Market-driven considerations affecting the prospects of alternative road fuels

Without significant intervention, demand for crude oil could rise by a further 25% by 2035, stemming from its use for transportation, particularly road transport. Many technologies for alternative fuels and substitute transport energy carriers are being researched, but successful implementation of these technologies at scale will require attention to consumer-behavioural and policy challenges as well as adapting existing or introducing new commercial value chains. In particular, there will be new capital-intensive roles for which there are no obvious contenders as yet. The legacy of diverse urban planning and fuel taxation policies and varying degrees of consumer inertia will lead to different rates of adoption of different alternative technologies in regional markets. In the absence of technology that provides a compelling consumer proposition, substitution of crude demand in mature markets will be challenging, as will be channelling exponential growth from growing markets like China into less crude-intensive road transport solutions.