Crop-based biofuels made up majority of renewables in EU transport, report reveals
A new EU report, highlighted by ePURE, has underlined Europe’s continued dependence on fossil fuels for transport.
The report also confirmed the importance of crop-based biofuels as a renewable energy source that can easily replace them.
Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, released its annual SHARES report detailing the share of energy from renewable sources in the EU and across Member States since 2004, including a breakdown of quantities of all types of renewables used in transport.
While the report showed that on average the EU achieved 10.2% renewables in transport in 2020, that figure included the use of so-called ‘multipliers’ for certain renewable energy sources – artificially inflating the amount of fossil fuels they actually replace.
Since the entry into force of the Renewable Energy Directive in 2009, most of the increase in renewable energy in transport came from virtual quantities created by multipliers - without multipliers, the 2020 RES-T is 7.5%.
A total of 92.5% of transport energy came from fossil fuel and this reliance has been reduced by only 3.1%.
A total of 12 Member States met their legal obligation to have 10% renewables in transport, without counting multipliers, and the result was quite different. Only two Member States, Finland and Sweden, were above 10% in 2020. Most other EU countries were well below the 10% level, and still relied massively on fossil to fuel their transport sector.
According to Eurostat, crop-based biofuels including renewable ethanol made 60% of renewables in transport.
All biofuels together accounted for over 90% of renewables in transport. Renewable electricity only contributed to 9.9%, of which 78% was used in rail.
ePURE said the findings made it even clearer that the EU needed to promote increased use of sustainable renewable fuels such as ethanol to offset this dependence on fossil fuel.
The new, higher ambitions under the EU’s Fit for 55 package made it even more important Europe to unleash ethanol’s potential to contribute to this effort, ePURE concluded.
The report also confirmed the importance of crop-based biofuels as a renewable energy source that can easily replace them.
Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, released its annual SHARES report detailing the share of energy from renewable sources in the EU and across Member States since 2004, including a breakdown of quantities of all types of renewables used in transport.
While the report showed that on average the EU achieved 10.2% renewables in transport in 2020, that figure included the use of so-called ‘multipliers’ for certain renewable energy sources – artificially inflating the amount of fossil fuels they actually replace.
Since the entry into force of the Renewable Energy Directive in 2009, most of the increase in renewable energy in transport came from virtual quantities created by multipliers - without multipliers, the 2020 RES-T is 7.5%.
A total of 92.5% of transport energy came from fossil fuel and this reliance has been reduced by only 3.1%.
A total of 12 Member States met their legal obligation to have 10% renewables in transport, without counting multipliers, and the result was quite different. Only two Member States, Finland and Sweden, were above 10% in 2020. Most other EU countries were well below the 10% level, and still relied massively on fossil to fuel their transport sector.
According to Eurostat, crop-based biofuels including renewable ethanol made 60% of renewables in transport.
All biofuels together accounted for over 90% of renewables in transport. Renewable electricity only contributed to 9.9%, of which 78% was used in rail.
ePURE said the findings made it even clearer that the EU needed to promote increased use of sustainable renewable fuels such as ethanol to offset this dependence on fossil fuel.
The new, higher ambitions under the EU’s Fit for 55 package made it even more important Europe to unleash ethanol’s potential to contribute to this effort, ePURE concluded.
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