We are proud to announce that Comment:Visions is media partner for The World Biofuels Markets Congress & Exhibition, Rotterdam  2012, helping bring together the entire value chain of the biofuels industry to do business.

Here are the highlights from last year’s conference.

Participants at the 2012 event include specialists from the following fields:  aviation biofuels, advanced biofuels, biorefinery platforms, finance & investment, biodiesel production, bioethanol production, automotive futures in bioenergy, biogas in transportation and more.

Click here to book a ticket.

We would like to invite you to contribute a written online comment in our Comment:Visions discussion on ‘Progress towards sustainability’.

To pre-submit a comment, click here to register or e-mail me at robert@commentvisions.com.

Comment:Visions was born out of a partnership between the global channel euronews, and the Economist-owned newspaper, European Voice, in association with Shell. This project explores the views of thinkers, innovators, decision-makers, and scientists about possible solutions to global warming, overpopulation and dwindling resources.

In addition to the online community, Comment:Visions produces and broadcasts a series of programmes, and hosts face-to-face debates in Brussels, which usually take place in the European Parliament. All of this activity is also hosted on www.commentvisions.com.

Coming up on the website, we are discussing the following question: What role does society have in delivering a sustainable energy future?

Moreover, contributing is a positive way to share your message amongst an influential online community in the industry, policy, and research of energy and environment.

Let me know if you are interested in participating in this opinion-leader discussion and I’ll contact you with further information.

Yours Sincerely,

Robert Zlokower
Community Manager, Comment:Visions

+44 20 3355 8060 ext. 101

robert@commentvisions.com

24 November 2011

The European Commission has been working with alternative fuel stakeholders to understand and assess the various elements and actions that will lead to sustainable markets for alternative fuel and vehicle technologies. The results of their work will culminate in new policy initiatives for alternative fuels and natural gas vehicles.

Dr. Franz-Xavier Soeldner, the Deputy Head of Unit Clean Transport & Urban Transport at the Directorate General for Transportation (DG Tren) has been directly involved in alternative fuel policymaking for over a decade. In 2010-2011 Dr. Soeldner lead alternative fuel stakeholders in the Future Transport Fuels Expert Group, whose work is evolving into a European Alternative Fuels Policy.    He co-authored the 2003 report on Market Development of Alternative Fuels that said NGVs could replace 10% of petroleum fuels in the European transport sector by 2020.

Dr. Soeldner is the keynote speaker at the Clean Fuels Consulting Critical Issues Workshop, Chickens & Eggs: Opportunities, Challenges & Strategies Building the NGV Infrastructure on 7-8 December 2011 in Brussels.  (See www.ChickensandEggs.eu)   Recently he spoke to Jeffrey Seisler, CEO of Clean Fuels Consulting about the European Commission’s developing policies for alternative fuels, and specifically about the development of the NGV infrastructure. Comment:Visions is media partner to the event.

Clean Fuels Consulting: The Commission is considering creating a separate legislative proposal on alternative fuel infrastructure requirements in order to facilitate and actively stimulate market development of alternative fuels.  This is part of a new, comprehensive alternative transport fuel strategy, the Clean Transport Systems (CTS) initiative that is being prepared for launch in the first quarter of 2012.  Can you provide any details about the potential substance of this initiative?  What types of ‘stimuli’ do you foresee being included in such legislation?

Dr. Soeldner: The Clean Transport Systems (CTS) package for a sustainable alternative fuels strategy including also the appropriate infrastructure should discuss, in a Commission Communication the main alternative fuel solutions for the different transport modes. The Communication could be accompanied by a separate legislative proposal on the build-up of alternative fuel infrastructure. This should ensure coordinated action in the EU.

Clean Fuels Consulting: Some of the recent transportation and energy initiatives of the European Commission have been focused on electric vehicles.  Will this new CTS initiative be picking ‘fuel favorites’ or will it be ‘fuel and technology neutral’?

Dr. Soeldner: One of the main conclusions of the Future Transport Fuels Expert Group, advising the EC on the Alternative Fuels Strategy is that “policy and regulation should be technology neutral, founded on a scientific assessment of the well-to-wheels GHG (green house gas) emissions associated with competing transport pathways and the relevant life cycle aspects”.

Electricity as a power source for vehicle propulsion allows a radical change in energy supply to transport, from fossil fuels to a universal energy carrier which can be produced from all primary energy sources. Along with the expected decarbonisation of the EU power generation mix, electricity could efficiently contribute to decrease the CO2 emissions of the transport sector.

