THE RACE TO PRODUCE
LOW-CARBON CARS
WHICH TECHNOLOGY WILL WIN?
Report of a Science|Business symposium
Supported by
This symposium was the sixth in a series of eight highlevel academic policy debates on energy research and
innovation. It explored which fuels and technologies hold
the best promise to deliver low-carbon road transport
at a reasonable cost, and what EU policies might help
accelerate investment by industry.
Words
David Pringle
Design
Peter Koekoek
Editorial Direction
Gail Edmondson
Photography
Vivian Hertz
© Science Business Publishing Ltd 2013
www.sciencebusiness.net
Supported by
Hosted by
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Keir Fitch (left), deputy head of cabinet for Siim Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, addresses participants
T
here are no shortage of initiatives throughout the European
Union to support green vehicle technologies and sustainable
fuels for road transport. But the vision of a market where
low-carbon cars and fuels dominate continues to fade into the
distant future. Despite more than a decade of support from many
EU governments and intensive R&D by industry, “green cars” that
significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions represent less than
one per cent of total vehicle sales in the EU. The technology race
is taking longer than expected, and the policy options are limited.
At the same time, the need for low-carbon cars and fuels has
only become more urgent. The EU has set an ambitious target to
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 per cent by 2050, but
emissions from road transport have risen 26 per cent between
1990 and 2008 – an alarming trend – and one-fifth of all CO2
emissions in Europe come from motor vehicles. Breakthroughs in
alternative vehicle and fuel technologies will not only help battle
climate change, but can help secure jobs and economic growth
for the European auto industry while improving air quality and
energy security.
Which technologies hold the greatest promise for greening
road transport? And will the heavy public investment in electric
vehicles, hydrogen fuel-cell cars and sustainable biofuels ever
pay off? Those questions were addressed by research, industry
and policy experts attending the Science|Business symposium
“The race to produce low carbon cars – which technology will
win?” on 21 June 2013 in Brussels. This report summarises the
half-day debate and key ideas and recommendations to accelerate
breakthroughs in more sustainable cars and fuels.
Over the next 10 years, more efficient petrol and diesel engines
will be part of the answer to cutting road transport emissions –
automakers estimate engine efficiency still can be improved by 20
per cent. But when it comes to replacing the internal combustion
engine with much cleaner alternatives, there are no clear frontrunners among the green vehicle technologies and alternative
fuels in the pipeline. And, while it’s preferable to let the market
pick winners, it’s also clear that research budgets are limited.
As a result, policymakers should enter into an open and honest
debate with scientists and industry around the following related
questions:
■■ How widely should society experiment with alternatives
to petrol and diesel?
■■ How many alternative fuels and technologies are
deserving of public support?
■■ Which technologies and fuels have a realistic chance of
greening the EU transport system?
Experts at the round table called for greater clarity on the
ability of technologies under development to compete without
subsidies and what time frame would be needed. “If you strip
away the marketing, fluff, aspiration, the sell, how close are you
really to being able to offer propositions that are competitive?”
asked John Polak, professor of transport demand, and head of
the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London. Those
technologies far from the mark are likely to require additional
research before public subsidies could help them become viable
alternatives to existing cars and fuels.
One key conclusion: The technologies and fuels capable of
greening the global transport sector need another decade of
research and innovation to drive costs down, creating vehicles
and fuels that can compete with the improving efficiency of the
internal combustion engine, powered by petrol and diesel. The
investment in new energy technologies and systems is always a
long-term process, but participants agreed that smart policies
can avert wasted funds and reduce time to market.
Approximately €7.2 billion is earmarked for transport in the
forthcoming Horizon 2020 EU research programme, which covers
2014-2020. Europe now has an opportunity to review its policy
and adopt a smart approach to investing in R&D for sustainable
road transport.
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SUMMARY
EUROPEAN POLICY CONTEXT
■■ Europe has world-leading tailpipe emissions standards.
■■ Alternative technologies and fuels will be niche solutions for the next decade – the
goal is to make a significant shift towards low-carbon transport by 2030.
■■ Different technologies are likely to be favoured for different use cases and in different
regions.
■■ Electricity and hydrogen are energy vectors, not sources of energy; the cheapest source
of these energy carriers remains fossil fuels, with associated carbon emissions distant
from the point of consumption.
■■ Consumers decide what to buy, and they don’t like taking unnecessary risks, especially
at a higher upfront cost.
■■ Petrol and diesel taxation today yields over €200 billion per annum for EU nations. This
needs to be replaced by alternative sources of taxation as demand for these fuels falls.
