Renewable transport fuel use in Sweden

A Taxi Stockholm cab (source: TripAdvisor)

The Taxi Stockholm company is striving to be Sweden’s most environmentally taxi company. Out of their 1600 cars 95% are green vehicles, and majority of them run on biofuel. In fact, around 20% of total fuel use in Sweden comes from renewable biofuels.

The motor fuels developed by the company Swedish Biofuels AB are produced from grain crops or cellulosic raw material, including wood, and are completely identical to petroleum derived motor fuels. These motor fuels are suitable for operation in conventional, standard engines, including jet engines.

Using biofuels made from crops could be detrimental to the environment but Sweden pledges to used crops grown by sustainable methods. A scientific report argued that Swedish biofuels do have major benefits for the environment. “The results show that they produce between 65 and 140 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than petrol and diesel, even when direct and indirect land use changes are taken into account."

Sweden’s goals are to reduce GHG emissions compared with 1990 by 40 per cent by the year 2020 and to have a vehicle fleet completely rid of fossil fuels by 2030. These are stepping stones to the major goal of a society with no net GHG emissions by the year 2050.

To reduce our use of fossil fuels, there can be a range of different approaches. As for transport, we will gradually improve vehicles powered by renewable electricity, biofuels, hydrogen and other developing technologies.

China is quickly moving away from coal and oil use for energy and transport

Part of China's huge Gansu wind farm (source TheFifthEstate)

China is using market forces to switch from coal to renewable electricity; for transport it is encouraging both ethanol as a fuel, and electric vehicles.

For nine consecutive days, the 5.6 million inhabitants of China’s Qinghai Province, and their factories and municipal lighting did not rely on coal-fired electricity but on clean energy. From midnight on 20 June to midnight on 28 Jun, the state grid supplied electricity from water, wind and sun power achieving zero emissions - a record. Most of that power came from hydroelectricity.

China is throwing off its dirty coal image faster than any thought possible. In 2017, clean energy generation and installed capacity exceeded 50 per cent of all power generation in the five southern provinces Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, which contain 215 million people.

The clean energy revolution is also sweeping through the Chinese transport sector.

China accounted for more than half of the 1.2 million electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2017. The government has put in measures to trace all the lithium-ion batteries for recycling. China is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in a major boost to the production of electric vehicles as Beijing seeks to ease pollution. They have not put a date on this ban as yet.

More petrol is also to be replaced by biofuels. Promoting the use of ethanol petrol for vehicles is a national strategic initiative to tackle air pollution from particulate matter and carbon monoxide, with a ban for all petrol based cars to use it from 2020 but it has been thrown into doubt by the current trade dispute with the USA since it could affect supplies of raw materials such as corn.

Read more: China is fast moving its energy and transport away from coal and oil. TheFifthEstate, July 10, 2018.
See also in this blog: China’s solar surge hits new heights. December 2017.