Since the middle of the 1990s, Linköping University has had as a goal that all of our cars should only use renewable fuel and/or electricity. And we achieved this goal in 2014!
We managed this by using cars that can use bioethanol, biogas or electricity. Since 2004, LiU has purchased increasing numbers of biogas-fuelled cars for its fleet. The number of bioethanol-fuelled cars has also increased: bioethanol is also a fuel that is in balance with the natural cycle.
Location: Campus Valla, A Building – Logistics and Facilities Support Office
Biogas does not contribute to the greenhouse effect
The coal and oil that we take from the ground are comprised of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere millions of years ago. When we drill for oil or mine coal to use this carbon as fuel, we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where its concentration increases. This reinforces the greenhouse effect, and leads to global warming. Biogas, in contrast, is manufactured from waste, plants and animals who have lived in modern times, and that have bound in various ways currently available carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in their bodies or plant parts. In this way, they belong to a circulation that would be in balance – the amount of carbon absorbed by the plants is equal to the amount that is released when plants and animals die and through animal respiration – if we didn’t release the fossil carbon.