Electrofuels from excess renewable electricity at high variable renewable shares: cost, greenhouse gas abatement, carbon use and competition

Abstract

Renewable transport fuels stem either from renewable electricity or biomass. We perform a model-based systems analysis of the usage of electricity, biomass and carbon for fuel production, focusing on greenhouse gas abatement and cost.

The Role of Electrofuels under Uncertainties for the Belgian Energy Transition

“…At more ambitious climate targets, this is why the model forces the system to massively import such electrofuels, among which, on average, 53 TWh of hydrogen, 40 TWh of electro-methane and 4 TWh of electro-liquid fuels. Similarly, in their analysis of the integration of the electrofuels in parallel with a high penetration of variable renewable energy sources (VRES) in Germany, Millinger et al [16] highlighted that the impact of electrofuels increases with the reduction of GHG emissions to defossilise hard-to-electrify sectors. For the case of the whole-energy system of Belgium, due to the limited availability of imported and local renewable electricity, electrifying the private mobility stays limited (i.e., from 35%, on average, in the "100%-scenario down to 26% in the "0%-scenario"), as detailed in Section 4.2.…”

“…Where batteries exhibit limited storage capacity (up to 10 MWh) as well as self-discharge losses, electrofuels are an economical solution for high capacity (from 100 GWh) and long-term (i.e., from months to years) storage of energy [14,15]. Besides storing energy, in their analysis of the German transport sector in 2050, Millinger et al [16] highlighted that producing electrofuels can represent a better usage of the ambient CO 2 than carbon capture and storage (CCS) to supply hydrocarbon fuels while limiting the curtailment of VRES. Moreover, some applications (e.g., marine, aviation, and heavy-duty transport) will be hard to electrify and keep on requiring high-density energy carriers [17,18].…”

<p>Preface</p>

“…In the pro-bioenergy scenario, we assumed that YEKDEM (or the replacing mechanism) continues supporting bioenergy (IEA 2021) and that an aggressive approach is adopted to produce biofuels in the transport sector. We adopted technology descriptions of the BioENergy OPTimization (BENOPT) model (Millinger 2020;Millinger et al 2021) for technologies that convert crops and biomass residues to liquid biofuels, heat, and electricity. Specifically speaking, under the Pro-Bio scenario, methane emissions from dairy and non-dairy cattle and fugitive emissions from natural gas reserves were redirected to power and heat sectors.…”

The Al(iii)-based polydentate chelate complex catalyzed cycloaddition of carbon dioxide and epoxides: synthetic optimization and mechanistic study

“…7 Furthermore, the replacement of fossil vehicles by battery electric vehicles reduced the demand for fuels and, thus, reduced CO 2 emissions obviously. 8 Therefore, it is of high significance to convert CO 2 into useful cyclic carbonates for both environmental protection and the energy crisis. 9–11…”

“…7 Furthermore, the replacement of fossil vehicles by battery electric vehicles reduced the demand for fuels and, thus, reduced CO 2 emissions obviously. 8 Therefore, it is of high significance to convert CO 2 into useful cyclic carbonates for both environmental protection and the energy crisis. [9][10][11] At present, multitudinous homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts have been widely used to catalyze the cycloaddition reaction of CO 2 and epoxy compounds, such as ionic liquids, 12,13 molecular sieves, metallic complexes, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] metal organic frameworks (MOFs), [21][22][23] and covalent organic frameworks (COFs).…”