Europe’s green drive and the battery fallacy [NGW Magazine]

Electric passenger vehicles (EVs) have grabbed the headlines in Europe, despite the present drawbacks in terms of cost and convenience. Most recently, the UK government announced seemingly arbitrary plans to ban the sale of all new internal combustion engine cars from 2035, five years earlier than planned (see box).

On the continent, sales of EVs in Germany exceeded those in Norway last year, even though Norway’s population is about 6% of Germany’s. But coal is still a big part of the German power mix, while Norway is almost entirely powered by hydroelectricity, so there is no comparison in terms of the colour of the electrons. Further, the Norwegian government is able to subsidise EVs from its colossal sovereign wealth fund amassed from oil and gas sales, rather than from taxes.

Where subsidies do not exist, electric vehicles (EVs) are mostly playthings for the wealthy, who will have a conventional car as back-up; or they are leased by companies.

Against this backdrop, the Natural Gas Vehicle Association Europe (NGVAE), a broad-based lobby group which includes makers also of all-electric and hybrid vehicles, says that European policy-makers should make more of the role that gas can play in decarbonising transport. Further, gas itself is decarbonising, with biogas already being used for heavy-duty transport in the UK and elsewhere; and this opportunity for developing the circular economy also needs to be exploited.

There has been too much emphasis on electric mobility without any concrete timeline, the NGVAE secretary-general Andrea Gerini told NGW. “We believe batteries can penetrate the market but that it also faces bottlenecks: these include the high purchase price – there is nobody making the electric equivalent of the affordable, €8,000 petrol car – and the availability of charging-points. Also the transmission system operators will have to deliver the power that will be needed. And the raw materials that are used in the batteries are expensive as they come from Asia. These problems will take time to overcome.

“We have to play with all the cards in the deck if we are to meet the 2050 targets, and filling stations that sell natural gas – compressed or liquefied – can also deliver biomethane, as chemically it is the same. This is a very good way to go carbon neutral and will require no change to the physical supply infrastructure,” he said.

While there is no overall EU scheme to promote NGVs, member governments can use the incentives they want to encourage lower emissions from transport, he says. France and Sweden for example have a direct audit trail from the source of biogas to the pump, and it can be guaranteed 100% biomethane. In the UK, by contrast, the biogas injector is issued certificates which fleet owners can buy. But this needs a subsidy as the cost of biogas is roughly double the price of natural gas.

There are five EU policy instruments that implicitly support gas mobility: the Green Deal; the CO₂ emissions standard; the renewable energy directive; the energy taxation directive; and the alternative fuels infrastructure directive. And the review of the carbon emissions of cars has been brought forward from 2023 to the summer of 2021, which is promising, Gerini tells NGW.

As the number of CNG and LNG stations grows, Europe’s fuelling network has to be expanded to cover the whole EU territory. Gas fuelling stations require little additional infrastructure and can be implemented in multi-fuel stations, operating in self-service mode fuels. By maintaining a technology neutral approach in the scope, the alternative fuels infrastructure directive will be in line with the EU’s decarbonisation goal, says Gerini.

Despite its acronym, NGVAE says that all forms of lower-carbon energy will be needed in the transport sector. Gas at the moment accounts for only 1% of the passenger car fleet across the European Union: even in the best case, Italy, it has just 2.1%. The percentage could be much higher with the right incentives, it says, and thus transport could reduce the carbon and other emissions.

Different approaches to the problem

By 2030, Europe’s gas mobility market has a growth potential 10 times higher than today, reaching a fleet of 13mn units, a study finds. A third of new urban buses and coaches could be fuelled by natural gas. Freight transport, relying both on CNG and LNG, is projected to account for a quarter of new registrations in 2030, which will make a big difference on long journeys.

Price is one advantage gas has: one industry observer told NGW that savings of €700/yr on passenger car fuel costs are possible when running on gas, even in a country with a high wholesale gas price such as Italy. But there does need to be a favourable fiscal regime: if taxes on gas go up, that can destroy the economics. One of the tasks facing the gas mobility lobby is the revision of fiscal duties on fuel, so that drivers do not find themselves suddenly disadvantaged as they cross a national border in Europe. The UK has frozen the difference between diesel and gas for over a decade (see Iveco interview).

Better data is needed

Part of the problem impeding the higher take-up of NGVs is the different measurements for calculating emissions: tail-pipe, or life-cycle. This creates space for the all-electric lobby groups to make claims that are hard to falsify on the spot and easy for politicians to adopt if they think they can capitalise on the public’s dislike of fossil fuels.

The idea that electrons are inherently greener than methane is a big myth that needs to be dispelled. There is generally less wind in Europe at night, which is when is some people might want to charge their cars. So the grid might be carrying mostly high carbon electricity then, hence the battery will not be green: it is a case of EE – “emissions elsewhere” – vehicles.

And that is without considering the energy and materials that go into building non-recyclable wind turbines. So a key result for the NGVAE will be demonstrating the total carbon costs of the different forms of transport fuel.

The present target is to reach 95 g of CO₂/km for passenger cars but at present the EU is about 20 g over that on average – and worsening: transport emissions are actually rising by about 1.4%/yr, he says, partly owing to the surge in sales of sports utility vehicles which, being heavier, have a more generous allowance. And even plug-in hybrids are effective but not for certain jobs: once they go beyond the 50-km range that the battery lasts, their tail-pipe emissions are equivalent to those of a conventional car.

The appropriate measurement of emissions for comparing the different sources of energy and their use at the moment is based on the well to wheel approach. The EC has also started to look into the life-cycle emissions. A study, by global engineering and strategic, technical and environmental consultancy business Ricardo, provides the first overview about the impact on climate change that different transport solutions have and this study will be developed further.

Current tailpipe emissions measurement approach is adequate when fossil fuels are used, but when including renewable fuels, the well-to-wheel approach is a must, Gerini says. 

Biomethane

Natural gas leads to an immediate reduction of CO₂ emissions at the exhaust; and blending natural gas with biomethane comes with a significant potential of further reductions. On a well-to-wheel basis, using biomethane means reducing greenhouse gas emissions by anything from 80% to 95% compared with natural gas.

And when using biomethane made from liquid manure – a growing business – the overall emission balance is even negative (-69.9 g CO₂/MJ) according to one study by JEC –a transport research agency run by European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Eucar and Concawe – that looks at the well-to-wheel emissions.

The production of renewable gas will increase drastically: for 2030, a conservative estimate shows a production potential close to 45bn m³/yr, which is more than the entire gas fuel demand of about 30bn m³/yr that will be used by the projected 13mn-strong NGV fleet. Full carbon neutrality in 2050 means that alternative fuels such as gas can play an important role.

And a 30% share of renewable gas will provide a GHG emissions reduction of more than 45% compared to conventional fuels on a well-to-wheel basis. Moreover, not only new registered vehicles, but also the current CNG/LNG fleet will benefit from a wider use of renewable fuels.