Could Biomass Derived Fuels Bridge the Emissions Gap between High Speed Rail and Aviation?

Aviation is a steadily growing sector, which largely contributes to transport greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. When High Speed Rail (HSR) and aviation are considered as alternative options, HSR proves to be a more environmentally friendly mode of transport. Public available data have been used in order to calculate the emission profiles on two selected intra-European routes (London–Paris and Frankfurt–Amsterdam) by HSR and air. As expected, the air mode results in higher GHG emissions and solutions for mitigating its impact have been analyzed and suggested. Biomass Derived Fuels (BDF) has a limited, up to now, potential, to fill the existing gap in terms of emissions with rail. Moreover, BDF reduction in GHG emissions is accompanied with by an increase in fuel cost. Finally, the cost per tonne of avoided CO2e by using BDF—which values 186 €/t—has been compared with the prices of the European Union (EU) Emission Trading System (ETS) allowances and, from a purely economic perspective, this market based measure still seems a preferable option to curb the GHG emissions of the air mode.