Prospects for alternative transport fuels in EU-countries up to 2050 from an energetic and economic point-of-view

In recent years alternative fuels and corresponding alternative automotive technologies have been seen as major potential contributors to head towards a sustainable transport system. The core objective of this paper is to investigate the perspectives of different alternative fuels and automotive technologies in a dynamic framework till 2050 in comparison to fossil fuel driven conventional cars from a technical, ecological and economic point-of-view. The technologies considered in this paper are: conventional and hybrid internal combustion engines, compressed natural gas-, flex-fuel-, battery electricand fuel cell-vehicles. The most important results and conclusions of this analysis are: (i) there is no single “one size fits all” energy carrier which can be considered to serve all problems alone. All analysed alternative fuels still face major problems in different parts of the over-all energy service providing chain; (ii) The energetic improvements up to 2050 will lead to substantial reduction of energetic losses mainly in the Tank-to-Wheel part of the energy service provision chain; (iii) By 2050 the total driving costs of all analyzed fuels and powertrains could almost even out; (vi) The major uncertainty regarding battery electricand fuel cell vehicles is how fast technological learning will take place especially for the battery and the fuel cells. Introduction In the transport sector Alternative Fuels (AF) based on various categories of renewable energy sources (RES) and corresponding alternative automotive technologies are considered as major environmentally benign alternatives to fossil fuels. However, there are still major barriers for a broad market breakthrough of these new technologies. In addition, to improve the energy efficiency of passenger cars continuously is one of most important instruments for combating increasing GHG emissions and climate change. Beside the technical improvements of conventional internal combustion engine (ICE), it is also important to improve the efficiency of alternative automotive technologies (AAMT) such as battery electric vehicles (BEV), fuel cell vehicles (FCV), flexfuel vehicles (FFV) and hybrid cars (HEV). These AAMT allow us also to use new, alternative and more environmental friendly fuels such as biofuels, electricity and hydrogen. Yet, the limited operating range, technical immaturity and particularly high costs are still the most important barriers for a broad market breakthrough of AAMT vehicles. The core objective of this paper is to provide an appraisal of the prospects of these new alternative fuels and technologies from energetic and economic points-of-view for the average conditions in Europe in a dynamic framework till 2050 in comparison to fossil fuels. Another objective is to investigate the future market prospects of alternative powertrains like BEV, HEV and FCV in a dynamic framework till 2050 in comparison to conventional passenger cars for average conditions of EU-15 countries. This work builds on the work done in the scope of the EU project ALTER-MOTIVE, Ajanovic et al (2012) and Ajanovic/Haas (2012). We also consider different primary energy sources (fossil and hydropower/wind) used for electricity and hydrogen (H2)