Currently, Europe uses a special technology which converts cellulosic wastes and residue into quality and efficient biofuel. Biofuel derived through this method is expected to cover up to twenty percent of the continent’s transport fuel consumption needs by the year twenty thirty. According to a report by the International Council on Clean Transportation, biofuel produced in this way will reduce overall greenhouse emissions by sixty percent.
Using biofuel on a wider scale is going to be beneficial for Europe on many levels. The ICCT, which is a non-profit, independent organisation providing unbiased data and analysis to governments and companies projects that by cutting the carbon intensive use of transport fuels will reduce national spending on oil imports, it will also boost economy in rural areas of countries where biofuels can be produced from residues and wastes.
One key problem outlined by the ICCT report is the lack of sufficient amount of wastes and residues to produce cost effective quantities of transport biofuels. This however doesn’t mean that people should produce more waste just so they power transport using biofuels, but rather to focus on more efficient collection and processing methods which yield more fuel from existing amounts of waste. One of the most important advantages of using biofuel for transport is the sizeable reduction of oil import costs. Europe imports fair bit of its oil, and using biofuels instead will make a tremendous difference.
Production and use of biofuels is necessary in many respects. ICCT says that if all sustainable resources available to partner countries in the EU are efficiently reprocessed into biofuel, a certain sixteen percent of demand will be covered by biofuels by the year two thousand thirty. It is also important to consider the many new jobs which will open on a local and national level as processing plants and refineries would have to be sufficiently staffed. It is expected for thousands of new jobs to be created in waste collection, as well as construction and operation of treatment and production sites. In figures, it is estimated that sustainable production of biofuel will create about three hundred thousand new jobs, and pour in about fifteen billion Euro of additional revenue in countries’ rural economies, and all of it by the year two thousand thirty!
The EU has some of the strictest climate goals in the world. In light of this, production and use of biofuel will prove very important and help reduce C02 emissions anywhere between sixty and eighty five percent. One very important aspect of biofuel production is sustainability and preservation of the environment. In other words, production of biofuels should not pollute or contaminate which is the case with most types of conventional production and manufacturing.
It is expected for biofuel production to require very little incentive as the main feedstock for production would be residues and wastes from sustainable sources. Different production methods vary in competitiveness and cost efficiency, but on a larger scale most biofuel production techniques require only solid, long-term policy and commitment on behalf of governments.