Biomass Demand for Transport Fuels, Aviation and Shipping up to 2050 and Implications for Biomass Supply to the Chemical Sector.
Current transport regulations provide a unique long-term horizon for sustainable aviation and shipping fuel through the defined quotas—what does this mean for the chemical sector?
Following the Green Deal, the EU is leading the way in transforming its transport sector towards climate neutrality.
The current transport regulations provide a unique long-term horizon for sustainable carbon-based fuels in aviation and shipping through the defined quotas, in particular for biomass covered by Annex IX, and synthetic CO2-based fuels.
A new report by the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI) develops and analyses three future scenarios for carbon-based fuel demand until 2050—each a possible development under current policy rules. The results visualise that the demand for second-generation biomass biofuels will increase significantly, mainly due to the increasing quotas set for aviation fuels and shipping.
This projection not only highlights potential risks to the ecological balance and resource sustainability that need to be managed carefully, but also poses significant barriers for other sectors that require renewable carbon to defossilise their products. In particular, the chemicals and materials sector has to rely on biogenic and captured carbon as a feedstock in the long term.
But in direct competition with the fuel sector and without comparable regulatory incentives, the sector will have severely limited access to second-generation biomass and captured carbon. However, the production of bio-based and synthetic fuels can also support the development of renewable carbon in chemicals, as some by-products of their production can be used as chemical industry feedstock.
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RCI commissioned experts from the nova-Institute (Germany) to prepare this report. It contains 11 tables and 9 graphics, as well as a detailed description of the latest fuel regulations in the European Union, which are of high value to stakeholders from other sectors with demand for biomass and CO2 utilisation.
Although the focus is on Europe, the report also includes global scenarios and analysis.