■■ EU transport solutions sit in a global context. Global automakers and energy suppliers
are also driven by policies in other key markets, such as China, the US and Japan.
From centre: Stefan Schmerbeck, manager, future technologies and energy, Volkswagen AG; Keir Fitch, deputy head of cabinet for Siim Kallas,
vice-president of the European Commission, Mobility and Transport; David Eyton, group head of technology, BP
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EUROPEAN POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
■■ Be clear on the relative priorities of transport policy goals – be it clean air, low
greenhouse gas emissions, energy security or European competitiveness and economic
growth.
■■ Continue to drive energy efficiency in transport through tailpipe emissions standards.
■■ Educate citizens, openly and transparently, about the advantages and disadvantages of
alternative transport technologies to cut through the fear, uncertainty and doubt that
can accompany new technologies.
■■ Focus efforts and subsidies to encourage adoption of electric and other low-carbon
transport solutions on fleets and in the urban environment. Great care is needed in
scaling technologies, particularly those whose commercial viability is unproven.
■■ Adopt life-cycle analysis to determine the real emissions impact of alternative fuels
and vehicles.
■■ Reinvigorate efforts to introduce economy-wide carbon pricing.
■■ Plan ahead on how to fill the fiscal gap that would result from a drop in fuel taxes
following widespread adoption of alternative technologies.
John Polak, professor of transport demand and head of the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London;
Robert Sorrell, vice president for public partnerships, BP
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I. INTRODUCTION
WHY CONTINUE INVESTING IN R&D?
Didier Stevens, senior manager, European & government affairs, Toyota; Richard Dashwood, academic director, head of Materials and Manufacturing Group,
CTO, Warwick Manufacturing Group centre High Value Manufacturing Catapult and professor of engineering materials, University of Warwick; Gail Edmondson,
editorial director, Science|Business; Michael Wang, senior scientist energy systems, Argonne National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, University of Chicago
A
lternative automotive fuels and
technologies, such as electric
vehicles, hydrogen-powered
vehicles and biofuels, already have strong
public support. The EU’s Framework
Programme 7, which supports research
and development with public funds,
alone spent more than €3.8 billion on
transport-related projects between
2007 and 2013 . All this investment has
helped drive the development of an
array of new automotive technologies
and fuels, but none of these alternatives
is yet economically viable without public
support. The new technologies still
lag internal combustion engines in a
number of areas, such as driving range,
cost, and the availability of refuelling
infrastructure.
At the same time, the energy efficiency
of petrol and diesel engines is rising,
resulting in lower CO2 emissions per
kilometre travelled. “Our analysis is
that new EU regulation [95 grams per
kilometre by 2020] will easily be met with
internal combustion technology,” noted
Ian Hodgson, policy officer, transport
and ozone, DG Climate Action, European
Commission at the symposium.
emission vehicle requirement in
California have led to improvements
in battery technology for electric drive
systems which, Wang said, “continue to
push advances in internal combustion
engines. Indirectly we got the benefit of
improving baseline technology.”
Symposium participants agreed that
while additional R&D is needed across
an array of green vehicle technologies,
Europe should continue with a
supportive policy framework for bringing
alternative technologies to market.
Although advances in the fuel efficiency
of diesel and petrol engines will continue
in the coming decade, new technologies
will be needed to cut emissions further.
Moreover, reductions in CO2 emissions
per kilometre don’t necessarily translate
into cleaner air for cities or reduce the
EU’s dependence on fossil fuels from
foreign countries.
Europe’s automakers also need to
stay on the forefront of clean vehicle
technologies to remain globally
competitive. A forward-looking, clear
and stable policy framework in their
home market will help them do that.
David Eyton, group head of technology
at BP, pointed out that much of the
world has adopted fuel efficiency
standards first introduced in the EU.
New cars take a long time to develop,
so the automotive industry is already
contemplating the technologies and
fuels that will be deployed in the
2020s and 2030s. The decisions that
policymakers and industry leaders make
now will determine Europe’s technology
future.
Laura Lonza, scientific and technical project officer, sustainable transport, Joint Research Centre,
European Commission
In fact, policymakers deserve credit
for passing regulations that required
automakers to develop more efficient
petrol and diesel engines, said Michael
Wang, senior scientist, energy systems
from the Argonne National Laboratory
in Chicago. Policies such as the zeroTHE RACE TO PRODUCE LOW-CARBON CARS |
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Jean-Francois Gagné, head of energy technology policy division, International Energy Agency
THE RACE TO PRODUCE LOW-CARBON CARS |
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II. HOW LONG A RIDE?