But electricity is only one of the alternative fuel options among others to be considered, since it could only power short distances in road transport and rail transport.

According to the 1st report of the expert group (January 2011), alternative fuel options for substituting oil as energy source for propulsion in transport are:

• Electricity/hydrogen, and biofuels (liquids) as the main options
• Synthetic fuels as a technology bridge from fossil to biomass based fuels
• Methane (natural gas and biomethane) as complementary fuels
• LPG as supplement

Clean Fuels Consulting: The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) targets 10% replacement of petroleum fuels with biofuels by 2020.  But many people see that the focus of this legislation being on liquid renewable fuels.  Some gas advocates say that, apart from the fact that fuels from waste are given a double counting benefit, which benefits biogas, liquid fuels seem to be benefiting at the expense of biogas.  What do you think of this view?

Dr. Soeldner: The Renewable Energy Directive does not specify any replacement fuel. It establishes mandatory targets to be achieved by 2020 for a 10% share for renewable energy in the road transport sector. Not only biofuels but all forms of energy from renewable sources can contribute to this target, including biofuels – liquid or gaseous – and electricity or hydrogen produced from renewable sources. Full flexibility on the fuel options is left to Member States, who, on the other hand, had to report their Action Plans to the Commission.

Member States in the National Renewable Energy Action Plans estimate the contribution of the different forms of energy towards the 10% target. The estimated share of this contribution by 2020 is 9.3-9.5% of liquid biofuels, 1.0% of electricity from renewable sources, up to 0.2% of biomethane supplied through the gas grid and 0.001% of hydrogen from renewables.

Clean Fuels Consulting: A new, landmark initiative was announced on 19^th October to use €9.1 billion from the EU’s 2014-2020 budget to help upgrade Europe’s energy infrastructures – electricity and natural gas.   Will the development of ‘bi-directional’ gas pipelines be a positive move to bring more renewable biomethane and LNG into the gas network?  Will there be any synergies between the CTS and this infrastructure initiative?

Dr. Soeldner: The proposal for a Connecting Europe Facility, covering transport, energy, and information flow in Europe with total support from Community funds of €50 billion in the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-20 aims at a physical integration of Europe through comprehensive networks. For natural gas, the Future Transport Fuels Expert Group and the national experts have proposed to feed biomethane produced from biomass into a single methane gas network, which in turn can serve the different users in stationary heat and power generation, and in the transport sector. Biogas, with an increasing share over time, can thereby gradually decarbonise the overall methane system.

Clean Fuels Consulting: Do you have any suggestions or insights about how the natural gas vehicle industry can overcome the ‘chicken and egg’ problem, particularly at a time when all levels of policy makers seem more focused on bringing electric vehicles into the market?

Dr. Soeldner: Methane-fuelled vehicles are already established in the road transport. Natural gas vehicles cover all types of vehicles from light to heavy duty and can be applied in short and long distance transport.

In the past, private/private partnerships between oil and gas companies have successfully built up natural gas re-fuelling infrastructure in some (European) Member States. Public support, as facilitated by the energy taxation Directive and the Environmental Guidelines for state aid has also been instrumental for installing infrastructure in some Regions. More harmonized coverage across the EU might require further public intervention.

But the recent lull in manufacturing and therefore demand for power in the wake of the global financial crisis has created a false reduction in emissions since 2008 that can only rise as the economy re-starts – and this has driven down the price of carbon traded on the open market as credits remain unused.

Now approaching its third phase, what impact has the ETS had in Europe to date?

We would like to invite you to contribute a written online comment in our Comment:Visions discussion on ‘Emissions Trading’.

To pre-submit a comment, click here to register or e-mail me at robert@commentvisions.com.

Comment:Visions was born out of a partnership between the global channel euronews, and the Economist-owned newspaper, European Voice, in association with Shell. This project explores the views of thinkers, innovators, decision-makers, and scientists about possible solutions to global warming, overpopulation and dwindling resources.

In addition to the online community, Comment:Visions produces and broadcasts a series of programmes, and hosts face-to-face debates in Brussels, which usually take place in the European Parliament. All of this activity is also hosted on www.commentvisions.com.

Coming up on the website, we are discussing the following question: Is Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme effective?

