Climate Change and The Future of Europe

By the mid-century, living in Europe might look like this: before sleeping, a person plugs his or her car into an electric socket. The next morning, the person unplugs the fully charged car and navigates to work using a global positioning system giving up-to-date traffic alerts about which congested roads to avoid.
Along the way, he or she will pass delivery trucks that use biodiesel made from feedstock grown under the best agricultural practices. The person also will pass a gasoline-powered car – a vintage model from the early 20th century.

Once at work, the person turns on the office lamp. As electricity lights it, the coal-fired power plant from where the electricity came is capturing its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for future storage underground.

This scenario, which seems far removed from any present reality, is what some are saying needs to happen to prevent global warming. They argue that governments, industries and private citizens must work together to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to levels seen at the onset of the 21st century, as recent figures from the International Panel on Climate Change show the world warming by as much as 3°C to 4°C if countries do nothing to curb GHGs by 2050.
However, getting to the point where parties work together to reduce GHG emissions is a looming and seemingly impossible task. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects global CO2 emissions by 2050 must be halved to get emissions back to 2005 levels. The growing middle classes in developing countries want a more comfortable lifestyle that, as an effect, creates more emissions. Meanwhile, developed countries need to curtail their energy consumption and become even more energy efficient. To add to the challenge, any strategies should also take into account preserving the earth’s resources from further harm and for future use.

Dorette Corbey, European Parliamentarian, Fuel Quality Directive Rapporteur
Anders Weijkman, Europena Union Parliament Member

As a result, at Hart Energy’s recent European Refining and Fuels Conference in Brussels, Belgium, the dialogue focused on two outcomes that must occur. First, because no one technology will be the silver bullet to reduce emissions, countries must employ horizontal legislation and initiatives all working toward the same goal of reducing emissions.

From the European perspective, that collection of regulations will include many intermediary steps, such as mandates to increase renewable energy use and lower the carbon content of transportation fuels. Industries themselves may respond through increased usage of carbon capture and storage (CCS) or the implementation of fuel-saving technologies, such as sophisticated internal combustion engines or even hydrogen-powered engines for cars.
Second, technologies and mandates must preserve natural resources and also possibly contribute to a greater quality of life worldwide. Are the feedstocks used to make biofuels grown in such a manner that safeguards the environment as well as local land and water resources from harm? Are labor practices fair? Do feedstocks not compete with resources for food? Are refineries the most energy efficient they could be? And can such “sustainability criteria,” which include the questions above, apply to other industries, including food production and agriculture?
“I’ve never come across an issue that’s so complicated than the one we’re talking about now,” said European Union (EU) Member of Parliament Anders Wiejkman at a dinner debate during the conference. “It’s not easy to do a proper job. That’s why I’ve come to the conclusion, given all the uncertainties…[that] we have to learn by doing. We have to have a step-by-step approach.”

Lifecycle analysis and sustainability
Just as there is still some disagreement about who’s responsible for reducing emissions, there is also some uncertainty about the best way to go about it.

A popular way at looking at reducing GHG emissions is holistically, through the lifecycle of a product such as diesel, and through the way that product minimizes its impact to the earth’s resources, a concept known as sustainability.

By lifecycle analysis, industries can determine how GHG and CO2 emissions are reduced through each phase of a product’s life, from inception to consumption.

For transportation fuels, the EU is considering a measure in which fuel suppliers cut the GHGs produced in a fuel’s lifecycle by 1% annually between 2011 and 2020. The measure goes on to say that the annual cuts must also be done in a sustainable manner.

That proposed measure is just one of many revisions to the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive.
Yet just how to analyze GHG reductions through a fuel’s lifecycle is still being debated. For instance, one analysis, the substitution method, determines how much GHG was saved during a particular process to make biofuels, but it doesn’t specify which sector – transportation, heat, electricity, animal feed – had the GHG savings, said Dr. Robert Edwards of the Renewable Energy Unit of the European Commission Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy.

“Substitution does not say how much GHG is saved in the transport sector. Instead it calculates the total GHG saved in all sectors and attributes this just to the biofuel,” Edwards said. “For the certification of biofuels, we need to know how much GHG they save in the transport sector.”
Another question, he said, in determining lifecycle emissions is how to calculate both indirect emissions, including emissions resulting from land use changes, and nitrous oxide emissions from soils.

A second issue arising during discussions on the proposed Fuel Quality Directive is the idea of sustainability. To reduce fuel GHGs by 10% in 2020, many are looking to biofuels to meet that target.

However, because of recent concerns that biofuels production has done more harm than good through the destruction of rainforests or at the expense of food production, the proposed measure stresses that sustainability criteria be part of the 10%-by-2020 mandate.

