MotoGP is leading the way by announcing that, by 2027, all fuels used in world championship racing must be biofuel or synthetic fuel.

MotoGP To Go Green By 2027

Amid all the hype and talk of electric and hybrid bikes coming on line in the next ten years, it is easy to forget how the racing scene is inevitably going to change in the same period. If the rest of the world is being forced to go electric, then there is no way that racing can continue on its merry, fossil fuel-burning way with no consequences.

It's not necessarily a happy thought: MotoE becoming the MotoGP class in ten years' time. Perhaps by then we'd be used to a thin whistle rather than a howling exhaust note....

So, what's the answer? Well, Dorna - MotoGP rights holders - and the FIM have laid out plans to reduce the carbon footprint of motorcycle racing at the highest level by moving away from fossil fuels and towards alternative, green fuels. By 2024, they want 40% of fuel used to be non-fossil and by 2027, they hope to be using fully sustainable fuels.

Of course, a large driver for such an initiative is to research and develop alternative fuels for the public to use as an alternative to going fully electric.

It will be a challenge to replace decades of fossil-fuel combustion knowledge with a good working knowledge of synthetic fuels but racing is nothing but a cauldron of experts working much faster than any civilian organisation could: the potential rewards for getting it right quicker than your rivals are enormous and, in the end, it is you and I, the end user, who will benefit: anything that prevents us having to go fully electric is to be applauded.

While it would appear to be a blank piece of paper as regards restrictions on developing synthetic or biofuels, they do exist.

Biofuels cannot be sourced from food crops: they have to come from waste products from forestry and farming or from crops grown on land that can't sustain food-production crops. Similarly, synthetic fuels that have been produced using energy sources that emit carbon are not allowed.

Other than that, it's open season on development.

As a statement of intent, it's an incredibly important announcement from Dorna and the FIM. The future doesn't necessarily have to sound like a hairdryer!