With a growing push to transition away from fossil fuels, biofuels are becoming increasingly desired and demanded, with that demand extending towards production equipment and pressure relief valves to handle the varying states of the biologically derived fuel itself.
As a general rule, biofuels are less harmful to the environment than traditional fossil fuels and are significantly more sustainable due to their reliance on a source of fuel that can be replanted and regrown in a much shorter timescale than the millions of years fossil fuels take to develop.
However, not every biofuel is created equally, and according to a report by the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), some types of biofuel production could potentially cause more harm than good if produced irresponsibly and without consideration of the wider consequences and choices that come from biofuels.
It is important to explore what makes biofuels sustainable at the cusp of their expansion and takeover from the position fossil fuels used to hold in the global transportation sector, why some fuels are better than others, and what the industry can do to ensure that biofuels remain the answer when batteries cannot be used.
Examining The Biofuel Tradeoff
One of the biggest concerns when it comes to first-generation (and to a lesser degree second-generation) biofuels is that their reliance on arable land creates a zero-sum environment; any land used for biofuel crops comes at the expense of another agricultural industry.
At present, 32 million hectares of land are used to produce biofuel, according to T&E, which according to them, represents four per cent of the overall demand for transport energy.
This area, which is roughly the size of Italy, is set to expand to 52 million hectares by 2030, which is not only the size of France but would make it the sixth largest country in terms of arable land demand.
The concern is that the land used for biofuel cannot be used for food crops, which can potentially lead to devastating shortages if left unchecked.
Outside of land use, another issue with electrofuels and more advanced biofuels is the amount of energy required to produce biofuel, how long it takes and where this energy comes from.
Hypothetically, electrofuels could be entirely carbon neutral if produced using captured carbon and green electricity, but the cost of doing so at present means that a lot of electrofuels are produced using hydrogen produced by burning fossil gas, making the process less efficient than fossil fuels.
Looking Beyond The Exhaust
The key to the sustainability and carbon neutrality of biofuels is that, given that they are designed to be burned and will therefore inevitably release carbon emissions, the entire lifecycle of the biofuel crops needs to be considered when exploring sustainability.
One aspect of this is the replacement of agricultural food crops in favour of biomass, which can cause issues not only with food security but with long-term soil health as a result of monoculture farming.
Issues with deforestation and land clearance could have long-term consequences when it comes to carbon capture and carbon emissions that may not necessarily be recorded using traditional analytical methods.
The Importance Of Drop-In Fuels
Another consideration is how effectively biofuels can be integrated into the current fuel ecosystem, and how much waste is produced through the destruction and disposal of cars that cannot be used with biofuels.
This is part of the reason why many countries, with the exceptions of Brazil, India and Indonesia, are opting for very slow and gradual integration of biofuel blends into the petrol and diesel market, waiting for the market to naturally get rid of incompatible cars.
The ideal solution is targeted drop-in fuels that can be used identically to fossil fuels. These are particularly desirable in the shipping and aviation sectors, where full electrification is ultimately impractical using current technology.
This means that some types of biofuel, whilst more efficiently produced than others, may prove to be less effective in practice when transitioning. To what extent this transition is an issue depends on the market and how popular battery electric vehicles end up becoming.
What Is The Cleanest Possible Fuel?
The T&E report advocates that the land used for first-generation biofuel be rewilded and the space used instead for large solar farms that can generate more clean energy per square metre, but if electricity is not an option, the cleanest possible fuel would be a form of electrofuel.
It would use carbon captured through sustainable means or carbon capture devices, combined with hydrogen provided through electrolysis, to produce hydrocarbons that can be mixed with suitable additives to create any kind of desired fuel for a given industry.
