Experts highlight the role of agriculture in decarbonizing transportation through biofuel use

San Jose, 15 February 2022 (IICA) – Considering the exponential increase in environmental damage and the escalation of the climate crisis, the American hemisphere has the unquestionable opportunity to support efforts to develop a more sustainable energy matrix.

The challenges, benefits and opportunities of shifting from a fossil energy-dependent paradigm to new energy matrices were outlined by experts at Latam Mobility Day: Clean Fuels, a free virtual summit organized by Latam Mobility. Agustín Torroba, Bioenergy Specialist at the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), participated in the event.

Latam Mobility Day: Clean Fuels featured three panel discussions. The first offered perspectives on hydrogen in the transportation sector. The second dealt with natural gas, as a partner fuel to reduce transportation sector emissions. The third presented current and future perspectives on biofuels in the transportation sector.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is predicting a 25% to 30% spike in global energy demand by 2040, which will increase environmental damage exponentially and will deepen the climate crisis in economies that are carbon- and petroleum-dependent.

To reverse these effects and to drive the development and promotion of new fossil fuel alternatives, it is imperative that the region create new scenarios in this energy transition.  Thus, the event gathered key industry stakeholders, in order to determine their perspectives about the decarbonization of energy, specifically with respect to transportation.  

Among the points that were stressed was the need to make transportation a more sustainable pillar of the economy and the potential of biofuels to make this goal a reality.

The event discussed the topic of clean mobility, emphasizing the future role of electromobility and hydrogen mobility. There was also general consensus about the role of biofuels as the cornerstone of the energy transition in the short and medium term.

“The Americas will play a leading role in the development of biofuels, given our abundance of raw materials, as the major agricultural export region in the world”, said Torroba.

Moreover, he pointed out that, “The region’s experience in market development and the development of alternative biofuel blends will be important to share with other countries on the path to decarbonization and will also generate opportunities to boost income by enhancing the value of other byproducts that are created in the process of producing biofuels.

The experts agreed that given that biofuel implementation can utilize the current fleet of vehicles, unlike electromobility or hydrogen mobility, it calls for a lower level of investment to decarbonize mobility. 

The participants also stressed that the region produces a vast amount of raw materials used in biofuel production, particularly of agricultural origin, which are also particularly noteworthy given that they are part of sustainable value chains.

Faced with the need to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and to comply with environmental commitments under the Paris Agreement, there has been a noticeable rise in biofuel consumption as a substitute for petroleum-based fuels. Thus, biofuels are leading the energy transition, since in 2020, bioethanol replaced 5.2% of gasoline worldwide, whereas biodiesel replaced 3.5% of fossil diesel.

Biofuel consumption increases have been driven primarily by market creation through public legislation that promotes mandatory blending of biofuels with fossil fuels. According to the 2020-2021 Liquid Biofuel Atlas, published by IICA, more than 60 countries have enacted this type of legislation.

The event also emphasized the importance of developing predictable and stable regulatory frameworks that ensure clean, affordable and abundant energy, in biofuel format.

Although biofuel use in ground transportation is expanding in leaps and bounds—an upward trend that is predicted to continue over the next 20 years—the  hope is that the role of biofuels in the airline and maritime sector will also strengthen in the medium and long term, thereby playing a key role in decarbonizing the transportation sector.

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Institutional Communication Division

comunicacion.institucional@iica.int