Research
Biofuels in Canada 2020: Tracking biofuel consumption, feedstocks, avoided greenhouse gas emissions and fuel cost impacts
October, 2020
Summary
Navius Research has released the 2020 edition of the “Biofuels in Canada” report. This report uses public data to catalog the volume of transportation biofuels consumed in each Canadian province while estimating the impact of biofuel consumption on greenhouse gas emissions and transportation energy costs.
Highlights:
- Ethanol consumption has increased from roughly 1,700 million liters in 2010 to 3,034 million liters in 2018 (0.5% less than in 2017), accounting for 6.5% of the volume of blended gasoline fuel.
- Renewable fuel consumption in the diesel pool was 711 million liters in 2018 (1.5% larger than in 2017), accounting for 2.5% of the volume of blended diesel fuel.
- Annual avoided lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions resulting from biofuel consumption were 5.6 Mt/yr in 2018 (1% larger than in 2017). Average abatement costs from the consumers’ perspective is -322 $/tCO2e in the ethanol pool and 149 $/tCO2e in the diesel pool.
- On net, we estimate that biofuel consumption reduced fuel expenditures in Canada by 0.8% from 2010 through 2018, relative to a counterfactual scenario without biofuel consumption.
- Because of differences in fuel energy density and fuel costs, consumers in Canada have paid more taxes as a result of biofuel blending and consumption, relative to a counterfactual scenario without biofuel consumption. These “surtaxes” have grown to a cumulative total of $1.6 billion from 2010 through to the end of 2018.
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Click the image above to download the spreadsheet.
Download the report or the spreadsheet model.
This study was commissioned and funded by Advanced Biofuels Canada.
To learn more about this research, please contact Michael Wolinetz.
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