IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i4p1025-d206447.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Could Biomass Derived Fuels Bridge the Emissions Gap between High Speed Rail and Aviation?

Author

Listed:
  • Matteo Prussi

    (Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 21027 Ispra, Italy)

  • Aikaterini Konti

    (Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 21027 Ispra, Italy)

  • Laura Lonza

    (Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission, 21027 Ispra, Italy)

Abstract

Aviation is a steadily growing sector, which largely contributes to transport greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When High Speed Rail (HSR) and aviation are considered as alternative options, HSR proves to be a more environmentally friendly mode of transport. Public available data have been used in order to calculate the emission profiles on two selected intra-European routes (London–Paris and Frankfurt–Amsterdam) by HSR and air. As expected, the air mode results in higher GHG emissions and solutions for mitigating its impact have been analyzed and suggested. Biomass Derived Fuels (BDF) has a limited, up to now, potential, to fill the existing gap in terms of emissions with rail. Moreover, BDF reduction in GHG emissions is accompanied with by an increase in fuel cost. Finally, the cost per tonne of avoided CO 2e by using BDF—which values 186 €/t—has been compared with the prices of the European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) allowances and, from a purely economic perspective, this market based measure still seems a preferable option to curb the GHG emissions of the air mode.

Suggested Citation

  • Matteo Prussi & Aikaterini Konti & Laura Lonza, 2019. "Could Biomass Derived Fuels Bridge the Emissions Gap between High Speed Rail and Aviation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1025-:d:206447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1025/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1025/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. D’Alfonso, Tiziana & Jiang, Changmin & Bracaglia, Valentina, 2016. "Air transport and high-speed rail competition: Environmental implications and mitigation strategies," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 261-276.
    2. Alonso, G. & Benito, A. & Lonza, L. & Kousoulidou, M., 2014. "Investigations on the distribution of air transport traffic and CO2 emissions within the European Union," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 85-93.
    3. Gegg, Per & Budd, Lucy & Ison, Stephen, 2014. "The market development of aviation biofuel: Drivers and constraints," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 34-40.
    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. Adeline Montlaur & Luis Delgado & César Trapote-Barreira, 2021. "Analytical Models for CO 2 Emissions and Travel Time for Short-to-Medium-Haul Flights Considering Available Seats," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-23, September.

    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. Amizadeh, Fatemeh & Alonso, Gustavo & Benito, Arturo & Morales-Alonso, Gustavo, 2016. "Analysis of the recent evolution of commercial air traffic CO2 emissions and fleet utilization in the six largest national markets of the European Union," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 9-19.
    2. Wang, Yongpei & Guan, Zhongyu & Zhang, Qian, 2023. "Railway opening and carbon emissions in distressed areas: Evidence from China's state-level poverty-stricken counties," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 55-67.
    3. Filimonau, Viachaslau & Högström, Michaela, 2017. "The attitudes of UK tourists to the use of biofuels in civil aviation: An exploratory study," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 84-94.
    4. Cartenì, Armando & Pariota, Luigi & Henke, Ilaria, 2017. "Hedonic value of high-speed rail services: Quantitative analysis of the students’ domestic tourist attractiveness of the main Italian cities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 348-365.
    5. Mayeres, Inge & Proost, Stef & Delhaye, Eef & Novelli, Philippe & Conijn, Sjaak & Gómez-Jiménez, Inmaculada & Rivas-Brousse, Daniel, 2023. "Climate ambitions for European aviation: Where can sustainable aviation fuels bring us?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    6. Xia, Wenyi & Jiang, Changmin & Wang, Kun & Zhang, Anming, 2019. "Air-rail revenue sharing in a multi-airport system: Effects on traffic and social welfare," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 304-319.
    7. Wang, Kun & Xia, Wenyi & Zhang, Anming & Zhang, Qiong, 2018. "Effects of train speed on airline demand and price: Theory and empirical evidence from a natural experiment," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 99-130.
    8. van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Meurs, Henk & Verhoef, Erik T., 2022. "Business models for Mobility as an Service (MaaS)," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 203-229.
    9. Jiang, Changmin & D'Alfonso, Tiziana & Wan, Yulai, 2017. "Air-rail cooperation: Partnership level, market structure and welfare implications," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 461-482.
    10. Xu Wang & Jingni Song & Qunqi Wu, 2021. "An Economic Equilibrium Model for Optimizing Passenger Transport Corridor Mode Structure Based on Travel Surplus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, April.
    11. Wang, Chunan & Jiang, Changmin & Zhang, Anming, 2021. "Effects of Airline Entry on High-Speed Rail," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 242-265.
    12. Jiang, Changmin & Wang, Kun & Wang, Qiang & Yang, Hangjun, 2022. "The Impact of High-Speed Rail Competition on Airline On-Time Performance," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 109-127.
    13. Winchester, Niven & Malina, Robert & Staples, Mark D. & Barrett, Steven R.H., 2015. "The impact of advanced biofuels on aviation emissions and operations in the U.S," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 482-491.
    14. Christian Spreafico & Davide Russo, 2020. "Exploiting the Scientific Literature for Performing Life Cycle Assessment about Transportation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-24, September.
    15. Chen, Fanglin & Hao, Xinyue & Chen, Zhongfei, 2021. "Can high-speed rail improve health and alleviate health inequality? Evidence from China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 266-279.
    16. Das, Deepjyoti & Sharma, Somesh Kumar & Parti, Raman & Singh, Jagroop, 2016. "Analyzing the effect of aviation infrastructure over aviation fuel consumption reduction," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 89-100.
    17. Qiu, Rui & Hou, Shuhua & Meng, Zhiyi, 2021. "Low carbon air transport development trends and policy implications based on a scientometrics-based data analysis system," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-10.
    18. Talwar, Chetan & Joormann, Imke & Ginster, Raphael & Spengler, Thomas Stefan, 2023. "How much can electric aircraft contribute to reaching the Flightpath 2050 CO2 emissions goal? A system dynamics approach for european short haul flights," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    19. Liu, Zhen & Diao, Ziyu & Lu, Yuan, 2024. "Can the opening of high-speed rail boost the reduction of air pollution and carbon emissions? Quasi-experimental evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    20. Arunodaya Raj Mishra & Pratibha Rani & Fausto Cavallaro & Ibrahim M. Hezam, 2023. "An IVIF-Distance Measure and Relative Closeness Coefficient-Based Model for Assessing the Sustainable Development Barriers to Biofuel Enterprises in India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-22, February.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1025-:d:206447. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.