Industrial Ecology Programme, Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway.
Environ Sci Technol. 2010 Apr 1;44(7):2261-9. doi: 10.1021/es903135c.
Rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the road transport sector represents a difficult mitigation challenge due to a multitude of intricate factors, namely the dependency on liquid energy carriers and infrastructure lock-in. For this reason, low-carbon renewable energy carriers, particularly second generation biofuels, are often seen as a prominent candidate for realizing reduced emissions and lowered oil dependency over the medium- and long-term horizons. However, the overarching question is whether advanced biofuels can be an environmentally effective mitigation strategy in the face of increasing consumption and resource constraints. Here we develop both biofuel production and road transport consumption scenarios for northern Europe-a region with a vast surplus of forest bioenergy resources-to assess the potential role that forest-based biofuels may play over the medium- and long-term time horizons using an environmentally extended, multiregion input-output model. Through scenarios, we explore how evolving vehicle technologies and consumption patterns will affect the mitigation opportunities afforded by any future supply of forest biofuels. We find that in a scenario involving ambitious biofuel targets, the size of the GHG mitigation wedge attributed to the market supply of biofuels is severely reduced under business-as-usual growth in consumption in the road transport sector. Our results indicate that climate policies targeting the road transport sector which give high emphases to reducing demand (volume), accelerating the deployment of more fuel-efficient vehicles, and promoting altered consumption patterns (structure) can be significantly more effective than those with single emphasis on expanded biofuel supply.
由于多种复杂因素的影响，道路交通部门温室气体（GHG）排放量的不断增加是一个难以减排的挑战，这些因素包括对液体能源载体的依赖和基础设施锁定。出于这个原因，低碳可再生能源载体，特别是第二代生物燃料，通常被视为实现减排和降低中长期石油依赖的重要候选方案。然而，首要问题是，在消费增长和资源约束的情况下，先进的生物燃料是否可以成为一种环境有效的减排策略。在这里，我们为北欧地区（拥有丰富的森林生物能源资源）制定了生物燃料生产和道路交通消费情景，以评估基于森林的生物燃料在中长期时间框架内可能发挥的作用，我们使用了一个环境扩展的多区域投入产出模型。通过情景分析，我们探讨了不断变化的车辆技术和消费模式将如何影响未来任何森林生物燃料供应所带来的减排机会。我们发现，在一个涉及雄心勃勃的生物燃料目标的情景中，道路交通部门消费增长的情况下，生物燃料市场供应所带来的温室气体减排楔的规模大大减少。我们的结果表明，针对道路交通部门的气候政策，如果高度重视减少需求（数量）、加速更省油车辆的部署以及促进消费模式的改变（结构），那么这些政策比单纯强调扩大生物燃料供应的政策更为有效。
