A climate action group’s negative outlook on truck biofuels has industry leaders sounding the alarm over what they see as a narrow approach to emission reduction, which could mean bad news for one of the group’s major backers: Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
Mission Possible Partnership’s new report “Making Zero Emissions Trucking possible: An industry-backed, 1.5°C aligned Transition Strategy” supports a fast-track to all-electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks, and downplays biofuels because of “cost and feedstock availability.” The group goes on to say that biofuels are “expected to play a very limited role in truck decarbonization.”
Not all carbon-cutting players in transportation agree. Cummins, Natural Gas Vehicles for America, renewable diesel manufacturer Neste, biodiesel technology group Optimus Technologies and the Renewable Natural Gas Coalition told CCJ that they see biofuels playing a much greater role in decarbonization than what Mission Possible projects in the years ahead.
[Related: Cummins announces fuel agnostic engines]
Also, in an interesting twist, one of Mission Possible’s major funding partners, Jeff Bezos, remains a prominent biofuels supporter through Amazon, the massive online retailer that leans heavily on petroleum-fueled planes, trucks and delivery vans to deliver millions of packages daily around the world.
A week after Mission Possible posted its 60-page report, Amazon’s Sustainable Operations outlook posted online remained unchanged regarding its goal to invest “in a variety of solutions to decarbonize our freight transportation network.”