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO DEVELOP A MASS MARKET FOR LOW-CARBON
VEHICLES AND WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE NEXT DECADE
Front: Didier Stevens, senior manager, European & government affairs, Toyota; Maurizio Maggiore, research program officer, innovative automotive systems,
DG Research and Innovation, European Commission
P
etrol and diesel engines will
continue to dominate for the
coming decade and beyond.
Alternative technologies and fuels are
still too expensive to compete with
existing petrol and diesel vehicles.
In many cases, they require costly
components such as batteries and new
fuelling infrastructure. That issue is
compounded, initially at least, by a lack
of economies of scale.
Still, experts believe electric cars and
hydrogen fuel-cell cars will become
more competitive around 2020. In
the meantime, greater use of biofuels
and compressed natural gas could
help reduce the environmental impact
of road transport. Lewis Fulton, codirector of the NextSTEPS Program at
the Institute of Transportation Studies,
University of California, Davis, predicts
that sustained investment over the next
five to ten years should lower the cost of
alternative technologies, such as electric
vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells, to a
point where they can compete with the
internal combustion engine.
Electricity and hydrogen –
just getting started
Worldwide sales of electric cars hit
200,000 in 2012 – a good start, according
to Fulton, who noted that electric vehicle
(EV) technology would improve quickly.
He argued that ongoing R&D efforts, for
example, on ultracapacitors, which store
energy using a static charge rather than
in chemical form as in a battery, could
result in a step change in performance
and cost, particularly for battery electric
vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
has set a national target of getting one
million electric vehicles on German
roads by 2020, but Fulton said one
million is a more likely scenario for all
of Europe in 2020 – out of five million
EVs forecast to be sold worldwide then.
Still, one million electric cars would be
an important milestone in scaling up
the technology, he said. “If we can do
that, the costs will really come down.”
One of the key reasons why an electric
car costs more than the internal
combustion equivalent is the high cost
of the battery. Fulton estimated that the
cost of EV batteries have come down
from around $800 per kilowatt-hour
to $500 per kilowatt-hour in the past
three years. “We should be able to get
down under $300 per kilowatt-hour by
2030,” he said. “If we push hard and
sell a lot of electric vehicles over the
next seven years, it is very possible we
could get there by 2020. That would be
a revolution for EV marketability.”
But that is just one of several possible
scenarios. Carlo Pettinelli, director of
industrial policy and economic analysis,
sustainable growth and EU 2020, at
DG Enterprise and Industry, European
Commission, is sceptical that radical
reductions in the cost of batteries can
be achieved. “As a high proportion of the
cost of batteries is the raw materials… we
are not going to get economies of scale.
More demand could send up prices,” he
noted. Pettinelli also expressed concerns
about the hole in public sector budgets
that could emerge if there was a major
shift away from petrol and diesel, which
are subject to high sales taxes across
most of the EU.
As well as rolling out electric vehicles,
some automakers are pouring R&D
funds into the development of
commercial cars with fuel cells that
run on hydrogen. “We will launch a
hydrogen vehicle in 2015 in Japan, the
EU and the US,” Didier Stevens, senior
manager, European and government
affairs, Toyota, told the symposium.
The goal, for now, is not sell a certain
number of hydrogen vehicles, but to
introduce the technology to consumers
and develop market acceptability for
2025 and beyond.
Juicier carrots, bigger sticks?
Many EU governments provide
public support for cars using green
technologies. However, some experts
question whether these subsidies make
sense for cash-strapped governments
– given the long road ahead to bring
costs down. In some cases, such support
may actually be ineffective because the
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technologies are too far from being truly
competitive. Hefty subsidies on electric
vehicles in the UK, for example, have
failed to attract many buyers. “We have
to take into account the grubby realities
of the forecourt,” noted John Polak of
Imperial College London. “Car salesmen
work on commission and it takes a long
time to convince someone of all the
advantages of electric vehicles. Why on
earth should a car salesman spend his
time trying to convince a customer to
buy this vehicle, rather than shoo them
out of the door with a conventional
vehicle?”
A more strategic approach: sell
alternative technologies to fleet
managers, who are more likely to assess
the total cost of ownership, than to
consumers fixated with the upfront cost.
But Polak said that fleet managers will
be reluctant to buy alternative vehicles
until they have a clear idea of their resale
value.
