Low CVP publishes report on the benefits of E10 petrol

In support of the UK government’s decision to increase the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, the LowCVP has published its report ‘Successfully Deploying E10 Petrol’.

The group convened under the auspices of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership concluded that the introduction of petrol with a 10 per cent bioethanol content (E10) would be one of the most cost-effective means of rapidly reducing carbon emissions from road transport currently available to the UK.

It would also make an important contribution to the UK’s efforts to reduce CO2 from road transport by displacing 10 per cent of fossil petrol with renewable bioethanol in transport by 2020.

However, the report says that its introduction needs to be thoroughly and carefully planned to ensure effective market transition.

The UK has committed to an 80 per cent greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction by 2050 and currently, the transport sector contributes around a quarter of these emissions so must play a significant part in the reduction.

It also concludes that, in the long-term, dramatic reductions will be achieved through road transport electrification and complementary decarbonisation of the grid, but the UK will remain reliant on liquid fuels for some decades to come.

The LowCVP-led Transport Energy Task Force (TETF) identified E10 petrol as being an immediate low risk, lower carbon and sustainable fuel step to help decarbonise petrol-powered vehicles in the shortest possible timeframe.

All modern petrol cars are designed, certified and optimised to use E10.

There are still a small number of older non-classic cars, particularly those produced in the 1990s and before, which are not warranted for E10 use, but the majority of these are expected to be scrapped by 2020.

The LowCVP E10 Group, which has published the report on ‘Successfully Deploying E10 Petrol’, finds that there are a number of key challenges in the introduction of E10 petrol, but which the Group agrees can be overcome by working together.