Accelerating the Deployment of Biofuels Is Crucial to Decarbonize Global Transport Sectors

November 25, 2023

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(IEA Bioenergy) There are major challenges to reach a climate neutral society by 2050, as expressed in IEA’s Net Zero by 2050 roadmap. Among different sectors, transport is proving to be a very difficult sector to decarbonize. It implies moving away from established fossil fuels through electrification and using renewable fuels instead of fossil fuels. One of the key tools in the short to medium term is to accelerate the deployment of sustainable biofuels.

IEA Bioenergy is committed to advancing bioenergy technologies based on sustainable biomass feedstocks for a greener and sustainable future. With the world facing a worsening climate crisis and emerging energy security issues with fossil fuels, finding effective solutions to phase out fossil fuels in the transport sector is crucial, and biofuels offer a compelling option, in synergy with electrification. The recently published reports from the IEA Bioenergy study “Assessment of Successes and Lessons Learned for Biofuels Deployment” highlight the potential of biofuels to drive significant market supply, replace fossil fuels, and combat global warming. The main target of the study was to identify key factors for technology successes and the best policy framework conditions for stimulating increased future markets for sustainable transport biofuels.

Tomas Ekbom, Svebio (Sweden), Project Leader: “The current production capacity of renewable fuels, togetherwith planned and under construction projects, needs to grow by a factor of more than 5 to produce the renewable fuels (biofuels and e-fuels) that will be required worldwide by 2050. We need faster progress and learn lessons from biofuels deployment so far to support their further deployment in an efficient way.”

Biofuels present cost-competitive options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the road transport sector over the next decades to come. Their compatibility with existing fossil fuels infrastructure makes biofuels a practical and much needed immediate solution to replace fossil fuels in existing fleets. While electric vehicles are making progress in several regions of the world, particularly for light duty vehicles, access to materials for large scale battery manufacturing and underdeveloped charging networks will challenge the speed of their widespread adoption. In the medium to longer term – with increased electrification of the road transport sector – the use of biofuels will shift to difficult-to-electrify sectors such as aviation and marine shipping.

While most current biofuels are produced from agricultural crops like sugar cane, corn, or oil-based crops, the focus is now moving to the use of biogenic waste, crop residues and non-food crops, many of which require advanced biofuel production technologies. Yet, at this point most advanced technologies are at an early stage of commercialization and economics are still a challenge. In order to sharply reduce fossil fuel consumption, we don’t have the luxury to abolish existing biofuel options and wait for new technologies to mature; restrictions on some (crop-based) biofuel feedstocks may have to be rethought, especially where they can be sustainably produced, with very low greenhouse gas emissions over their life cycle. We also need to recognize that biofuel options are and will continue to be region- and country-specific.

Heitor Cantarella, Agronomic Institute of Campinas (Brazil): “Liquid biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, that can directly replace fossil gasoline and diesel, offer mature, scalable alternatives for markets with dominating shares of combustion engine vehicles. Driven by sustainability requirements in effective policies, these fuels have demonstrated low carbon footprints and limited impact on food production.”

Key learnings from the project:

Combine market-pull and technology-push policies

Ambitious strategies and targets do not automatically create a frame that allows increasing or building up innovative technologies along the value chain chain.

Franziska Müller-Langer, DBFZ (Germany): “We looked at case studies of advanced biofuels in Germany, Sweden and Canada. Several advanced biofuels have shown technical success; however, this doesn’t guarantee the required commercial success. To achieve both technology development and market uptake, we need a combination of policies to push technology developments and pull market demand; a comprehensive monitoring of the impacts of these policies is necessary as well. We also need steering instruments to secure financing in order to lower the risk of investments and plant operation of relatively new technologies.”

Improve established biofuel options AND support innovative biofuel solutions

Decarbonization of the transport sector needs a transition process that allows starting with promising technology options, allows gaining experience and learning lessons for continuous improvement. There is no time to wait for optimal options that might check all the boxes from the very beginning. It is necessary to continuously work on harmonized clear long-term policies that allow improvement of established biofuel options as ground base for decarbonization in transport. At the same time R&D support for innovative advanced biofuels is urgently needed to broaden the biomass feedstocks that can be used, and achieve even better climate performance, e.g. through the combination of biogenic CO2 from the process with renewable hydrogen.

