Over the past few years, we have seen a lot of countries start to increasingly incorporate biofuels into their energy policy, which has implications not only on a wider macroeconomic level but also increases the need for secure storage equipment and pressure relief valves.
One of the most recent of these is the country of Vietnam, which, according to English language news website Vietnam News, is planning to transition to E5 (five per cent biofuel) and E10 (ten per cent biofuel) blends starting in June 2026.
Whether you are a national body, a business looking to decarbonise its fleet and lower its reliance on fossil fuels, or coordinating with governmental groups as part of biofuel tenders, here are some key questions to ask before making the transition to biofuel.
What Is Your Motivation For Switching To Biofuels?
As with any other policy decision, motivation matters significantly when switching to biofuels, as it will alter your approach, your timelines and how rapidly your infrastructure needs to be upgraded and to what extent.
Environmental Benefits
One of the key reasons why countries and companies are making the switch is for environmental reasons, particularly in the wake of the Belem 4X pledge announced at COP30.
This pledge aims to quadruple the production and use of sustainable fuels by 2035, which includes biofuels, electrofuels, synthetic fuels and alternative fuel sources such as hydrogen fuel cells.
There is a strong environmental case for biofuels, as long as the waste materials are properly audited and do not come at the expense of using land for growing food.
Energy Security
Very few countries have access to reserves of crude oil, which is the core raw ingredient used to make a wide variety of fuels, including petrol, diesel and methane gas. As a result of this, these vital supplies are often dependent on trade deals, which in turn are based on diplomatic relationships between nations.
Two of the biggest energy crises over the past century were the direct result of the breakdown of trade and diplomatic alliances.
The 1973 oil crisis, which fundamentally changed the world’s relationship to fossil fuels by highlighting just how dependent the world was on them, was a breakdown in diplomatic relationships which led to a short-term embargo with decades-long consequences.
Meanwhile, the 2021 global energy crisis was caused by strain on the energy supply chain that was exacerbated by the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which itself broke down diplomatic relationships.
Many countries that were either neutral or relatively distant from conflicts such as these seriously reconsidered their energy supplies and pursued often radical alternatives.
Financial Stability
Oil prices are often highly volatile, heavily reliant on supply and demand, which can lead to spikes in the price of fuel as a consequence.
Biofuels, by contrast, can often be produced to varying degrees by any country with appropriate infrastructure, making prices far more controllable and manageable. This is the justification India has used to explain their aggressive approach to biofuel blends.
What Approaches Can You Take To Your Transition To Biofuels?
What matters as much as motivation is the approach you take to biofuel policy, which can vary from pragmatic and highly cautious to extraordinarily aggressive.
Each country has different capabilities to scale up biofuel production, different biomass feedstocks available natively or as low-cost imports and different manufacturing foundations to refine said feedstocks into biofuel.
There are also stark variations on how vehicles are designed and whether they can accept certain concentrations of biofuels without significant adaptation.
In general, however, most implementations can be categorised as either pragmatic and relatively slow or aggressive and rapid in terms of the scope of change.
The Pragmatic
Many countries, including the UK, have adopted a relatively pragmatic approach to the implementation of biofuels into the petrol and diesel supply.
Since 2021, the standard petrol grade has been E10, a mix of 90 per cent petrol with ten per cent ethanol.
Any car built since 2011 meets this standard, and a remarkable number of cars made after the year 2000 will typically be suited for use with E10 petrol with no or minimal modifications.
The reason for such a cautious approach is that fuel seals are designed with E5 fuel in mind, and long-term use of higher levels of ethanol can cause degradation over time, although unlike wrongfuelling a diesel car with petrol, this usually does not require you to drain the tank.
The Suddenly Aggressive
By contrast, countries such as India and Indonesia have rapidly scaled up their biofuel production, and whilst Indonesia has delayed its implementation of B50 (50 per cent biodiesel), it does still currently employ a B40 policy.
This is possible because Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil in the world, the waste product of which is one of the most widely used biofuel feedstocks in the world.
The Adaptively Aggressive
A final, similar approach is to employ an aggressive transition but tweak it according to the demands of the market.
This is the case in Brazil, which launched the world’s first biofuel policy in the 1970s by switching to sugarcane-derived bioethanol.
This has, in turn, led to the development of flex-fuel cars designed to use variable mixes of ethanol and fossil fuels.
