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Biofuel Status 2026

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  Fifteen Years On: Are Biofuels Delivering on the IEA’s 2011 Vision? In April 2011, the International Energy Agency (IEA) published an ambitious roadmap claiming that biofuels could supply 27% of global transport fuel by 2050 , up from around 2% at the time ( EcoWarriorMe: Biofuels (2011) ). The roadmap argued that sustainable biofuels would become essential for reducing emissions from aviation, shipping and heavy transport while improving energy security. Now, fifteen years later, we are almost half way towards the forecast horizon and the transport and energy landscape looks very different. Electric vehicles have advanced far faster than many analysts expected, while biofuels have evolved into a more specialised — but still strategically important — decarbonisation tool. The 2011 Roadmap  The original roadmap envisioned: Biofuels rising from 2% to 27% of global transport fuel by 2050. A major shift from food-crop biofuels to “ advanced biofuels ” made from waste, re...
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The Carmont Train Crash

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What it means for Infrastructure Climate Resilience Six years ago, on the morning of 12 August 2020, a ScotRail passenger train derailed near Carmont, south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. The derailment was caused by the train striking debris washed onto the track following an intense rain storm. The accident claimed three lives, injured six others and became the deadliest railway accident in Britain for almost two decades. Yet the tragedy was more than an isolated engineering failure. The investigation conducted by the independent Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) concluded that it exposed wider weaknesses in the way Britain's railway understood and managed the risks posed by increasingly severe weather[1]. As climate change alters rainfall patterns and increases the potential for more frequent episodes of intense rainfall, Carmont has become a defining case study in the importance of building climate resilience into ageing infrastructure. Before considering the technical...
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Quietly does it...

Just quietly slipping into your feed again after a short break. No fanfare. No big announcements. No grand plans. Just this, after an extended hiatus, followed by a planned "grand" return that fizzled out before beginning.  It's just like another corporation quietly dropping their net zero ambitions, expecting nobody to notice.  Why now? If you haven't been living under a rock the last few months (and I'd be slightly envious if you have) you will be well aware of the climate related news.  We have seen tumbling temperature records already this summer. Highest May and June temperatures in the UK, record temperatures across much of Europe and parts of North America.  Events for the US semiquincentennial celebrations were cancelled in DC due to extreme heat and New York City had established cooling centres for vulnerable people. The UK has had three heatwaves already by mid-July. Wildfires are widespread with multiple fatalities in Spain and hundreds of thousands eva...
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