As well as providing juicier carrots,
governments may also need to wield
bigger sticks. Toyota’s Stevens called for
more taxation based on vehicles’ CO2
emissions. “This has had a major impact
in Norway and the Netherlands,” he said.
The economic case for buying an
alternative technology car will, of
course, depend heavily on both the
price of oil and further gains in the fuel
efficiency of petrol and diesel engines.
Stefan Schmerbeck, manager, future
technologies and energy, Volkswagen
AG, estimated that the fuel efficiency
of the internal combustion engine
could improve by a further 20 per cent.
There is also scope to optimise vehicle
efficiency by reducing their weight and
by further hybridisation.
The European Commission’s new
Clean Power for Transport policy tries
to solve this problem by mandating a
minimum coverage of infrastructure
for each alternative fuel. “We hope
this will go a long way to breaking a
vicious cycle,” said Keir Fitch, deputy
head of cabinet for Siim Kallas, vicepresident of the European Commission,
Mobility and Transport. “It needs to be
done quickly, it needs to give people
sufficient certainty, and we need to
ensure that Europe’s manufacturers
are leading the technology curve rather
than behind it.” But Fitch acknowledged
that while the Commission wished
to maintain technological neutrality
and avoid “picking winners”, it would
need a pro-active policy approach to
avoid wasteful deployment of multiple
refuelling infrastructures.
This approach is too complex and
costly, said Horst Fehrenbach, biologistresearcher, sustainability assessment
for bioenergy, life-cycle assessments,
energy and waste management at the
Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research in Heidelberg, Germany. He
argues that Europe must significantly
narrow the number of green car
technologies it aims to support by
2020. Others noted the market would
be capable of delivering the refuelling
infrastructure without government
intervention if and when investors can
see a viable business model. “I have to
question whether the chicken-and-egg
problem is as prevalent as people claim,”
said Thomas Briggs, head of transport
energy policy at BP. “In the US, we have
a competitive upstream market… As long
as there is a viable business model, the
ability to ramp up infrastructure should
be relatively easy.”
More clarity, less politics
But private investment is likely to be
deterred by the ongoing uncertainty
about which, if any, of the alternative
fuels can compete with petrol and
diesel in the medium term. To get to
the next stage, policymakers may need
to launch a more transparent dialogue
with scientists, industry and other
stakeholders to assess which alternative
fuels and technologies should receive
public support. “I am not sure we are
anywhere close to having competitive
propositions to petrol and diesel,” said
Polak. “Why are we doing what we are
doing? Do we really think they are going
to get there? Or are we doing it as a
rather elaborate form of symbolism? We
need to shine a critical light on some of
the fundamental assumptions that we
are making.”
Others also called for science to
play a greater role in policymaking.
Wang suggested that fuel politics has
triumphed over science in the past,
pointing to the biofuel debate. “Some
stakeholders in the US, and to some
extent, the EU too, advocated that
biofuels should not play any role in
transport and those arguments impacted
analyses and policy recommendations,”
he contended.
Carlo Pettinelli, director, DG Enterprise, European Commission; David Eyton,
group head of technology, BP
How to avoid running on
empty
Another factor holding back sales
of alternative vehicles is the lack of
suitable refuelling stations. Until an
extensive refuelling infrastructure
exists, consumers and businesses are
likely to shy away from alternative
technologies, resulting in a chickenand-egg dilemma. Compounding
the problem, different European
countries tend to favour different
fuels, meaning it could be difficult for
international travellers to refuel an
alternative technology vehicle once
they have crossed a border.
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ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND HYBRIDS
T
he technology is improving and the cost of batteries is falling, but electric cars remain too expensive:
■■ Electric vehicles could start to take off after 2025 and
become a more dominant market force after 2030.
■■ The range of EVs remains short and best suited for city
use, rather than longer journeys.
■■ The acceptance of plug-in hybrids varies by market and
is heavily influenced by tax policies.
■■ Electricity to fuel EVs should come from renewable
sources.
■■ Security issues for batteries must be resolved.
“If I only cared about the next seven years,
I wouldn't invest in electric vehicles… The
people who are pushing EVs hard are
thinking about a market evolution toward
where EVs only achieve a sizeable share of
car sales (e.g. 25 per cent) after 2030.”
Lewis Fulton, co-director of the
NextSTEPS Program at the Institute of
Transportation Studies, University of
California, Davis
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
■■ In the long-term, hydrogen is potentially a clean form
of transport energy storage.
■■ It is competitive in terms of range, performance and
refuelling time, but is very expensive.
