Our study examines the effects of methane emissions on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of crude oil and natural gas between 2015 and 2040. Our scenario calculations, derived from global methane budgets and shale analyses, provided a range of 22–59 million tons of global methane emissions from the oil sector in 2015. By 2040, the methane emissions of crude oil will increase by between 18% and 59%. For the global warming potential over 100 years (GWP100), our analysis shows venting, flaring, and fugitive (VFF) emissions of global diesel and gasoline combined of between 8.78 and 14.80 g CO2eq MJ−1 in 2015 and 8.88 to 16.34 g CO2eq MJ−1 by 2040. Our minimum average values for VVF emissions of fossil fuels are thus twice as high as those used in the calculations for the fossil reference value used in the Fuel Quality Directive of the European Union (EU‐FQD). The VVF emissions from diesel and gasoline produced from shale oil will reach up to 26.84 g CO2eq MJ−1 and from shale natural gas liquids (NGL) up to 31.84 g CO2eq MJ−1. Our maximum marginal values for the VVF emissions of fossil fuels are thus up to nine times higher than the VVF value for the EU‐FQD. Based on our calculations, the EU‐FQD reference value for conventional fossil diesel will increase from 95 g MJ−1 to between 99.16 and 105.06 g MJ−1 for the GWP100 and between 109.80 and 124.70 g MJ−1 for the global warming potential over 20 years (GWP20). Our results thus show that the previous reference values for fossil fuels are clearly too low because their assumptions for methane emissions are far too low. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Our report analyzes the substitution of marginal oil with biofuels. For that, we evaluate the effects that influence the substitution process in the short, mid and long term. We identify OPEC, resource nationalism, and geopolitical issues as important influence factors and arrive at the conclusion that in the short term biofuels will replace mainly OPEC oil but not the most expensive petroleum. In the medium and long term biofuels will replace the most expensive petroleum because OPEC production cuts are only possible on a temporary basis and in restricted quantities. Our comparison of the costs of the different fossil fuels with their greenhouse gas emissions shows that there is no direct correlation between the level of greenhouse gas emissions and production costs. However, we see strong evidence every time that the marginal oil gets more carbon‐intensive and that biofuels will increasingly displace these carbon‐intensive fossil fuels. That is shown especially in the increase of unconventional fossil fuels and new frontier oil (Amazon, deep‐sea, etc.). The investments in these technologies are very price‐sensitive, like the financial crisis 2008/2009 has showed. Further evidence brings the decline of the energy return on investment (EROI) of the oil production worldwide and the increase of the marginal oil costs from 25 to almost 100 dollars/barrel in the last 10 years. We expect that the increase of the carbon intensity of marginal oil will further enlarge the climate effects of global petroleum production. Marginal oil as an indirect effect of the biofuel use should therefore get the same significance value as indirect land‐use change (ILUC) in the current climate protection debate. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The aim of this paper is to illustrate why an increasing biomass demand is of major importance when trying to achieve international climate protection goals. It shows that development goals can be reached by more climate friendly agriculture. The increasing demand for agricultural land is often answered by the conversion of natural land with a high carbon stock. This conversion is hence connected to a great carbon loss causing high greenhouse gas emissions. This increase in production has therefore to be examined critically. As such land use changes can occur not only direct but also indirect (indirect land use change, iLUC) legal regulations and instruments are necessary to reduce iLUC and support climate friendly agriculture. The analysis shows that the currently used and developed regulation instruments in Europe and the USA are highly speculative and doubtful. These countries work with global iLUC-factors, that are determined based on mathematical models for global future predictions. The paper presents alternative regulation approaches, which base on national level and the respective land use policies of the past.