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In order to continually reduce vehicle pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, fuel standards and regulations are in a state of constant change and tightening. These changes and future trends have an impact on the take-up of renewable fuels for both gasoline and diesel fuels. This chapter discusses current and future fuel standards and illustrates how the hurdles experienced by ethanol and bio-diesel blends have been overcome. Nevertheless, ethanol and bio-diesel still remain and are likely to remain a minor part of the world fuel market.

Ideally new renewable fuels should be drop-in fuels with minimum compatibility issues with conventional fuels. This is illustrated by bio-refinery operations to produce green diesel which is compatible with conventional diesel.

There may be a role for a new renewable additive to improve gasoline octane as octane requirements rise. The market for such an additive could justify large-scale manufacture.

Some people think that carbon and sustainable development are not compatible. This textbook shows that carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air and bio-carbon from biomass are our best allies in the energy transition, towards greater sustainability. We pose the problem of the decarbonation (or decarbonization) of our economy by looking at ways to reduce our dependence on fossil carbon (coal, petroleum, natural gas, bitumen, carbonaceous shales, lignite, peat). The urgent goal is to curb the exponential increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and hydrosphere (Figures 1.1 and 1.2) that is directly related to our consumption of fossil carbon for our energy and materials The goal of the Paris agreement (United Nations COP 21, Dec. 12, 2015) of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees (compared to the pre-industrial era, before 1800) is becoming increasingly unattainable (Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), report of Aug. 6, 2021). On Aug. 9, 2021 Boris Johnson, prime minister of the United Kingdom, declared that coal needs to be consigned to history to limit global warming. CO₂ has an important social cost…

This paper presents the results concerning total number of cells capable of growth and multiplication (direct viable count) in marine microcosms supplemented with gasoline and gasoline-enriched marine populations. The direct viable count is further discussed in correlation with the BOD₅ of these samples in the attempt to take into account the intensity of biological oxygen consumption together with the number of active growing microorganisms. The linear correlation between the number of cells capable of growth and multiplication (direct viable count) and BOD₅ in the five microcosms is good (r= 0.96). Up to our best knowledge this is the first attempt to simultaneously measure these two parameters in marine microcosms polluted with hydrocarbons (gasoline).