■■ There is a perception that hydrogen may not be
sufficiently safe .
■■ Hydrogen-powered cars will go on sale in the next few
years, but are unlikely to have a mass-market presence
until 2025 to 2030.
■■ Hydrogen fuel should be produced using renewable
energy or natural gas.
“What are the customers’ expectations of a future vehicle?
It needs to have the driving performance of today, it should
be zero emissions, independent of fossil fuel, recharge in five
minutes and have a 500-kilometre range and be economically
feasible… Hydrogen meets that criteria except for cost...
Customer acceptance that hydrogen is safe… that is the
biggest challenge we have ahead of us.”
Didier Stevens, senior manager, European
and government affairs, Toyota
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BIOFUELS
■■ Biofuels are gaining traction in some markets, such as
Austria and Germany, supported by the local policy
framework.
■■ They are compatible with existing refuelling
infrastructure.
■■ There are minimal consumer-acceptance issues –
biofuels can be mixed easily with regular petrol or
diesel.
■■ Second-generation biofuels based on straw and wood
(requiring less agricultural land) are under development,
but it is not clear whether there will be sufficient
biofuels available for widespread use in EU vehicles.
“The winner in the race right now is biofuels…
In Austria, it is 7 per cent of the market… in
Germany a little below that... Why did it work?
The technology is ready, the political framework
is there and the greenhouse gas and share of
renewable transportation fuels targets give the
investors the security to invest… You don’t need
new cars, new filling stations, you just blend
biofuels in. Consumers don’t know they have it in
the tank.”
Gerfried Jungmeier, senior researcher,
Joanneum Research Institute for Water, Energy
and Sustainability in Graz, Austria
COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS (CNG)
■■ Dual-fuel cars that can run both CNG and petrol or
diesel are becoming available.
■■ CNG won’t lead to dramatic reductions in greenhouse
gas emissions: using CNG is estimated to lower CO2
emissions by up to a quarter over petrol or diesel (not
a whole life-cycle calculation).
■■ If the consumer takes the cost of fuel into account,
CNG can be cheaper than petrol or diesel.
■■ The refuelling infrastructure is patchy across the EU.
“CNG is a really strategic [transport] energy carrier for 2020 and
beyond…. We will launch a CNG model this year on our GolfMQB platform, which could be used for 40 models in the group...
The price gap is between €1500 to €2000… but after 30,000
kilometres of driving, CNG is generally cheaper (depending on
taxes and the vehicle model). We need to convince the customer
that CNG is really the most economical fuel and it is really safe…
We are starting to do a good job.”
Stefan Schmerbeck, manager future
technologies and energy, Volkswagen AG
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Thomas Briggs, head of transport energy policy, BP; Michael Wang, senior
scientist energy systems, Argonne National Laboratory, US Department of
Energy, University of Chicago
Keir Fitch, deputy head of Cabinet for Siim Kallas, vice-president of the
European Commission, Mobility and Transport
Martin Dornheim, head of Nanotechnology Department, Helmholtz
Institute for Nanotechnology and Materials Technology
John Jostins, professor of sustainable transport design, Coventry University; and CEO, Microcab Industries Ltd.
Image: Ga. Dic temperum, sitatum aute ea con nimodicid que repelest,Nis vide eum re perum, ut prat et labo. Nam si volorat ectotae
III. WHICH TECHNOLOGY WILL WIN?
A GLIMPSE AT 2030 AND BEYOND
T
he real payback for a supportive
policy framework and subsidies
for alternative fuels is likely to
start around 2030. By then, alternative
technologies and fuels could have made
major inroads into the global automotive
market. The International Energy Agency
forecasts that conventional models will
still account for about two-thirds of lightduty vehicle (car) sales between 2020
and 2030, but it predicts that about 150
million alternative vehicles will be sold
in that timeframe in OECD countries,
assuming a carbon-conscious world.
Beyond 2030, electric batteries and
hydrogen fuel cells are likely to show up
in mass-market cars, as well as premium
models. As they gain economies of
scale and the technology improves,
these alternative cars could actually
become cheaper than their conventional
equivalents. “If you look at the brand
new National Research Council report
in the US, which is a pretty august group
of scientists… almost every single one
of those [green cars] is cheaper than a
conventional gasoline vehicle in 2040,”
said Fulton. “Fuel cells are in fact the
cheapest. But of course, such forecasts
could be wrong.”
of internal combustion cars at 2040,”
noted Fulton. “It takes a long, long time
to build up that market.”
