What role for biofuels in low-carbon UK transport?

Biofuels have a role to play in meeting the UK’s commitments to reducing climate change. Professor Adisa Azapagic FREng, Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester, sets out why biofuels made from wastes and by-products in different sectors are particularly important to these efforts.

The mobility of people and goods is a key enabler of all social and economic activity. However, mobility comes at an environmental cost, including emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and related climate change impacts. With the UK Climate Change Act committing us to carbon reductions of 80% (on 1990 levels) by 2050, the transport sector needs to play its role in decarbonising our economy.

The quickening pace at which passenger transport is being electrified is a significant development that will likely be accelerated by recent government plans to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040. Provided we can decarbonise electricity generation – and build enough power stations to cope with the ‘electric revolution’ – this should prove a positive step. However, the electrification of passenger vehicles on our roads will take years and hybrid vehicles are likely to feature heavily in passenger transport, with liquid fuels continuing to play a role as a range extender. Perhaps more crucially, transport is much more besides just passenger road transport: aviation, shipping and haulage are all significant parts of the transport system. They have much more limited options for low-carbon energy so will have to rely heavily on liquid fuels for the foreseeable future. This all points to a need for low-carbon liquid fuels.

Professor Adisa Azapagic FREng

To address this issue, the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) introduced mandatory targets for member states to ensure that a 10% share of transport energy is from renewable sources by 2020. In the UK, the RED is implemented through the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, which mandates a total supply of biofuels in road fuel sales. Currently, this is sitting at 4.75% (by volume), some way off the 10% target.

Biofuels are liquid fuels derived from different biomass feedstocks. These include food and feed crops (such as corn, wheat and sugar cane), energy crops (such as willow and www.raeng.org.uk/biofuels

Adisa Azapagic FREng is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on applying principles of sustainable development and lifecycle thinking in industrial practice. Adisa chaired the Academy’s study referred to in this article.