Selecting the markets for bio-fuels

摘要

Reserves of petroleum will last for at least another twenty-five to fifty years. Therefore drop-in liquid biofuels need only serve a short-term market while new engines are developed which can effectively use bio-fuels which have been less extensively modified and are therefore cheaper and made with greater energy efficiency. It is also argued that the emphasis should be on initially entering the market segments where the technical and regulatory requirements for the fuels are easily satisfied. Therefore marine and road transport applications are better targets than aviation fuels for market entry. It is shown that there have been many examples where one fuel type has been replaced by another which was not compatible with existing combustion equipment, and that the change-over time from the old fuel to the new is typically ten to fifteen years -in which time existing engines are replaced with types designed for the new fuels.