Potential global biofuel supply crunch – IEA

Insufficient production capacity and a lack of feedstocks is likely to drive a biofuel supply crunch over the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) projection.

PHOTO: Bunkering of a bulk carrier. Getty Images

Bioenergy could grow to make up 20% of global energy supply by 2050, IEA’s biofuel analyst Jeremy Moorhouse said at a webinar organised by the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping this week.

Moorhouse projects that there will eventually be enough bioenergy produced to hit this 20% share of global supply, but has simultaneously warned that in the short term there could be a shortage.

He argues that biofuels produced today are mostly derived from agricultural residues and that this share is expected to remain steady. Biofuel produced from waste and used cooking oil, on the other hand, is limited as these fuel streams lack a developed supply chain network.

Certain blending regulations and minimum biofuel mandates in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil have so far been among the main drivers of higher crop-based biodiesel production, Moorhouse adds.

The IEA thinks that bioenergy projects in the pipeline across Japan, the UK and US will bring in new technologies to the market and scale up the production of more advanced biofuels. As passenger vehicles move to electric power, supply of biofuel is likely to shift toward shipping and aviation by 2030, the energy watchdog says.

However, IEA expects hydrogen and its derivatives to play greater roles than biofuels in shipping's decarbonisation efforts. It predicts that hydrogen-based fuels will account for more than 60% of total fuel consumption by ships.

By Nithin Chandran

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