Renewable synthetic crude oil to mitigate carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency

Abstract

Current global dependence on crude oil poses a threat to the environment, making in turn some economies vulnerable to supply disruptions and price peaks. Meanwhile, the high cost and large investments required by emerging low technology-readiness-levels (TRL) renewable carbon-based solutions are major obstacles towards their adoption. Alternatively, here we quantify the underexplored potential of a high-TRL option to defossilise fuels and chemicals based on synthetic crude oil from renewable carbon sources, which could be more easily integrated into current infrastructure and potentially become cost-competitive. Assessing the eight largest economies worldwide, we find that bio syncrude from biogas and forest residues could replace large shares of crude oil demand, reducing carbon emissions substantially while decreasing fossil fuels dependency and potentially entailing low green premiums depending on local feedstock and energy prices. The proposed strategy could, thus, enhance energy security and strategic autonomy in countries lacking fossil resources while cutting greenhouse gas emissions and leveraging current infrastructure, potentially positioning syncrude as a strategic 21^st-century commodity that could complement other defossilisation technologies.