“You don’t hear a lot about advanced biofuels in the news,” says Jean Taillon, Director, Business Development for Gasification at ANDRITZ. “However, they are an ideal low hanging fruit and are recognized to be a potential pathway to reduce our fossil carbon usage rapidly and efficiently. These fuels are also clearly acknowledged in the latest EU legislation.
“In fact, the EU is already predicting that there will be a growing need for advanced biofuels as we progress towards its defossilization goals for 2030, particularly for the marine and aviation sectors.”
Advanced biofuels are basically liquid or gaseous fuels derived from non-food-based feedstocks, such as forest residues, and when applied through gasification, it can easily achieve the EU GHG saving target.
“Our transport infrastructure is built on fossil-based liquid and gaseous fuels. A fast path towards fuel defossilization is to replace these fuels with biomass-derived fuels,” says Taillon. “The biomass source is already available from forests without compromising their current usage.”
“It makes total sense to use the carbon easily available to us on the surface of the planet in the form of forest residues and recycling it into biofuels, as opposed to using 300-million-year-old unrecycled fossil carbon from the crust of the Earth. There is simply no comparison, we can and must use this recycled carbon from our rich forests in a sustainable way.”
The good news is that large-scale gasification technology for advanced biofuels can already be utilized.
The area of transport that can immediately benefit from the use of advanced biofuels is the road sector, and in the medium to long term, the marine and aviation sectors.
“The really exciting areas for advanced biofuels going forward are the maritime and aviation industries,” says Taillon. “The use of batteries for these industries are currently somewhat limited because of the weight and the power needed, and hydrogen has limitations when it comes to the expense and practicality of the infrastructure needed to install the technology.”
“Whilst the road sector can benefit from the use of advanced biofuels quickly, the sector will continue to reduce its energy consumption with electrical vehicles, as batteries are more efficient than internal combustion engines. These are the reasons why the EU is predicting that advanced biofuels would be ideal for the transition into the maritime and aviation sectors.”
Due to the urgency of defossilization, policies and penalties are fast being set by governments to achieve GHG reduction. In Europe, the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) has recently been released as part of its “Fit for 55” package, a legislative effort towards enhancing sustainable energy use and combating climate change with an aim to achieve a minimum of 55% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030.
The RED III legislation for the transport sector, set in October 2023, requires a minimum of 1% Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin (RFNBOs) by the year 2030 from the transport sector. In a nutshell RFNBOs are renewable liquid or gaseous transport fuels for which none of the energy content of the fuel comes from biomass sources by 2030. However, it states that a combined RFNBO and advanced biofuels target of 5.5% must also be met. In simple maths, this leaves a potential 4.5% to be filled by the supply of advanced biofuels, representing growing market potential for the alternative fuel.
Taillon concludes, “Increased legislation on the reduction of fossil fuels clearly implies high interest and demand for advanced biofuels plants. At ANDRITZ we already have the required technology and expertise in the production of advanced biofuels through biomass gasification, we simply have to upscale in order to satisfy the demand.”
