The growth rate for transport biofuels consumption needs to increase considerably to stay in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, according to the International Energy Agency.

The IEA’s Tracking Clean Energy Progress (TCEP) initiative compares the advancements made with forty-five clean energy technologies to their projected progress in a scenario consistent with the UN goals.

Seven technologies are classed as “on track”, nineteen technologies are classed as “more efforts needed”, and thirteen technologies are classed as “not on track” - including transport biofuels.

Although biofuel production increased 7% year-on-year in 2018, and is expected to continue to grow at 3% y-on-y for the next five years, an annual average growth rate of at least 10% through to 2030 is required under the IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS).

Overall, this would involve a tripling in transport biofuel consumption up to 280 million tonnes of oil equivalent, or around 10% of global transport fuel demand.

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Some regions and sectors are more likely to achieve the SDS targets than others. The IEA forecasts that China and the ASEAN region are both likely to reach the levels of consumption specified by the SDS in 2030.

Biofuels production in Brazil and India is also expected to grow strongly, but neither country is currently on track with the SDS.

Although the United States and the European Union are relatively mature markets for transport biofuels, existing blend rates are not consistent with the SDS. Falling fuel demand from a more efficient vehicle fleet will require higher blend rates and/or greater use of drop-in fuels.

Shipping and aviation are identified as particularly problematic areas. The SDS calls for low-carbon fuels to comprise 7% of shipping and 10% of aviation fuel demand by 2030, but in both cases biofuels consumption falls considerably short of these levels.

The TCEP report provides a set of key recommendations for each of the assessed technologies to assist policy making, and identifies “innovation gaps” that will need to bridged under the SDS.

For transport biofuels, the commercialisation of cellulosic ethanol – which delivers higher greenhouse gas (GHG) savings than conventional ethanol – is identified as a key challenge. Because it can be produced from agricultural waste, the fuel also has the potential to avert air quality impacts from waste that may otherwise be burned.

Although policy makers in the EU, the US and India are supportive of cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels, political support has so far not translated into any significant increase in investment in advanced biofuel technologies, outside of biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

Context: What is the Sustainable Development Scenario?

The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario is intended to define the contributions that different energy-related sectors will need to make towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed upon in 2015.

There are 17 SDGs, three of which are focused on by the SDS: Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3), and Climate Action (SDG 13). In the context of the SDS, SDG 3 is interpreted primarily as the need to reduce air pollution.

The use of the UN goals as a metric for success is an important differentiator between the SDS and other energy scenarios which focus solely on CO2 emissions.

More Info: Which technologies are making the most progress under the TCEP?

The best performing technologies according to the IEA are solar PV, bioenergy in the power sector, electric vehicles, rail, lighting, data centres & networks and energy storage.

You can read more about Tracking Clean Energy Progress here.

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