Consider the full value chain, from biomass resources to fuel applications

To stimulate biofuels development actions are needed in the field of resource mobilization and logistics, biofuel production technologies, infrastructure and trade, and appropriate norms and standards for innovative technologies. Cost-effective, reliable and sustainable feedstock supply chains are crucial to a successful development of advanced biofuels. Advanced biofuels will develop in an increasingly internationalized market with respect to tradeable feedstocks as well as international end-use markets such as shipping and aviation. The carbon intensity of fuels, including biofuels, is becoming an increasingly relevant metric in the transportation sector. Sustainability certification schemes are important to provide transparency and verification of the performance of biofuel value chains.

Based on the IEA Bioenergy study ‘Assessment of Successes and Lessons Learned for Biofuels Deployment’. Reports and key conclusions are available here.

IEA Bioenergy is an authoritative voice on sustainable bioenergy, providing scientific facts and analysis backed by experts and scientists from all over the globe. IEA Bioenergy is a Technology Collaboration Programme which was set up by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 1978. Currently 24 countries from all over the globe, as well as the European Commission, participate in IEA Bioenergy. Its work is organized through 11 topical Tasks which are collecting, summarizing and reporting scientific evidence in the wide field of bioenergy. READ MORE

Assessment of successes and lessons learned for biofuels deployment: Synopsis (IEA Bioenergy)

Excerpt from IEA Bioenergy: The IEA Bioenergy project “Lessons learned biofuels” examined the technical, economic, societal and political reasons underlying the past and ongoing booms and busts cycles of biofuel technologies development, demonstration, deployment and replication. The aim was to identify key factors for technology successes and the best policy framework conditions as well as the measures for stimulating increased future markets for production and consumption of sustainable transport biofuels.

The work was carried out from 2020 to 2023 in a collaboration between three IEA Bioenergy Tasks: Task 39 “Biofuels”, Task 40 “Deployment” and Task 45 “Sustainability”.

Synopsis report with a synthesis of key issues

Executive summary

The project’s high level key messages include:

Combine market pull with technology push: Ambitious strategies and targets do not automatically create a frame that allows increasing or building up innovative technologies along the well-to-wheel/wake chain. The case studies for advanced biofuels have shown technical success, however this doesn’t guarantee the required commercial success. To achieve this, harmonized technology-push and market-pull policies and a comprehensive monitoring of their impacts are necessary as well. This also includes steering instruments to secure financing in order to lower the risk of investments and plant operation.
Allow for learning and improvement: Decarbonization/defossilization of the transport sector needs a transition process that allows starting with promising technology options, allows gaining experience and learning lessons for continuous improvement. We don´t have time to wait for optimized options that might check all the boxes from the very beginning.
Improve established biofuel options AND support innovative biofuel solutions: It is necessary to continuously work on harmonized clear long-term policies that allow improvement of established biofuel options as ground base for decarbonization in transport. At the same time R&D&D on innovations of advanced biofuels including hybrids with other renewables that are more complex and thus (usually) more cost demanding (e.g. with regard to GHG mitigation) is urgently needed for a sustainable carbon neutral world.

To stimulate biofuels development actions are needed in the field of:

Resource mobilization: Biomass crops, with positive impact on soil quality and soil carbon, including improvement of degraded land; mobilize residues and organic waste
Resource logistics: technologies and infrastructure (including regional hubs) for efficient and timely mobilization of resources
Biofuel production technologies: feasibility studies, capacity building, research and innovation, financing mechanisms
Infrastructure and trade: broaden the fuel portfolio
Appropriate norms and standards for innovative technologies

Figure: Conventional bioethanol and biodiesel (FAME) are currently the renewable fuels with the highest production amounts worldwide followed by a rapidly growing market for HVO/HEFA and to a minor share biomethane/biogas. The total current biofuels production of about 4 EJ, together with fuel capacities planned and under construction of about 2 EJ, needs to be multiplied by a factor of 5 to 10 to meet the required demand of renewable fuels (biofuels and e-fuels) worldwide by 2050.

The underlying work package reports are available here:

The results of the project were presented in a seminar in Gothenburg, Sweden on 21 September 2023. Slides and recordings are available here. READ MORE