IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v80y2015icp479-488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Systematic approach for recognizing limiting factors for growth of biomethane use in transportation sector – A case study in Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Uusitalo, V.
  • Havukainen, J.
  • Soukka, R.
  • Väisänen, S.
  • Havukainen, M.
  • Luoranen, M.

Abstract

In this paper, limiting factors for increased use of biomethane as a transportation fuel are studied. The aim of this research is to recognize and estimate the limiting factors for biomethane utilization in the transportation sector. The limiting factors are studied by using calculation models from Life cycle perspective and literature reviews. According to the results, the main limiting factors can be classified into the following categories: production potential, technology, economy or policy. For biomethane utilization in Finland, the main limiting factors seem to be the lack of distribution infrastructure in northern parts of the country and the uncertain economical feasibility for agricultural biomass producers and for vehicle owners. From the political perspective, the external costs for petrol operated vehicles are higher than for biomethane operated vehicles. Reductions from the external costs could be used by political decisions as a base to support the growth of biomethane in the transportation sector which could lead to GHG emission reductions. A similar systematic approach can also be used to study limiting factors for other transportation energy systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Uusitalo, V. & Havukainen, J. & Soukka, R. & Väisänen, S. & Havukainen, M. & Luoranen, M., 2015. "Systematic approach for recognizing limiting factors for growth of biomethane use in transportation sector – A case study in Finland," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 479-488.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:479-488
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2015.02.037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148115001378
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2015.02.037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poeschl, Martina & Ward, Shane & Owende, Philip, 2010. "Prospects for expanded utilization of biogas in Germany," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(7), pages 1782-1797, September.
    2. Havukainen, J. & Uusitalo, V. & Niskanen, A. & Kapustina, V. & Horttanainen, M., 2014. "Evaluation of methods for estimating energy performance of biogas production," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 232-240.
    3. Tricase, C. & Lombardi, M., 2009. "State of the art and prospects of Italian biogas production from animal sewage: Technical-economic considerations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 477-485.
    4. Uusitalo, V. & Havukainen, J. & Manninen, K. & Höhn, J. & Lehtonen, E. & Rasi, S. & Soukka, R. & Horttanainen, M., 2014. "Carbon footprint of selected biomass to biogas production chains and GHG reduction potential in transportation use," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 90-98.
    5. Bomb, Christian & McCormick, Kes & Deurwaarder, Ewout & Kaberger, Tomas, 2007. "Biofuels for transport in Europe: Lessons from Germany and the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2256-2267, April.
    6. Patterson, Tim & Esteves, Sandra & Dinsdale, Richard & Guwy, Alan, 2011. "An evaluation of the policy and techno-economic factors affecting the potential for biogas upgrading for transport fuel use in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1806-1816, March.
    7. Lantz, Mikael & Svensson, Mattias & Bjornsson, Lovisa & Borjesson, Pal, 2007. "The prospects for an expansion of biogas systems in Sweden--Incentives, barriers and potentials," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1830-1843, March.
    8. Åhman, Max, 2010. "Biomethane in the transport sector--An appraisal of the forgotten option," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 208-217, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrizio, P. & Chinese, D., 2016. "The impact of regional factors and new bio-methane incentive schemes on the structure, profitability and CO2 balance of biogas plants in Italy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 573-583.
    2. Fernández-Polanco, D. & Tatsumi, H., 2016. "Optimum energy integration of thermal hydrolysis through pinch analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(PB), pages 1093-1102.
    3. Muhammad Arfan & Zhao Wang & Shveta Soam & Ola Eriksson, 2021. "Biogas as a Transport Fuel—A System Analysis of Value Chain Development in a Swedish Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, April.
    4. Horschig, Thomas & Adams, P.W.R. & Gawel, Erik & Thrän, Daniela, 2018. "How to decarbonize the natural gas sector: A dynamic simulation approach for the market development estimation of renewable gas in Germany," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 555-572.
    5. Anna Pääkkönen & Kalle Aro & Pami Aalto & Jukka Konttinen & Matti Kojo, 2019. "The Potential of Biomethane in Replacing Fossil Fuels in Heavy Transport—A Case Study on Finland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-19, August.
    6. Horschig, Thomas & Adams, Paul W.R. & Röder, Mirjam & Thornley, Patricia & Thrän, Daniela, 2016. "Reasonable potential for GHG savings by anaerobic biomethane in Germany and UK derived from economic and ecological analyses," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 840-852.
    7. Grzegorz Piechota & Bartłomiej Igliński, 2021. "Biomethane in Poland—Current Status, Potential, Perspective and Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-32, March.
