The European commission is backing the development and increased use of synthetic fuels as part of an integrated approach to future energy supplies.<\/p>\n
Addressing leading automotive manufacturers and fuel companies in Brussels on Tuesday, EU industry chief, Gunter Verheugen said synthetic fuels needed to quickly break into the EU\u2019s fuel markets.<\/b><\/p>\n
“I hope to see the wide-scale introduction of synthetic fuels soon\u2026its success will be measured by the speed and extent of (its) market penetration.\u201d<\/p>\n
“In the long-term, it is also my hope that Europe will be able to use its experience with these fuels as a stepping stone towards a wider use of renewably-produced hydrogen,\u201d said Verheugen.<\/p>\n
The commission vice-president was speaking at the launch of a new industry partnership to promote synthetic fuels, the alliance for synthetic fuels in Europe (ASFE).<\/p>\n
Alliance members, including Renault, Royal Dutch Shell, Sasol Chevron, Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler believe that developing synthetic fuels – from natural gas, biofuel and coal \u2013 can help to meet some of Europe\u2019s concerns over energy security and diversity of supply.<\/p>\n
“Synthetic fuels can reduce petroleum dependency and provide a cost effective, realistic development path between today’s fuels and longer term renewable energy,\u201d said Royal Dutch Shell\u2019s Rob Routs.<\/p>\n
“Synthetic fuels can deliver a cleaner fuel future,\u201d according to Sasol Chevron\u2019s George Couvaras, who added that the new fuels could meet “concerns about security and diversity of supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Synthetic fuels can deliver real emissions reductions today and this will improve even more as the technology develops,\u201d said Couvaras.<\/p>\n
Austrian EU presidency minister for environment and agriculture, Joseph Proell called the development of synthetic and bio fuels a “win-win situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s an undeniable fact that road transport is a major cause of emissions\u2026Europe needs the cleanest and safest vehicles,\u201d said Proell.<\/p>\n
“Energy demand in the transport sector is almost entirely oil based. We need to curb this dependence, and renewables provide the key.\u201d<\/p>\n
Increasing the market share of synthetic fuels, particularly those derived from biomass is a key priority for Austria, said Proell.<\/p>\n
Brussels agriculture chief, Mariann Fischer Boel has said she intends to take another look at the EU\u2019s biofuels directive later this year, in a bid to stimulate demand.<\/p>\n
Both Verheugen and Proell said they favoured fuels derived from biomass, so called biomass-to-liquid fuels over those derived from gas and coal.<\/p>\n
“From what I know about the characteristics of different synthetic fuels, it appears that the Biomass-to-Liquid fuels offer the greatest potential in terms CO2<\/sub> benefits,\u201d said Verheugen.<\/p>\n “This is also in line with the conclusions of the CARS 21 high level group and the recommendations of the recently adopted EU Biofuels strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n They both recommend that the development and market introduction of second generation biofuels should be given as much support as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs was also scheduled to address alliance members later on Tuesday evening, ahead of the launch of his much anticipated green paper on energy, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The European commission is backing the development and increased use of synthetic fuels as part of an integrated approach to future energy supplies.<\/p>\n Addressing<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-14005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14005"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=14005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}