Cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions: Reducing fuel consumption or replacing fossil fuels with biofuels

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector can be reduced by decreasing fuel use by different means, and by blending biofuels into fossil fuels. A cost-effective combination of these measures is determined by spatially specific characteristics such as fuel demand, feedstock production costs, and greenhouse gas emissions from the feedstock production. We developed a spatially explicit model to explore the role of reduced transport fuel use and increased use of domestically produced biofuel, respectively, in a cost-effective policy for greenhouse gas abatement. The model is applied to domestic lignocellulosic biofuel from agricultural land, gasoline, and diesel for road transport in Sweden. The results show that the use of biofuel is particularly cost-effective under low and modestly stringent abatement targets. For more stringent targets, decreased fuel end use dominates the abatement portfolio. Replacing the emissions target by a biofuel production target increases the marginal cost of reducing emissions by up to 250%. With the current vehicle fleet, technical constraints on blendin possibilities limit the role of biofuels at higher target levels.

Keywords

Biofuel; Cost-effectiveness; Emissions targets; Fuel consumption; Transport; Spatial optimization

Published in

Energy Policy
2024, Volume: 190, article number: 114138Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD

SLU Authors

• Nordin, Ida

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics
Bioenergy
Environmental Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114138

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/131431