Can Decarbonisation Goals Be Achieved with Biofuels – A Review of World Ethanol & Biofuels 2017
Gathering in Brussels, World Ethanol & Biofuels opens with a discussion on the decarbonisation of the global energy system. To align with global goals, the biofuels industry has a great potential to step up to be the biggest renewable and sustainable energy source.
Challenges, however, arose this year as The European Parliament Environment Committee’s vote on RED II made the biofuels market’s entry into the transport sector more difficult.
Charles-Albert Peers, CEO of Alcogroup and Chairman of ePURE, said: “RED II removes one of the best tools to promote decarbonisation”.
Peers urges action from both the biofuels industry players and key decision makers to decarbonise as soon as possible to achieve the decarbonisation goals by 2030.
Despite initial plans to have a 10% renewable ratio in the transport sector by 2020, there is a cross-industry concern that the Renewable Energy Directive and the Fuel Quality Directive will keep on dividing the industry’s attention and targets.
“The framework that we have in place is quite complex,” Andreas Gumbert from the DG Climate Action, European Commission, admitted. “We have two directives overlapping and interacting with one another. The commission has agreed to simplify and impose a single target.”
Gumbert closed his speech with an assurance that in the EU, “there is ample space for increasing the limited proportion of bioethanol compared to biodiesel”.
However, it seems that the technological advances, like electric vehicles, in the transport sector are also threatening the biofuels market’s growth. But as we learnt at World Ethanol & Biofuels, that just because a vehicle is electric, it does not mean it is greener.
“We have to take into account emissions from electricity production”, Gumbert said.
“Ethanol actually has the potential to remove moreCO2 than electric technology”, Thomas Schroeder, Vice President of Biorefining at Novozymes, told us.
Khurram Gaba, Policy Planning Executive at ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical, predicted a 60% increase in vehicle miles between the present and 2040. To be able to manage greenhouse gas emissions from these vehicles, Gaba suggested that electric technology is not currently the answer that the sole solution to the problem, because the cleanliness of power production in each geolocation is different.
“When you look at the full life cycle…”, Gaba said. “There is no such thing as a zero emissions vehicle today. It’s a myth.”
Other industry leaders like Raizen are also optimistic about the developing role of ethanol and biofuels in the future, as Paulo Côrte-Real Neves, Ethanol & Oil Products Trading Director at Raizen, explained how new technologies are used to create 2nd generation cellulosic ethanol.
“We are all producing a sustainable product, reducing GHG emissions for the world”, Neves said.
Still, transport is perceived to be the most difficult sector to decarbonise.
Pharoah Le Feuvre, Energy Analyst of Renewable Energy and Bioenergy Markets at the International Energy Agency (IEA), noted: “transport lags behind heat and electricity in integrating renewables”.
For the automotive industry, the electric technology’s popularity poses a strong challenge to biofuels’ expansion.
For the aviation sector, liquid hydrocarbons are still the most common fuels and Olivier Rolland, Director of Sustainable Fuel Technologies at Boeing, foresees that to be the case still for years ahead, and biofuels are seen as the best solution to decarbonise the aviation industry.
For the shipping sector, Dirk Kronemeijer, CEO of GoodFuels, predicted that “carbon in the shipping world is going to be the major driver from 2020 onwards”. Although Kronemeijer identified several contenders to biofuels, including LNG, hydrogen, methanol and other technologies like scrubbers, the GoodFuels portfolio contains more ships powered by biofuels than there are LNG-powered ships.
Secretary General of the European Biodiesel Board, Raffaello Garofalo, however, ensured World Ethanol & Biofuels attendees that “the future of biofuels and particularly biodiesel will switch from passenger vehicles to heavy duty vehicles, marine and aviation”.
Europe’s market potential and the transport sector’s enormous and increasing 25% contribution to the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions are significant factors in the progression of biofuels. Furthermore, technological advances in production can make biofuels more attractive for decision makers, whose aim to balance high quality biofuels and origins will shape future regulations.
We would hereby like to thank all speakers and sponsors for making World Ethanol & Biofuels such a lively event. We hope that you found it just as educational as we have.