Forest-derived methane in the Swedish transport sector: A closing window?

Tomas Lönnqvist, Stefan Grönkvist and Thomas Sandberg

Energy Policy, 2017, vol. 105, issue C, 440-450

Abstract: Forest-derived methane could complement biogas from anaerobic digestion as a transport fuel. The conditions for a systemic transition have been analyzed in this article. The analysis contains three blocks: the vehicle gas development, the policy framework, and commercial projects to produce methane from forest biomass. The results reveal that several conditions for a systemic transition are in place. There is established infrastructure for feedstock supply and biofuels distribution. Infrastructure development is an important albeit not determining factor. Private and public actors have advanced plans for commercial scale plants, technological know-how, and experience from a demonstration plant. However, a major barrier for a systemic transition is the low predictability of Swedish policy instruments. The Swedish government is not free to design policy instruments but must consider compatibility with the EU framework and has changed the energy tax on biofuels several times to avoid overcompensation according to the EU regulation. This has contributed to the low predictability. The interviewees have suggested several concrete policy instruments. However, they have also emphasized that the exact design of the policy instruments is less important than the predictability of the support.

Keywords: Policy instruments; Systemic transition; Transport fuels; Methane; Forest biomass (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151730143X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:105:y:2017:i:c:p:440-450

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.003

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().