What’s the Best Use of Biofuels?

Webinar Highlights:

• Sector after sector continues to look to biomass products as a viable decarbonization pathway, says Ita Kettleborough, Director at the UK-based Energy Transitions Commission (ETC). But don’t assume that increasing biofuels will lead us in the right direction, she warns. “There’s a very real risk that [biofuels] will not actually help reduce overall emissions, but will indirectly or directly increase them.”
   
• Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are considered an optimal use of biofuels, according to energy experts. Canada has a unique opportunity to lead in their development, says Transition Accelerator Pathway Principal Bentley Allan, who was the lead author of the C-SAF Roadmap, a guide to decarbonizing aviation. The report identifies SAF as the only viable decarbonization pathway for long haul aviation, compared with other sectors which have multiple technology options.
   
• Wendy Avis, Director of Climate and Environment at the Vancouver Airport Authority, thinks sustainable fuels alone won’t be enough to decarbonize the aviation industry. “Airports are increasingly starting to think of themselves not just as transportation hubs, but as energy hubs,” she says. “That’s the work that we’re doing right now: what are all of the energy needs going to be for the airport, for tenants, for ground support, for aviation, for everything, and where are those potential supplies for biofuels, hydrogen, electricity, and how do we make best use for each of those energy sources?” 

• Demand is pulling biofuels into sectors like road transport, which is not an optimal long-term use from a net-zero systems perspective, says Allan. In Canada, where production of renewable diesel is mandated by federal clean fuel regulations, biofuels are politically incentivized for use in road transport. “So biofuels are going, from a long term perspective, where you don’t need them because there are commercial or nearly-commercial solutions [already available for eliminating emissions] in those sectors.”
   
• “You have to take a systems view. It’s only when you add up all of those different demands that you really realize we can’t use biofuels everywhere,” emphasized Kettleborough. “We want to be creating conditions for optimal biofuel use in the appropriate sector. Use of biofuels for cars and power were policy priorities for the climate community 20 years ago… But other technologies have evolved in the meantime that have overtaken them.” Kettleborough suggests looking at regulations and different kinds of implicit and explicit carbon pricing to make sure biofuels are applied in the most impactful ways.
   
• The bottom line for advancing biofuel production? “A really important priority for biofuels is the non-biofuel alternatives,” says Kettleborough. “We have to have wind and solar racing ahead [to meet global decarbonization goals]. We need to look at developing the clean hydrogen economy, to use it where it makes sense. And we need that vital but limited role for CCUS, where alternatives aren’t available.”