Some experts predict that many
cars will be equipped with multiple
technologies capable of using multiple
fuels, depending on what they are being
used for and where. “I hope as many
technologies as possible will win,” said
Toyota’s Stevens. “The ones that suit
demand will win… EVs are good, if the
distance is small… long distance will be
hydrogen and in the middle will be the
hybrid and plug-in hybrid… everything
will depend on what you want.”
In fact, the optimum source of fuel
could depend on which part of the EU
you are in. For example, biofuels could
play a significant role in countries with
large managed forests, while electric
vehicles may be more attractive in
countries with abundant wind or
solar power, such as Denmark and
Portugal. “We need to utilise the most
productive energy source for mobility
in each country,” said Schmerbeck of
Volkswagen. “The automotive sector is
enlarging everywhere in the world, so I
suspect we will need to be prepared to
use all the technologies… it is challenging
to do all of these, but we will do it.”
David Eyton, group head of technology, BP
Indeed, by 2040, cars equipped with
alternative technologies could be selling
at the same rate as cars with internal
combustion engines, according to one
IEA scenario, in which the world manages
to limit the average global temperature
rise to 2 °C. “In the IEA scenarios, you
have a fast and steady ramp-up of plugin and fuel-cell vehicles over the coming
decades and they dominate by 2050
– but they only reach the sales level
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IV. CONCLUSIONS
T
he technology race is far from
over – and the outcome in 2030
and beyond will depend heavily
on the EU policy framework. Developing
truly sustainable cars and fuels needs a
smart policy approach, which takes into
account the following factors:
■■The energy density of fuels, which
is a key determinant in the cost of
storing and transporting the fuel, is
a key factor.
■■The energy market is dynamic
and heavily influenced by regional
factors. Despite the need for
economies of scale, energy
sources will vary across Europe,
according to the availability of
solar, wind, natural gas, biofuels
and hydroelectric power. Moreover,
greater competition from
alternative sources of energy could
prompt the oil industry to lower
prices to defend market share.
■■Policymakers need to pay attention
to full life-cycle analysis of carbon,
from source to use. Electricity and
hydrogen, for example, need to be
produced and their impact on the
environment depends heavily on
the source of energy used.
■■It is not clear when electric
vehicles and fuel cells will become
competitive with incumbent
technologies. Moreover, changing
consumers’ preferences takes time
and effort. Therefore, the internal
combustion engine, supplemented
by hybrids and biofuels, will
continue to be dominant for at least
another decade.
■■The European Commission needs to
base its policymaking on a full and
objective assessment of technology
maturity. It should not seek to
scale solutions too early, but rather
conduct experiments and learn
from these.
In summary, it is time for a reality check.
Research and innovation in low-carbon
transit – and policy planning – would be
more effective if based on a more open
and realistic dialogue between scientists,
business leaders and policymakers about
what green technologies and fuels can
actually achieve in the medium term.
Political leaders need to acknowledge
that the efficiency of petrol and diesel
vehicles will be the overriding factor
in determining the greenhouse gas
emissions of private transport in the
next decade.
In the same vein, both politicians
and automakers need to consider how
alternative fuels and technologies
address the needs of consumers rather
than assuming consumers will embrace
whatever green cars hit the market.
A single man in Copenhagen may be
happy to drive an electric vehicle, while
a mother of three in rural Germany may
prefer to fill up her tank with biofuel.
As different low-carbon technologies
address divergent requirements, from
short urban transit to long-haul traffic,
economies of scale are likely to be lower
in the coming transport era. The world
has moved on in the century since Henry
Ford’s famous remark that customers
can have any colour car they want as
long as it is black.
The transition to sustainable transport
is complex, requiring systemic change,
continual reassessment and leadership.
Rather than promoting specific
technologies and fuels as potential
panaceas, policymakers and experts
need to prepare for a more complex
world in which a multitude of solutions
are deployed to lower greenhouse gas
emissions, increase energy security and
improve air quality.
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Copies of the individual reports from this series of Science|Business symposia on
energy research and innovation policy are available at: www.sciencebusiness.net
BREAKING THE DEADLOCK
RESOURCE INNOVATION
NEW IDEAS FOR
MANAGING SCARCE
RESOURCES AND ENERGY
GETTING CARBON
CAPTURE AND STORAGE
TECHNOLOGIES TO MARKET
Report of a Science|Business symposium
Report of a Science|Business symposium
Supported by
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Breaking the Deadlock
GETTING CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES TO MARKET
1
A symposium series
supported by
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