Indeed, the sustainability issue carries so great a weight that any revisions to the Fuel Quality Directive might not pass unless all the EU bodies agree upon them.

The European Council and European Parliament “have insisted on setting stringent sustainability criteria for biofuels before agreeing” to the Fuel Quality Directive, said Stefan Moser, acting and deputy head of DG Environment for the European Commission, the EU’s legislative-making body.
European Parliamentarian and Fuel Quality Directive Rapporteur Dorette Corbey sees five criteria for sustainability, which she explained during the conference.

The first criterion is maximizing energy efficiency, while the second is ensuring land use is optimized and changes to land use are monitored for their emissions. The third and fourth criteria point toward the preservation of biodiversity and water resources, while the fifth criterion looks at the biofuels’ impact on social or human issues, including the food vs. fuel issue and fair labor practices during feedstock plantings and harvests.

“It’s very important that sustainability is a concept that is applied to every sector,” Corbey said.
If the EU adopts sustainable criteria as part of Article 7a, also known as the 10%-by-2020 mandate, then countries exporting fuel products into Europe would also need to comply with the sustainability criteria and reporting the fuels’ GHG emissions.

“I don’t want to suggest that the Fuel Quality Directive would save the world, but it’s necessary to move in that direction,” she said.

Applying real-life emission reduction strategies
While governments continue to hash out regulations, industry has already begun to respond to reducing GHGs through the lifecycle of fuels. Those responses are just as complex as the industries themselves.

One response suggested by the European Fuel Oxygenates Association is ETBE, which it said could enhance ethanol’s CO2 performance. Another is increasing production of renewable diesel or gasoline, which is what Neste Oil’s hopes to accomplish with its renewable diesel product, NExBTL. NExBTL is made by converting vegetable or animal fats into pure hydrocarbons in a crude oil refinery.

“The company’s approach to sustainable biofuels is true GHG savings over the entire lifecycle, sustainable feedstock and full traceability, and lower tailpipe emissions,” said Neste’s deputy chief executive officer and executive vice president, Jarmo Honkama.

Oil majors are also addressing reducing GHG emissions through the lifecycle. Oil company BP is investing in biobutanol, which, like ethanol, can be blended with gasoline to improve octane performance. However, unlike ethanol, its isomers do separate in the presence of water, which has become a key problem with ethanol blending. And, according to BP’s James Primrose, European fuels policy manager, biobutanol’s well-to-wheel GHG emission performance is similar to ethanol on a like-for-like feedstock basis.

“Engine, vehicle tests and fleet trials carried out to date demonstrate good compatibility and adaptability of current engine technologies,” Primrose said.

As for the European automotive industry, its nearer-term responses address fuel economy while longer-term goals focus on optimizing alternative fuels such as biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen and electricity.

Dirk Weigand, senior manager for emissions and safety passenger cars for German automaker Daimler, said his company is looking to reduce fuel consumption throughout the vehicle, by employing such tactics as reducing weight, using high-strength steel, installing automatic start-stop systems and improving powertrain performance, among others.

Those tactics are also being considered by PSA Peugeot Citroën, said its head of fuels and emissions control, Dr. Pierre Macaudière, in addition to hybrid technology.

Macaudière said PSA is considering producing hybrid vehicles that cater to different work uses. The micro hybrid, with its reinforced battery, uses stop-and-start technology and improves fuel economy by up to 15% in congested urban driving conditions. The mild hybrid, suitable for urban markets, has the potential for extended engine downsizing and better optimization of gearbox ratio and utilizes a CD/AV transformer along with a reinforced battery. Meanwhile, the full hybrid, for highway and long-distance uses, has an electrical engine and high-voltage batteries, as well as an automated gearbox and reinforced battery.

Auto companies are looking at the improving the engine as well. Dr. Neville Jackson, technology director for Ricardo, projects a trend toward an alternative form of combustion. The question then will become what the right fuel will be, although that will be determined partly on whether the vehicle will be traveling (urban vs. rural) and what its uses will be (light car vs. heavy truck).
Looking ahead, Jackson questions whether some technologies, like the plug-in hybrid vehicle, will make it off the ground because of costs – the current costs of lithium-ion batteries make that technology cost prohibitive.

But despite that, he welcomes the debate on climate change as a means to bring about technological innovations – a sentiment echoed throughout the conference.
With reducing CO2 emissions at the forefront of the debate, “I see that as tremendously encouraging for the industry,” Jackson said.

Joanna Franco can be reached at 1 (703) 891-4805 or jfranco@hartenergy.com