    8. Ruocco, Concetta & Palma, Vincenzo & Cortese, Marta & Martino, Marco, 2022. "Stability of bimetallic Ni/CeO2–SiO2 catalysts during fuel grade bioethanol reforming in a fluidized bed reactor," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 913-922.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stürmer, Bernhard & Novakovits, Philipp & Luidolt, Alexander & Zweiler, Richard, 2019. "Potential of renewable methane by anaerobic digestion from existing plant stock – An economic reflection of an Austrian region," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 920-929.
    2. Lim, Cheolsoo & Kim, Daigon & Song, Changkeun & Kim, Jeongsoo & Han, Jinseok & Cha, Jun-Seok, 2015. "Performance and emission characteristics of a vehicle fueled with enriched biogas and natural gases," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 17-29.
    3. Daniela Szymańska & Aleksandra Lewandowska, 2015. "Biogas Power Plants in Poland—Structure, Capacity, and Spatial Distribution," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Strzalka, Rafal & Schneider, Dietrich & Eicker, Ursula, 2017. "Current status of bioenergy technologies in Germany," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 801-820.
    5. Bidart, Christian & Fröhling, Magnus & Schultmann, Frank, 2014. "Electricity and substitute natural gas generation from the conversion of wastewater treatment plant sludge," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 404-413.
    6. Uusitalo, V. & Soukka, R. & Horttanainen, M. & Niskanen, A. & Havukainen, J., 2013. "Economics and greenhouse gas balance of biogas use systems in the Finnish transportation sector," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 132-140.
    7. Skovsgaard, Lise & Jacobsen, Henrik Klinge, 2017. "Economies of scale in biogas production and the significance of flexible regulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 77-89.
    8. Auburger, Sebastian & Jacobs, Anna & Märländer, Bernward & Bahrs, Enno, 2016. "Economic optimization of feedstock mix for energy production with biogas technology in Germany with a special focus on sugar beets – Effects on greenhouse gas emissions and energy balances," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-11.
    9. Ammenberg, Jonas & Feiz, Roozbeh, 2017. "Assessment of feedstocks for biogas production, part II—Results for strategic decision making," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 388-404.
    10. Cong, Rong-Gang & Caro, Dario & Thomsen, Marianne, 2017. "Is it beneficial to use biogas in the Danish transport sector?–An environmental-economic analysis," MPRA Paper 112291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Anderson, Larry G., 2015. "Effects of using renewable fuels on vehicle emissions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 162-172.
    12. Uusitalo, V. & Havukainen, J. & Manninen, K. & Höhn, J. & Lehtonen, E. & Rasi, S. & Soukka, R. & Horttanainen, M., 2014. "Carbon footprint of selected biomass to biogas production chains and GHG reduction potential in transportation use," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 90-98.
    13. Ingrao, Carlo & Rana, Roberto & Tricase, Caterina & Lombardi, Mariarosaria, 2015. "Application of Carbon Footprint to an agro-biogas supply chain in Southern Italy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 75-88.
    14. Anna Gaviglio & Biagio Pecorino & Alessandro Ragazzoni, 2014. "Produrre energia rinnovabile nelle aziende agro-zootecniche. Effetti economici dalle novit? introdotte nella normativa del 2012," Economia agro-alimentare, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 16(2), pages 31-60.
    15. Herbes, Carsten & Rilling, Benedikt & Ringel, Marc, 2021. "Policy frameworks and voluntary markets for biomethane – How do different policies influence providers’ product strategies?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    16. Ricardo Situmeang & Jana Mazancová & Hynek Roubík, 2022. "Technological, Economic, Social and Environmental Barriers to Adoption of Small-Scale Biogas Plants: Case of Indonesia," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-16, July.
    17. Oniszk-Popławska, Anna & Matyka, Mariusz & Ryńska, Elżbieta Dagny, 2014. "Evaluation of a long-term potential for the development of agricultural biogas plants: A case study for the Lubelskie Province, Poland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 329-349.
    18. Kari-Anne Lyng & Lise Skovsgaard & Henrik Klinge Jacobsen & Ole Jørgen Hanssen, 2020. "The implications of economic instruments on biogas value chains: a case study comparison between Norway and Denmark," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 7125-7152, December.
    19. Zubaryeva, Alyona & Zaccarelli, Nicola & Del Giudice, Cecilia & Zurlini, Giovanni, 2012. "Spatially explicit assessment of local biomass availability for distributed biogas production via anaerobic co-digestion – Mediterranean case study," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 261-270.
    20. Chinese, D. & Patrizio, P. & Nardin, G., 2014. "Effects of changes in Italian bioenergy promotion schemes for agricultural biogas projects: Insights from a regional optimization model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 189-205.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:479-488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.