I’ve spoken to a biofuels and biodiesels trader working in Belgium.
He told me that the biofuels and biodiesel business for cars will end in 10 to 15 years as most combustion engines vehicles will be replaced by electric cars.
What happens in Belgium may reflect what will happen in the rest of Europe.
I strongly advise companies involved in biofuels and biodiesel not to invest in new capacities as it may become … stranded assets.
Electric cars will make cities more human and less polluted.
Electric cars are greener as they release no direct emissions.
Electric engines have another huge advantage on combustion engines: they make less noise.
Does the following situation rings a bell: motorbikes accelerating so hard and making so much noise that they wake up or disturb the entire neighbourhood?
Well, with electric motorbikes, it won’t happen anymore.
Less emission and less noice …. win win situation.
However, electric cars come with their set of challenges and problems:
- Batteries may be temperature sensitive.
- Charging time of the batteries need to be improved.
- There are no standard plugs.
- The grid and charging stations will have to be seriously developed.
- You need to generate enough energy to enable the charging of millions of batteries at the same time: in the evening and at night.
- We’ll probably have to rely on nuclear power.
- Electric batteries rely on lithium, nickel and cobalt. The mining of those metals will come at an environmental and social cost (child labour in Africa).
- Batteries will need to be eco-designed so that they can be recycled after use.
- A lot of “unused” energy will be stored inside the batteries of cars at night, we’ll need to develop an AI system that allocates, distributes and re-distribute electric power wisely … to avoid stranded electric power.