Chapter 7 of the edited book ‘Law in the EU’s Circular Energy System: Biofuel, Biowaste and Biogas‘ was written by Piero Carlo dos Reis [1], Phillip Lugmayr, and Benjamin Gomado. Within Part II of the book, it addresses ‘Sustainable biofuels and gaseous biomass fuels from biowaste in the EU transport sector’.
Read the Abstract below:
‘The long-term project of the European Union (EU) climate neutrality and the shorter-term project of phasing out imports of Russian fossil fuels – in line with the political ambitions of the EU Green Deal and the REPowerEU – will require guiding the uptake of sustainable biofuels and gaseous biomass fuels from biowaste in the transport sector, among other solutions. This chapter reviews the recent EU policy framework aimed at guiding this uptake in terms of three main blocks of legislative acts (EU energy legislative acts, EU transport legislative acts and EU climate legislative acts) and – for each block – aims at explaining the scope, status and critical provisions of the legislative acts identified as relevant. Finally, this chapter analyses the interlinkages between the three blocks and concludes that sustainable biofuels and gaseous biomass fuels from biowaste can be assumed as a potential renewable energy vector towards the decarbonisation targets in the shorter-term for passenger and light duty commercial vehicles in the road transport mode, and on the longer-term in the maritime and aviation transport modes. The potential of these fuels for heavy-duty commercial vehicles in the road transport mode will be confirmed or not by an upcoming legislative proposal.’
Due acknowledgements are also due to the colleagues in DG CLIMA, who helped with valuable insights and information concerning the EU transport legislative acts and EU climate legislative acts.
[1] Neither the European Commission, nor any person acting on behalf of the European Commission, is responsible for any use that might be made of the following information. The information and views set out in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. The authors are responsible for any possible content errors.
