Life Cycle Assessment of innovative fuel blends for passenger cars with a spark-ignition engine: A comparative approach

Abstract

Passenger cars account for 44% of greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the European Union. To align with the European Green Deal by 2050, road transport should develop and deploy alternative technologies to reduce emissions by 90%. In this work, the Life Cycle Assessment methodology was applied to assess the environmental impacts of a medium (C-segment) internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) and a medium (C-segment) battery electric vehicle (BEV). For the ICEV, four innovative petrol blends were considered. These innovative blends consist of petrol and fuels such as fossil ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), bio-ETBE, bionaphtha, bioethanol, methanol, biomethanol, and e-methanol. After a preliminary selection of biofuel alternatives, all the assessed blends potentially guarantee a slight reduction in climate change (from 0.8% to 10.1%) compared to the reference petrol car. The blend containing bionaphtha contributed the least to climate change. The BEV released about 41% less greenhouse gas emissions than the reference car. Although the ICEV and the BEV showed a reduction in climate change and fossil resources, the picture is less straightforward for the other 14 impact categories.