Transport is totally depending on fossil fuels but Europe needs to break its dependence of fossil fuels because of two main reasons. 1. Use of fossil fuels, i.e. one way transport of coal from the lithosphere to the athmosphere, is causing climate change. 2. A common opinion among oilexperts is that the capacity of oil production will peak in the near future. Furthermore most of the remaining crude oil is located at the political unstable Middle East. To reduce the demand for fossil fuels we need both more energy efficient vehicles and biofuels. The biofuels of today in Europe are biodiesel ( RME, FAME), bioethanol (from grain and sugar beets) and a small portion of biogas. The potentials of these fuels is neither enough to reduce the emissions of carbondioxide in a significant way, nor rise the level of security of supply. There is a need for a second generation of biofuels with better well-to-wheel efficiency, better use of feedstock and a wider base of feedstock. In Sweden three projects are going on for the 2:nd generation of biofuels. One project in Oernskooldsvik is a pilot plant which aims to produce ethanol from forest residues. The other two is synthesis gas projects. One of them in Piteaa uses black-liquor from a pulp mill as feedstock the other one the Chrisgas-project in Vaarnamo pressurized gasification of dry biomass to synthetis gas. From synthesis gas you can make fuels like synthetic diesel (FTD) or dimtylether (DME) or even hydrogen. If these projects are sucessful there is an opportunity to build new fullscale plants and produce greater volymes of high standard biofuels in an efficient way at acceptable costs. This is an important option but there is still a need for much more energy efficent vehicle (A). Only abstract (as above) is available from the conference proceedings. For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E212343.
Abstract