"Biopetrol": A swot analysis of non-fossil fuels for cars within Europe

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,8, University of Cooperative Education Mannheim, course: ABWL, language: English, abstract: Fuel and diesel petrol are derived from crude oil, and since this is a limited raw material, unevenly distributed over the world, it will become very important in the future to find alternatives to petrol; one of them are biofuels. The present paper was written in order to find out about the biofuels market in Europe. An overview of different types of biofuels, including Biodiesel, Bioethanol, Synthetic Fuels as well as various others was compiled, describing advantages and disadvantages of each biofuel. Afterwards, Biodiesel is the main focus of the conducted SWOT analysis. This is due to the fact that Biodiesel is the major biofuel consumed within the EU, with a market share of about 80% of all biofuels available. It is found that Biodiesel does have several Strengths, both product Specific and Environmental specific, which could help the product become even more successful. On the other hand, Weaknesses, also product Specific and Environment specific are shown. Also, Opportunities and Threats are told about, with both of the topics divided into Political influences, Environmental factors and Other factors. Opportunities and Threats are influences coming from the outside, and they cannot be directly influenced by the producers of biofuels. Yet, knowing about these factors can be helpful in order to plan for future actions and gain a better understanding of the current situation of the product. Finally, a Conclusion shortly sums up the information gained in course of the study, and afterwards an Outlook for the future of biofuels is given. An Overview of the SWOT analysis shows the researched information in a compressed way in the Appendix.