NREL - Long-Term Biofuel Price and Scalability
MARAD recognizes that one of the biggest challenges in the 21st Century is transforming the maritime transportation sector into a low carbon-based sustainable industry. Bioenergy has an essential role in the transition to move maritime shipping toward carbon neutrality. With inherently zero- or low-sulfur and renewable carbon sources, biofuels will help mitigate marine shipping sulfur emissions, improve overall emission profiles, and enable the decarbonization transition. As biofuel for marine propulsion is still at its nascent stage, knowledge gaps exist, including the life cycle environmental impacts, compatibility of biofuel blending with conventional marine fuels, scalability, and cost. This study assessed the biofuel availability and cost aspects for marine use and was supported by META to project the long-term price and annual biofuel production capacity potential for marine propulsion in the United States.