The Future of Road Vehicle Fuels - forecasts to 2020

Table of Contents

• The inevitability of exhaustion
• ....and concern about global warming
• The key questions

• Current patterns of fuel use
• Future fuel needs
• Fuel quality considerations

• Energy for mobility
• The crude oil derivatives
• Synthetic hydrocarbons
• Biofuels
• Ethanol - the present situation
• FAME - the present situation
• Biofuel production: doubts on expansion
• The gas alternatives
• LPG - the present situation
• CNG - the present situation
• Electric vehicles - the present situation

• The challenge - real or imaginary?
• Practical timescales
• Sustainable energy: general considerations
• Meeting vehicular needs

• Future alternative fuels
• First-generation biofuels
• The alcohols
• The methyl esters
• Second-generation biofuels
• Butanol
• Second-generation biodiesel
• Biosynthetic hydrocarbons
• LNG
• Hydrogen
• Problems of storage
• Manufacture and economics
• Bio-hydrogen approaches
• Advanced vehicle technologies
• Advanced powertrain concepts
• Hybrid powertrains
• Fuel cell power units
• ‘Intelligent' traffic management
• CO2 sequestration

• The detailed answers
• How much fuel will be needed for the vehicle fleet to 2020?
• How much fuel is, and will be, available to meet this need?
• How urgent is the need to counter the threat of global warming?
• What means are available to enable us to counter this threat (and by implication, also to counter the threat of crude oil exhaustion)?
• How quickly can such means be introduced?
• Final conclusions

• Figure 1: Fuel production processes from feedstock to final product
• Figure 2: The carbon cycle

• Table 1: Worldwide road vehicle fuel requirement by type, 2005-2020 (% share and m barrels per day)
• Table 2: Worldwide road vehicle fuel usage by source, 2005-2020 (% share and m barrels per day)