Biofuels

Biofuels is the general term for all types of biomass-based fuels for application in transport. The fuels are produced from e.g.:

• Traditional food crops, such as wheat, rape seed or sugar beet
• Dedicated 'energy crops', such as willow, poplar or switchgrass
• Agricultural residues and waste streams

Important is that the fuels are produced from vegetable organic material, and therefore contains carbon that has recently been taken out of the atmosphere by plants. This in contrast to fossil fuels, which carbon was sequestered millions of years ago. This means that biofuels can be CO_²-neutral, although the CO_²-performance of the different biofuels varies widely.

Many fuels can be applied as an alternative for (or in blends with) common fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel, although the vehicles may need some adaptation. Some biofuels require major changes in fuel distribution and end-use, such as natural gas from biomass.

The information on the biofuel pages is derived from the VIEWLS report 'Biofuel and Bio-energy implementation Scenarios' by Wakker et al.