How the cap limit for food-crop-based biofuels may affect France’s stakeholders by 2030? A range-based multi-actor multi-criteria analysis

From 2012 to 2016, the long-term signal in the biofuel market changed almost once per year, leading to a drastic decrease in investments and contributing to multiple production unit closures in France and around Europe. The European Commission proposed a new renewable energy directive that includes a 3.8% cap limit on the contribution of food-crop biofuels by 2030. Given the role of biofuels in green growth, the bioeconomy, and renewable energy incorporation targets, how will this measure affect the stakeholders by 2030? Will it lead to, contribute to, or hamper their sustainability criteria? This paper aims to contribute to this debate by studying the case of France. To this end, our methodology—the range-based multi-actor multi-criteria analysis—aims to (1) explicitly consider the stakeholder groups and their sustainability criteria; (2) evaluate and compare how the cap limit will affect these sustainability criteria whether or not advanced biofuels are deployed by 2030; (3) capture the uncertainty of the context evolution and biofuel capacity to fulfil the stakeholders’ sustainability criteria by means of a Monte Carlo. The results suggest that the cap limit is a double-edged sword for the stakeholders and their sustainability criteria. Shifting towards advanced biofuels while limiting the food-crop biofuels is the better alternative for most of the stakeholders. Nevertheless, given biofuel policy instability and the lost confidence of investors, such a shift may not occur by 2030. In such a case, this paper demonstrates that the cap limit may highly and negatively affect the stakeholders and their sustainability targets, whereas fostering French food-crop biofuel production at its full capacity level constitutes a better alternative. As no alternative is suited to all actors simultaneously, this paper also studies the strengths and weaknesses of these alternatives from each stakeholder groups’ perspective.     

Technical and environmental effects of biodiesel use in local public transport

Biodiesel use in local public transport could be especially significant in improving air quality in cities. The purpose of the experiments described in this paper was to evaluate the various (10, 20 and 50%) blends of biodiesel with diesel in the context of the engine and pollution aspects. As regards the experimental use of these findings on municipal buses, these experiments were the first reference in Hungary. The ages (15–20 years) and types of buses (Ikarus-280, Ikarus-260) used in the experiments are still common vehicles in Hungarian public transport. During our measurements, there was a significant difference between the change in fuel consumption of articulated and solo buses in traffic when compared to test bench measurements. The proportion of the engine performance reduction is nearly the same as that for biodiesel share in the blends. Most pollutants were decreasing (both at idle and full rpm), but this reduction is not directly proportional to the increase of the blending percentage. However, as for CO₂, emission increase was observed in the case of idle rpm in comparison to normal diesel operation, even though this phenomenon was not due to biodiesel use, but the catalytic converter and the fact that biodiesel was used for the first time in the engine concerned.     

Biofuel refinery location and supply chain planning under traffic congestion

This research focuses on planning biofuel refinery locations where the total system cost for refinery investment, feedstock and product transportation and public travel is minimized. Shipment routing of both feedstock and product in the biofuel supply chain and the resulting traffic congestion impact are incorporated into the model to decide optimal locations of biofuel refineries. A Lagrangian relaxation based heuristic algorithm is introduced to obtain near-optimum feasible solutions efficiently. To further improve optimality, a branch-and-bound framework (with linear programming relaxation and Lagrangian relaxation bounding procedures) is developed. Numerical experiments with several testing examples demonstrate that the proposed algorithms solve the problem effectively. An empirical Illinois case study and a series of sensitivity analyses are conducted to show the effects of highway congestion on refinery location design and total system costs.     

Optimal biofuel supply chain design under consumption mandates with renewable identification numbers

The Renewable Identification Number (RIN) system is a tracking mechanism that enforces the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard by monitoring obligated parties’ compliance with the biofuel consumption mandates. This paper incorporates the RIN system into the design of a biofuel supply chain that addresses independent decisions of non-cooperative farmers, biofuel manufacturers, and blenders. Game-theoretic models are developed to examine the impacts of the RIN system on individual stakeholders’ decisions (e.g., on farmland use, bio-refinery investment, biofuel production) and the competition between food and biofuel industries, in both a perfectly competitive scenario and a monopoly scenario. For the perfectly competitive scenario, Nash equilibrium can be obtained by solving a convex optimization problem. For the monopoly scenario, a bi-level Stackelberg leader–follower model is developed, from which we found that a rigid mandate on blenders may suppress the total biofuel production. To avoid such unintended consequences, a relaxed unit-RIN based penalty scheme is proposed and shown to improve the overall biofuel supply chain performance. Managerial insights are drawn from a numerical case study for the state of Illinois.     

Infrastructure deployment under uncertainties and competition: The biofuel industry case

Technological paradigm shifts often come with a newly emerging industry that seeks a viable infrastructure deployment plan to compete against established competitors. Such phenomenon has been repeatedly seen in the field of transportation systems, such as those related to the booming bioenergy production, among others. We develop a game-theoretic modeling framework using a continuum approximation scheme to address the impacts of competition on the optimal infrastructure deployment. Furthermore, we extend the model to incorporate uncertainties in supply/demand and the risk of facility disruptions. Analytical properties of the optimal infrastructure system are obtained, based on which fast numerical solution algorithms are developed. Several hypothetical problem instances are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and to quantify the impacts of various system parameters. A large-scale biofuel industry case study for the U.S. Midwest is conducted to obtain additional managerial insights.     

Study of the current incentive rules and mechanisms to promote biofuel use in the EU and their possible application to the civil aviation sector

This paper deals with the need of introducing biofuels for the use of the civil aviation sector, and the different possibilities of application of incentive mechanisms if the existing market conditions do not allow their direct commercialisation. After an introduction on the main features of the civil aviation impact on climate change, a historical review of the European Union regulations to promote the energy extraction from biological resources is presented. The different incentive policies around the world are revised and compared and some indications are offered on the most recommendable procedures that might be carried out in the near future.