Our reliance on gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel shows little sign of declining despite the push to net zero. Could replacing crude oil in hydrocarbon liquids with cellulosic biomass feedstocks provide the solution?

HYDROCARBON liquids (gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel) make modern society possible. Hydrocarbon liquids are low-cost, dense energy carriers that are cheap to store and transport. A single gallon (3.6 L) of gasoline provides work equivalent to more than 400 hours of human labour. Hydrocarbon liquids are also feedstocks for much of the chemical industry. A third of global energy demand is met from crude oil that is primarily delivered to the final customer as hydrocarbon liquids. These liquids are also made in smaller quantities from coal, natural gas, and biomass. If crude oil had never existed, we would probably still have invented gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel because of their remarkable and useful properties.

However, the challenges of climate change mean we must reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Some propose we invent and deploy fossil fuel substitutes such as batteries, but, in the real world that is a century-long task – perhaps, even an impossible one. A much faster transition to low-carbon fuels requires using existing infrastructure, including oil refineries, to produce gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from non-fossil fuel sources.