Biofuels for Transport

Objectives and Activities

Advanced technologies for producing biofuels are constantly improving but at present biofuels are more expensive than fossil fuels preventing them from entering the European fuel market.  The Biofuels for Transport team is examining all aspects of raw materials, thermochemical and biochemical production processes, and policies and legislation to find ways to improve the competitiveness of biofuels in Europe. 

The Team

The Biofuels for Transport team is lead by Herman den Uil from ECN. Together with other team representatives the Research Area offers interdisciplinary expertise on feedstock issues and system aspects feedstock issues, (bio)chemical and thermo-chemical synthesis (i.e. ethanol from both sugar/starch and lignocellulose crops, Fischer-Tropsch diesel from biomass-derived syngas, pyrolysis-based fuels), and technical, economic and ecological system/chain aspects.

The team members are:  Yrjo Solantausta and Päivi Aakko from VTT, Gerfried Jungmeier from Joanneum, Ewout Deurwaarder from ECN, Andreas Hornung from FZK, Lena Neij  from IIEE, James Titiloye and Tony Bridgwater from Aston, Magdalena Rogulska and Adam Kupczyk from EC-BREC and Michael O'Donohue, Philippe Debeire and Bernard Kurek from INRA.

Publications

ECN has released a publication by E.P. Deurwaarder written in cooperation with Bioenergy NoE, titled "Overview and analysis of national reports on the EU biofuel Directive: Prospects and barriers for 2005."  The report analyses the progress of European countries in achieving the target set by the European Council's biofuel directive to replace 2% of diesel and petrol with biofuels by 2005. 

Conventional biofuel production