UK. She 25 years of experience in modelling complex systems and has previously been the Italian representative of the IEA Fossil Fuel Multiphase Agreement.Â
This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished here under a Creative Common licence and with permission from the author.
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Bob Wallace says
“The first is hybrid vehicles, which have been far more successful than purely electric ones to date.”
We are very close to the point (we may already have passed the point) at which it is cheaper to manufacture an EV than a PHEV or hybrid. What was cheaper and more successful yesterday doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about tomorrow. See the graph at 8.2 –
https://goo.gl/8cbAX4
“The second point is that the transport system is about far more than roads. Aviation, shipping and haulage are all significant and they have a much more limited scope for electrification.”
Flight and ocean shipping.
If battery capacity increases less than 100% from where capacities are today then electric flight becomes possible. At least one company is claiming that they will start manufacturing a solid lithium battery that has double that of current lithium-ion batteries. (There’s a lot of hype in the battery business, so let’s wait and see.)
We already electrify rail.
Ford has just contracted to make 2,500 electric delivery vans. Other companies are making electric vans. Next month Tesla is expected to introduce their long distance battery powered “18-wheeler” tractor.
There’s probably a temporary market for biofuels as we “wear out” legacy ICEVs. More ICEVs will be sold before the market entirely switches to EVs and those ICEVs will need to be fueled for their lifespan.
Biofuel as “deep back” is a possible role. During long periods of low wind and solar input biofuel could be used as a fill-in. Biogas from sewage and landfill/garbage processing would be a drop-in replacement for natural gas in CCNG plants.
Marcel van Heesewijk says
That’s right, to electrify the complete transport sector by 2040 is a myth. The world market needs “all-hands-on-deck” to replace fossil-based energy. HVO as a liquid fuel is starting to play an important role as an advanced biofuel. Made from waste (UCO) and low carbon, low ILUC feedstocks such a reforestation oil, HVO shows a much lower GHG footprint (including NOx) than fossil, hybrid or even EV depending on how electricity is produced and considering the entire lifecycle.
Governments should state clear, and easy to check, GHG standards, and not get involved in the specific technology how to achieve these standards. The energy sector, car industry, and agriculture have shown many times over that they are capable of commercially matching required standards, no subsidies or artificial caps are needed for that.
Bob Wallace says
The world needs all hands on deck. What does that mean?
If you want people to eat more apples do you open one apple stand that offers apples at a great price and a second stand that offers the exact same apples where the apples cost 3x to 6x more?
I guess one might if one didn’t understand how market forces operate….