Sustainable Transport Solutions: do biofuels hold the answer?

CIFAL Findhorn, The Moray Council and the Scottish Agricultural College teamed up with leading Scottish companies, National Government officers, overseas organisations, environmentalists and academics to explore the local and global challenges of delivering environmentally sound and sustainable transport solutions. November 26- 27 2007.

Over the two days, participants measured a range of approaches to biofuel implementation against sustainability indicators: net green house gas reductions, energy return on investment and environmental and social sustainability.

The seminar drew many participants involved with setting transportation policies and administering public transport systems. A balanced panel of speakers, including environmental groups, fuel distribution companies and growers of biofuel crops meant that participants gained a closer insight into the critical issue of sustainable vs. non-sustainable biofuels.

On day two, participants engaged in a practical design exercise. Working in small groups they identified technical aspects and designed an implementation strategy for three regional case studies:

1. A Bio-methane-Anaerobic Digestion (AD) biofuel project in Aberdeen City to establish a methane filing station to supply ten city buses with LPG.

2. An Inverness city based Oil Seed Rape Biodiesel medium scale pressing and refining plant to fuel Scotland’s first regionally fuelled train. See pdf with the results of this case study.

3. In the city of Elgin, conversion of three of the oldest diesel Council buses to run on straight vegetable oil (SVO).

An emerging theme during the seminar was the importance of establishing contracts and co-operatives between growers, processors and end users. It was also considered important to seek out and maximise opportunities for symbiotic relationships with other industries to utilise and add value to all aspects of the biofuel production process.

Comments following the seminar included:

"An excellent range of speakers, very informative and valuable to hear the views of local/international practitioners."

"A very good selection of academics, researchers, private company owners and NGO’s. It definitely offered a balanced and varied insight into the different aspects and barriers in the Bioenergy debate."