Policymakers are giving electric vehicles and second-generation biofuels a good push as a long-term solution for road transport
Policymakers are giving electric vehicles and second-generation biofuels a good push as a long-term solution for road transportTransport causes 23% of the world’s energy emissions with this set to double by 2050. Much of the emissions growth will come from light-duty passenger vehicles and aviation, and it is in road transport and fuel development that clean technology development is focused.
In July, major economies committed to a strategic policy approach to steering the green transport revolution at the Washington Clean Energy Ministerial event, which brought together energy ministers from around the world. They reaffirmed a commitment to deployment targets that the International Energy Agency estimates will put at least 20m electric vehicles on the road globally by 2020.
The ministers also agreed to ensure public investment was strategically targeting the key global gaps in vehicle technology development.
Traffic begins to flow
California-based Better Place has launched as a private-sector solution to provide the infrastructure needed for electric cars – including a network of charging points. It has managed to raise almost $700m in financing to date, from backers including HSBC and Morgan Stanley.
Better Place spokeswoman Julie Mullins says it is working towards commercial launches in Israel and Denmark in late 2011, which is also when the first Renault switchable battery electric cars hit the road. A few months after those launches, Better Place plans deployment projects in Australia, then some select North America markets.
In July, US president Barack Obama toured a plant of Smith Electric Vehicles, the US’s top manufacturer of battery-electric trucks. Smith received a $32m grant to help offset development costs and boost take-up of a commercial vehicle demo programme.
Smith licenses its technology from UK-based Smith Electric Vehicles, the world’s biggest manufacturer of commercial electric vehicles.
Earlier, in June, Raser Technologies and Hyundai Heavy Vehicles agreed an initial deal for the first phase of commercial production of electric fleet vehicles using Hyundai engineering and manufacturing capacity and Raser’s powertrain technology.
As such developments continue to expand, governments are also putting the policy foot down to establish biomass production and use for flex-fuel and hybrid-fuel transport technologies, with a focus on second-generation biofuels.
Delivering emissions savings
Tesco has started using 25 Iveco EcoDaily light commercial vehicles fuelled by sustainable liquid biomethane for its Tesco.com home delivery service in the UK. The fuel is made by UK company Gasrec and is created by extracting methane from organic waste in landfill sites and converting it to fuel. Gasrec says the fuel is commercially competitive with diesel and petrol.
First-generation biofuels have been criticised for raising food prices and failing to deliver on key goals of climate mitigation, oil displacement and economic stimulus.
But UBS analysts say newer, second-generation (2G) biofuels offer enticing benefits.
Newer biofuels source biomass feedstock from agricultural wastes, so in theory should not significantly compete with land used for food output. UBS says 2G’s “seed to wheel” greenhouse gas generation would be significantly lower than existing fossil fuels – reductions in emissions could be as high as 90%.
Michigan State University researchers estimate that 32% of global gasoline consumption could be produced from crop residues and wastes alone. UBS says it believes 2G biofuels will be the predominant renewable energy source for transportation by 2020.
The future’s biofuels
The political allure for 2G biofuels comes from mitigating the effects of climate change, economic boosts to agricultural sectors and greater energy security. Also, 2G biofuels can be delivered using existing infrastructure.
“Driven by the US, but also supported by Brazil and China, we expect 2G bioethanol to become an $80bn market by 2022, from practically zero today,” UBS says.
The big oil companies are also moving in. BP is to buy Verenium’s cellulosic biofuels business. Verenium will retain its biofuels enzymes products, but says BP’s move takes its technology “to the cusp of commercialisation”.
Biofuel producers Novozymes and Danisco estimate that 2G ethanol production from corn plant waste is approaching break-even economically. Novozymes has a 60% market share in the 1G bioethanol enzyme market and is the leader in 2G ethanol enzyme technology development.
Lars Hansen, president of Novozymes Europe, says: “The technology is ready. When the first large-scale factories come on stream, [2G] would, under current subsidies, be comparable to first generation.”
Hansen says there is a strong political will to move forward on new biofuel technology. “China is also realising the potential. In Europe, not as much is going on as in the US,” he says.
He argues that 2G biofuels are part of an overall change in thinking. The fossil fuels industry has “supplied everything from plastics to energy. We need to replace this with the renewables-based industry, a bio-based society.” Only in this way, Hansen says, can all “the ingredients of the kind of life the developed world wants” be maintained.