Advanced BioFuels USA

by Chris Stokel-Walker (Neste) The global urgency to reduce dependency on fossil fuel energy imports is now clearer than ever. So what’s next? — Against the backdrop of an urgency to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for climate reasons, the war in Ukraine has further intensified the need to replace an enormous amount of fossil-based energy with almost immediate effect.

Both the recent UN’s Global Climate Summit COP26 in Glasgow and the latest IPCC report on climate change mitigation demonstrate changes must happen quickly to achieve climate targets. But  rather than a direct switch, most national and international plans are allowing for a phased transition to new types of energy and fuels.

As Bernice Lee, Research Director at Futures, explains, “the world is in the relatively early stages of its transition away from fossil fuels. It’s not news to anybody that fossil fuel dependency is problematic for many different reasons. At the same time, what’s changed in the last couple of months is that it has really reintroduced the idea – or helped us rethink the idea – that renewables are cleaner, better, and safer.”

She adds: “We’re getting to the point where we understand that it’s not just about transitioning away from something that is very important. It’s also about rethinking the whole system.”

Renewable energy is now in the spotlight for geopolitical as well as environmental reasons – and may prove to play an important role in national and international energy security.

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Samuel Maubanc, Head of EU affairs at Neste, a global market leader in renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel, says: “There’s already been for quite some time an awful lot of political momentum around reducing the climate impact of transport.” Now there are important geopolitical motivators in addition to the green agenda: “All of a sudden, Europe realized how dependent we are on these imports of fossil fuels.”

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For example, in the transport sector, the car market is already seeing a significant increase in electrification as a means to cut emissions. While this is great news, existing combustion engines will continue to dominate the roads for decades to come, particularly in heavy duty transport, which means that sustainable renewable fuels are needed to decarbonize transportation too.

Sustainable drop-in solutions such as renewable diesel, that can be used as a direct replacement to fossil fuels in combustion engines, will help significantly cut emissions with the urgency that is required.

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Maubanc concludes that the war in Ukraine has brought about a moment of reckoning, to truly look beyond fossil fuels and to open our eyes to the kind of energy sources we can access on our own doorsteps: “We’ve lived in a world for many decades where fossil fuels were in abundance and coming from pretty much anywhere. One key learning from the current crisis is how to make sure we pay attention to the fact we need to focus on what we have at our own disposal. Waste and residue based renewable fuels should be seen as a key part of the solution.”  READ MORE; includes VIDEO

Chart: Fossil fuels are a big driver of inflation — Speeding up the switch to renewables will free consumers from the price volatility of dirty energy. (Canary Media)

Why clean fuels won’t replace Russian oil in Europe: The E.U.’s ban on oil imports from Moscow could reshape global energy markets. But nations are more likely to revert to different forms of fossil fuels than revolutionize their infrastructure for renewable energy, analysts said. (Politico Pro)

Clean Fuels Are Essential to Addressing Today’s Energy Crises (Real Clean Energy)