Ethanol: From Road to Air Transport

by Phillipe Marchand (Transport Energy Strategies) ... Qualification for sustainability: Two issues are at the heart of the criticism of biofuels by environmental NGOs. The first is insufficient CO2 emission abatement and the second, production on agricultural land that is suspected to cause food security ripple effects in the world. Some ideologically-minded regulators, obligingly nudged by airlines fearful of media attacks of “greenwashing”, prefer to listen to these arguments rather than recognize the merits of biofuels that provide real CO2 emission reduction (measured by Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)), improved energy security (local production), and economic gains (local employment, foreign exchange savings from lower imported energy). Can ethanol respond to the criticism, based on sound scientific ground?

On CO2 emission abatement, progress over time is undeniable, significant and on-going as shown in this chart comparing GHG savings under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED I and II).

The graph above shows that on average, ethanol produced in Europe from sugar beets or cereals has reached some 77% CO2 emission reduction compared to fossil gasoline. Additional measures, like biogenic CO2 capture and sequestration or re-use (to produce e-fuels?), can get this performance beyond 100%, not only making ethanol carbon neutral, but also possibly neutralizing the additional CO2 emissions from the downstream transformation of ethanol into SAF in the AtJ pathway, making AtJ SAF carbon-neutral or carbon-negative.

On the agricultural land grab charge, rhetoric comes into play, meaning regulators should use their common sense to arbitrate between conflicting visions regarding the use of land. First, a reminder. In the EU, first-generation biofuels like ethanol have been facing since 2015 a regulatory limitation in terms of incorporation, at 7 %, a political compromise supposed to contain their impact on agricultural land use, a.k.a. indirect Land Use Change (ILUC). Below is the official definition of ILUC given by the European Commission:

This definition implies ILUC can only be modeled not directly measured. Scientific modeling has taken place and indisputably confirmed that ethanol produced from sugar beets generates zero ILUC, when taking into account the use of by-products as feed (pulps replace imported soy meal). On top of this, it must be noted that this crop only uses 1% of the useful agricultural land surface in France, for instance.

So, sugar beet-based ethanol-to-jet SAF can soon be carbon-neutral and has no impact on food security in the world. While Brussels-based, out of touch with reality, regulators may well impose SAF to be “non-food”, the rule of subsidiarity in the EU passes the buck to Member States for enacting effective law, which bodes well for ethanol-based SAF in countries with a strong agricultural culture, no pun intended here, that will be honest and pragmatic enough to recognize the value of the arguments laid out above. It may take some time to advocate to that purpose but climate can be the eventual winner by opening up a large, local, resource potential for sustainable aviation. READ MORE