To reduce dependency on fossil fuels and to contribute to growing efforts to decarbonise the transport sector, biofuels provide a way to shift to low-carbon, non-petroleum fuels, with minimal changes to vehicle stock and distribution infrastructure.
Production and use of biofuels can provide benefits such as increased energy security, reducing dependency on oil imports and reducing oil price volatility. Also, biofuels can also support economic development through creating new sources of income. But using food crops for manufacturing conventional biofuels results in less food for human consumption and feedstock production displacing land previously used for the cultivation of food crops; among other social, economic, or political issues.
BAC-TO-FUEL is a EU funded, multidisciplinary Research and Development project, which aims to develop a viable bionic leaf technology to obtain renewable biofuels using waste water, CO2 and sunlight. Chemists, biologists and physicists team up to find a more sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, while at the same time removing CO2 from the atmosphere. BAC-TO-FUEL will overcome the key concerns about the production of biofuels, particularly first generation, related to food security and food prices. Also, BAC-TO-FUEL will provide a way for high-CO2-emmitters to valorize their emmissions, therefore turning their waste (which are increasingly becoming an economic burden) into valuable assets to easily incorporate into their value chain.