14 DAY TRIAL // Climate change and global warming are getting out of hand, and world leaders are bending over backwards trying to come up with ways to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. As far as the automotive industry is concerned, it appears that biofuels are by far a better option than electric vehicles, at least on the short term.
A report pieced together by researchers working with UK-based Element Energy says that, according to their investigations into the matter at hand, internal combustion engines will continue to dominate the vehicle market for nearly three more decades.
Because of this, biofuels are bound to prove a more cost-effective way to improve on the automotive industry's ecological footprint over the following years.
However, “The Role of Biofuels Beyond 2020” report details that, all things considered, electric vehicles have high chances to become the favorites on the long run.
“In the long term, electric plug – in and fuel cell vehicles are likely to play a significant role in the transport mix,” says Alex Steward with Element Energy, as cited by Click Green.
“But we also expect high numbers of (internal combustion engine) derived vehicles to still be in circulation by 2030, so lower carbon liquid fuels have to play a major part in meeting CO2 targets,” he adds.
The researchers focused on the UK's plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 to 2050, and analyzed three different scenarios: one in which petroleum is blended with low amounts of biofuels, one in which a tad more biofuels are added to the mix and one in which cars are made to run chiefly on biofuels.
Under the second and the third scenario, emissions were reduced by 9% and 27% when compared to the 1990 baseline, as not a lot of money had to be spent. Apparently, achieving the same results by promoting the use of EVs would have turned out way more costly.
“Biofuels also offer a more cost effective way to reduce emissions over the next 17 years, with a fuel premium of £336m (€402.7m / $541.36) in 2030 against the £1.2bn (€1.43bn / $1.93bn) it would cost in customer incentives to achieve the same CO2 savings with plug-in vehicles,” Alex Steward explains.
Despite these findings, the researchers warn that biofuel can only become a cost-effective way to limit climate change and pollution if scientists figure out how to produce large amounts without competing with food and land resources.