As experts urge the government to consider sustainable fuel in the journey towards electrification, Quadrant Transport looks at how it is essential to reduce emissions until we have net-zero transport on a wide scale.
The ultimate goal for road transportation is a network of hydrogen and electric vehicles powered by truly green renewable energy. However, this is not an easy task as there are currently many obstacles in the rollout process.
For example, there are issues around battery production, an entire infrastructure to replace, and the fact that less than 40 per cent of electricity consumed in the UK is currently renewable. There are still a lot of practical issues that need addressing.
Until we meet the needs of mass rollout and infrastructure development, there are solutions to fix the immediate problem, including more sustainable forms of fuel.
Today there are 278 million cars on Europe’s roads and only 0.2 per cent are fully electric. There are 35 million cars on the UK’s roads alone and given that only 0.3 per cent of those are fully electric, the majority of the general fleet continues to pump out as many emissions as they always have.
Due to current government policy, there has been no call to produce sustainable fuel in the huge volumes needed – but it could be done, and studies have been undertaken to prove it
Sustainable liquid fuels could begin making a difference almost immediately, reducing greenhouse gas by up to 80 per cent if fully replacing their fossil-based equivalent.
However, even a staged introduction could remove 130 million tonnes of CO2 in Europe by 2030 – almost the same amount as 33 coal-fired power stations would produce in a year.
Currently, up to 10 per cent of the E10 petrol you can fill up with at the pump is biofuel. But sustainable fuel experts Coryton believe this doesn’t go far enough.
Here we have a solution that could be making a difference to greenhouse gas emissions almost immediately – given we’re in a climate emergency, why would we not make those easier changes as we transition into fully electric vehicles?
Andrew Willson, CEO at Coryton, said: “Sustainable fuels could be used in all cars which typically run on petrol or diesel. There’s no need for any alterations to either vehicles or the infrastructure surrounding refuelling.”
“We’re limited to the amount of bioethanol we can use in fuels, which is what is in an E10 before there is a compatibility issue. But we could use another biowaste to produce other bio-components, with no such issues and with some support to scale up operations.”
Coryton has recently had success in the world of motorsport, running their race cars on fuel derived from agricultural waste. You can read how here.