The news today can seem dire for the biofuels industry, with much of the world promising to punt the internal combustion engine to the trash heap of history.
But beneath the headlines, there’s no change to the booming potential for renewable fuels like canola biodiesel, the Canola Week conference heard.
“There certainly is a lot of opportunity to see growth for biofuels in both bio and renewable diesel in Canada,” said Chris Vervaet, executive director of the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association.
“There’s a lot of optimism with regards to that growth…. It truly is remarkable to see what that growth is projected to be over the next three to four months alone.”
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Vervaet said biofuel production in the United States and Canada could surge from 10 billion litres per year in 2020 to 15 billion litres by 2030. Today U.S. biodiesel production has one billion litres of capacity but that could reach five billion by 2024.
In Canada, production could go from near-zero to three billion litres by 2024.
“In the next few years there’s certainly the potential to see some of the production capacity increase in this country as well,” said Vervaet.
But how does that square with bold government commitments from the European Union, which tend to be trendsetters on environmental issues, to get rid of fossil fuel powered cars by 2035? Canada has committed to allowing only zero-emission vehicles to be sold after 2035.
Jim Everson, the president of the Canola Council of Canada, said fuel demand is a more complex matter than just switching passenger cars to electrical power.
“When it comes to renewable fuels for diesel use, when it comes to long-haul trucking and… aviation fuel, that transition to anything that operates electrically is going to be a much longer process, if ever,” said Everson.
Vervaet agreed.
“We do see electric vehicles really starting to become something that is supported by government and it’s becoming public policy in Canada as well,” said Vervaet.
“But when it comes to biofuels usage in other modes of transportation, such as large shipping vessels, trains, trucks and airplanes, these are harder to decarbonize, so we do see quite a long future for biofuel use in some of those other transportation modes.”