Moreover, contributing is a positive way to share your message amongst an influential online community in the industry, policy, and research of energy and environment.

Let me know if you are interested in participating in this opinion-leader discussion and I’ll contact you with further information.

Yours Sincerely,

Robert Zlokower
Community Manager, Comment:Visions

+44 20 3355 8060 ext. 101

robert@commentvisions.com

- how using more gas in power generation can or cannot make contribution at the lowest cost to meeting emission reduction targets in this decade

- the economical arguments for and against using more gas in power generation

- the role that technology and innovation play in unlocking the world’s gas resources

- what is needed from policy makers to ensure gas is or is not considered as a fuel to meet CO2 reduction targets

Jennifer Jacquemart / © European Voice.

Steiger, who is director of future technologies at VW and charman of European technology platform ERTRAC made the key point that we should decouple transport from mobility, and optimise transport infrastructure.

He certainly did not sound the death knell of the private car, but instead imagined constantly connected cars that warned their drivers of congestion and suggested alternative routes, cars which used a combination of renewably produced electricity and oil-alternatives like biogas, and cars that were much more efficient than those we have now. 

Steiger argues that current cars are often not suited to the task they perform. For example a large family estates is often overkill for the school run,  but can feel small on a 700km trip to see the relatives, and that’s because they’re designed as a compromise.

His focus was on city mobility, and there he saw a great move towards that most traditional of transport methods – two feet. In the future he believes we’ll walk a lot more, use electric scooters and electrically-assisted bikes, and adopt a new class of what he called ‘micro-vehicles’, often electric, to complete the last few kilometres of our journey.

The idea is that we switch, swap and match our transport modes to our mobility needs, much the same argument that we heard from Portuguese Professor Tiago Farias on Comment Visions earlier this year.

Where Steiger went a few steps further, however, is in explaining how urban areas would be transformed by new mobility systems. At the moment if you look at your average city street, whether it’s in the suburbs or downtown, and you’ll see at least one line of cars. These are parked, motionless, and as far as everyone apart from their owner is concerned, they are uselessly cluttering the road.

What Steiger proposes is to create purpose-built compact high-rise carparks where residents would be obliged to leave their vehicles. And there are many benefits to his plan, prinicpally that all that space currently occupied by motionless private vehicles could be used for bus lanes, bike lanes and pedestrian pavements. The car parks could host a new suite of services for the owners, and excess heat from the vehicle engines could be captured and used too.

It was a fascinating presentation, and an interesting insight into how a company like VW may see mobility developing. To hear such a radical, multi-modal vision of sustainable mobility from someone high-up within one of the world’s largest car-makers was also, in my opinion, a pleasant surprise.

The next step is to find a city with the courage, conviction and budget to implement those kinds of plans, because I’m pretty sure that once we’re able to see the ideas in action then most of us will be convinced of the benefits.

European Union leaders have set themselves the goal of achieving a low-carbon economy by 2050. A major element of that goal is the de-carbonisation of Europe’s energy sector.

The European Commission’s energy department will present, later this year, an energy roadmap that will outline details of how to meet the challenges of energy supply and security and a move towards a low-carbon economy.

Policymakers are confronted with recent developments and changes in the global energy markets. The conflict in Libya has reduced supplies from this significant supplier country. The catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan has prompted a rethinking of attitudes towards nuclear energy – for example, the German government has decided to phase out the use of nuclear power by 2022.

A clear strategy to help meet energy demand and tackle CO2 emissions is therefore needed. It will have to combine effective policies to support the integration of the energy market with energy efficiency measures in sectors like transport and power generation, in a context of rising global energy demand and where full-scale deployment of low-carbon solutions – like renewable energies or carbon capture and storage (CCS) – are still years away.

To this aim, the European Commission recently presented a proposal for a new energy efficiency directive, which would require EU member states to establish energy saving schemes. It raises important policy choices for the EU which, coupled with the energy roadmap, can help make significant progress towards the goal of moving to a low-carbon economy.

Can the EU succeed in transforming its energy sector? Can it deliver without achieving rapid progress on energy efficiency? Will the new directive provide the right instruments? What policies can the roadmap suggest to cut emissions and improve efficiency in the transport and power generation sectors? Which technologies can best support this transition?

Which energy sources will we be using in 2050? How does that compare to the current situation? Which clean energy source is forecast to see the greatest growth by mid-century, and which current energy source is forecast to see a downturn by 2050?