In 2023, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) released its first annual Global Automaker Rating, assessing the readiness of car manufacturers for the transition to electric vehicles. Dr Sandford and Dr Malins supported the development of the rating by reviewing ICCT’s methodology and data collection.
Cerulogy supported the Changing Markets Foundation with the analysis of methane emissions presented in their Emissions Impossible report, highlighting the climate change impact of companies in the meat and dairy industry.
This report for the Danish Energy Agency presents an overview and review of indirect land use change modelling, and provides a discussion of options for Denmark to adjust its biofuel policy to take further account of indirect land use change emissions.
The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive provides additional incentives to promote the production of biofuels from certain specified feedstocks, with these biofuels identified as ‘advanced’. These feedstocks are listed in Annex IX of the Directive. New feedstocks may be added to Annex IX by the European Commission, based on assessment against a number of criteria (Article 28(6) of EU RED II) and with consideration of the associated risk of fraud. This project, which Cerulogy worked on in a consortium with E4tech, Navigant, the ICCT, Wageningen University and SCS, shortlisted 30 feedstocks from approximately 130 candidates and evaluated them against the Article 28(6) criteria and a set of fraud risk indicators. The evaluation resulted in seven feedstock categories being marked as of no “particular concern” regarding Art 28(6) criteria, while ten categories raised “significant concerns” in one or more criteria. The rest of the shortlist was marked as having “some concerns”, where the overall level of risk might be considered acceptable or where a risk would only materialize in certain conditions. The Consortium proposed several recommendations as to how to mitigate fraud risks. Note that the Cerulogy design team was not involved in the placement of the logos on the report cover!
In this report for Transport and Environment we review the efficiency benefits of electric drive vehicles against combustion engines, and discuss how this efficiency differential could be appropriately reflected in revisions to the Renewable Energy Directive.
This report for the Spanish NGO Ecologistas en Acción considers the potential for the development of an aviation biofuel industry in Spain. It notes that it may be challenging to reorient existing renewable diesel capacity to aviation fuel production because of the need to find non-food feedstocks if the fuel is to be counted under the EU’s ReFuelEU policy, and that advanced alternative aviation fuel technologies will be needed to deliver long term growth in the sector.
Over recent decades the use of cover crops as part of the “sistema plantio direto” has become an important feature of Brazilian agriculture. In much of Brazil a second ‘safrinha’ (off season) corn crop is grown after a soy crop, and Brazilian safrinha corn is now a major contributor to the global corn supply. This report for the International Council on Clean Transportation reviews the status of cover cropping and safrinha cropping in Brazil, and discusses the potential for these crops to contribute to meeting biofuel feedstock demand. In the context of the European Renewable Energy Directive, it has been suggested that safrinha corn could potentially be treated as an intermediate crop and exempted it from limitations on support for food-based biofuels. The report argues, however, that as the safrinha corn crop is already well integrated into the global grain supply diverting it for biofuel use in Europe would create new land demand and under the terms of the Directive it could not therefore be exempted from the food-and-feed crop cap.
There may be opportunities to develop new second cropping systems either by finding ways to deliver economically viable harvests from cover crops already in use or by adapting winter crops such as brassica carinata to Brazilian conditions. Supporting the development of such models could provide a sustainable biofuel feedstock supply and provide long-term co-benefits in terms of food production.
The United States is in a period of rapid expansion of vegetable oil hydrotreating capacity, which will greatly increase the potential to supply renewable diesel and renewable jet fuel under the Renewable Fuel Standard and state-level policies. This report for the International Council on Clean Transportation reviews the prospects for the industry, identifying the potential for a five-fold expansion to more than 5 billion gallons per year by 2024. This could create up to 17 million metric tons of additional demand for oils and fats, only a fraction of which could be met through forecast increases in domestic soy oil production and increased utilization of waste and residual oils another 150 million gallons. Beyond this, increasing production would mean either an expansion of domestic soy and canola, dramatic increases in canola and palm oil imports, or massive displacement of feedstock from other uses. Domestic biodiesel production is likely to be strongly impacted, with waste oils and fats in particular diverted to renewable diesel production.
Limits on feedstock availability and limits on the support available for renewable diesel production mean that the market will not likely support a 5 billion gallons industry in the near future. Even so, there is a high risk that increased U.S. renewable diesel production will indirectly drive expansion of palm oil in Southeast Asia, where the palm oil industry is still endemically associated with deforestation and peat destruction.
*Erratum: when originally published the y-axis of Figure 11 was marked as billion liters, but this should have read billion gallons.
As part of the Green Deal, the European Commission has launched the “ReFuelEU Aviation Initiative” to increase the role of “sustainable aviation fuels” in EU aviation. This report for Transport and Environment discusses the potential supply of different SAF categories in 2030, and what might be required to deliver a rapid supply expansion. This includes presenting results from a simple bottom-up SAF production model, and discussing what an ambitious but potentially achievable level might be for a GHG intensity reduction target for 2030 aviation fuel.
Cerulogy 2022