Biofuels present an easy way of shifting to low-carbon, non-petroleum fuels, aiding the growing efforts to decarbonise the transport sector. The International Energy Agency?s latest report, ?Technology Roadmap: Biofuels for Transport?, says a shift to biofuel can be done with minimal changes to vehicle stocks and distribution infrastructure. While improving vehicle efficiency is the most important low-cost way of reducing carbon emissions in the transport sector, biofuels will need to play a significant role in replacing liquid fossil fuels suitable for planes, marine vessels and other heavy transport modes that cannot be electrified, the report says.
Production and use of biofuels can also provide benefits such as increased energy security, by reducing dependency on oil imports, and reducing oil price volatility. In addition, biofuels can support economic development by creating new sources of income in rural areas.
The Best Linear Unbiased Estimate (BLUE) Map Scenario envisages that biofuels could contribute significantly to reducing emissions by increasing from 2% of total transport energy today to 27% by 2050. The scenario suggests that a considerable share of the required volume will come from advanced biofuel technologies that are not yet commercially deployed.
Achieving this roadmap?s vision of sustainable biofuel supply?and the associated environmental, economic and societal benefits?will require concerted policy support. Sustained and flexible incentive schemes are needed to help biofuels reach full competitiveness. At the same time, the supply of biomass feedstocks needs to be addressed. A sound policy framework is needed to address the growing feedstock demand for biofuel, heat and power, and to ensure the sustainability of biomass production throughout all these uses.
Over the last few years, there has been a vigorous debate about the extent to which biofuels lead to GHG reductions, particularly given new research about the emissions associated with direct and indirect land-use changes caused by biofuel production. There has also been a public debate over whether conventional biofuels can harm food security, following a peak in agricultural commodity prices in 2007-08. Although the latest analyses suggest that a combination of high oil prices, poor harvests and use of commodities by financial investors probably had a considerably higher impact on food prices than biofuel production, food security remains a critical topic for the design of sound biofuel policies.
Some emerging and novel technologies for producing ethanol or diesel from ligno-cellulosic feedstocks look promising. In some cases they can reduce emissions by more than 100% when co-products are used to produce heat and power. However, estimates for these processes are theoretical or based on pilot plants and the uncertainties are higher, since such plants are not yet operating at a commercial scale.
For biofuels to provide the envisaged emission reductions in the transport sector, it is essential to avoid large releases of GHG caused by land-use changes. However, emissions related to current biofuel production generate only around 1% of the total emissions caused by land-use change globally, most of which are produced by changes in land use for food and fodder production, or other reasons.
The GHG performance of biofuels is the key to achieving a low-carbon transport sector. However, given the extensive nature of the potential supply and use of biofuels, and their interaction with the agricultural and forestry sectors, all three pillars of sustainability?environment, economic and social?need to be fully considered and addressed at the policy level, the IEA report said.