The European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) has published a new roadmap assessing energy carriers and powertrains in the context of the European target to achieve a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions from transport by 2050. ERTRAC is the European Technology Platform (ETP) for Road Transport recognized and supported by the European Commission. ERTRAC has more than 50 members, representing all the actors of the Road Transport System: transport industry, European associations, EU Member States, local authorities, European Commission services, etc.
The analysis concludes that while the goal is challenging, it is also realizable; however the overall high-level goals need to be segmented into precise targets for the different industries and stakeholders. For the topic of future road mobility these are the development of alternative and decarbonized fuels and energy carriers; and higher powertrain efficiency leading to cleaner mobility and reduction in resource demand.
The most important source of decarbonized energy in 2050 will come from electricity produced from renewable sources like wind, solar and hydroelectric and used in plug-in vehicles, the report notes. Surplus electricity generated from renewables could be stored in batteries or could be converted via power-to-gas technology into synthetic methane (SNG), liquid fuels or hydrogen.
Specific major high-level findings from the assessment are:
Biofuels based on biomass have the potential to substitute between 15 and 30% of fossil fuels, due to the sustainable availability on biomass; i.e., overall potential is limited by the availability of sustainable biomass.
Replacing more than 20% of fossil energy with new biogenic fuels will require direct CO2 recycling, without the production of biomass on agricultural land. Technologies based on ‘CO2 + Sunlight’ to fuel are under research and offer a huge potential which should be exploited.
The most economical biofuels today and in future seem to be ethanol. Similar pathways to butane are more compatible to vehicle and infrastructure.
For gasoline use, blend rates of alcohols will increase. For diesel use, drop-in components (e.g. ‘Hydrotreated vegetable oils’ (HVO), BtL diesel and sugar-to-diesel technologies) will be important.
Due to technological barriers and backward compatibility in the vehicles and the infrastructure 1st generation Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME / biodiesel) are limited to 7% (vol) biodiesel contend in diesel fuel and ethanol up to 10% (vol). Additionally the sustainable European availability of oil plants is exploited at this level.
In the overall economic assessment costs for fuel production and costs for possible new infrastructure and new vehicles have to be taken into account. In this respect drop-in renewable fuels offer substantial benefit.
Extending biogenous diesel components pathways to drop-in fuels is a focus (e.g. HVO, sugar to diesel, BtL). The feedstock will be based on residuals.
Captured fleets offer the potential to bring higher blends of biofuels (like e.g. E20 and B7) into the market.
Methanol and DME have to potential to be a cost efficient way to become fuels in dedicated fleets of HD transports, busses and ships as well as, for methanol, as a blend component in gasoline in captured fleets.
Natural gas offers the possibility to overcome the blend wall discussion. No matter where the molecule methane (CH4) comes from (biomethane or power-to-gas methane), it can be injected into the network or liquefied and used in all CNG and LNG vehicles in any volume without limitation.
In today’s powertrains, up to 25% CO2 emissions can be saved by the use of natural gas compared to gasoline. Until 2030, the market share of new natural gas vehicles may increase towards 10%; a European-wide refueling infrastructure is essential in order to achieve this level. For long haul heavy-duty truck and corridor related applications, methane is expected to be an option as liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the TEN-T network.
LPG on the other hand is a dead-end fuel in terms of research needs.
For gaseous fuels, there is no blending restriction on the use of biomethane; a second source for decarbonized methane is from power-to-gas technology to synthetic methane, also fully interoperable with existing natural gas infrastructures, refueling and vehicle technologies.
Green electricity is the very promising feedstock for energy carries for mobility in the future. The electricity might be used in batteries or converted to chemical energy carriers (e.g. power-to-gas methane, hydrogen or liquids).
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