Biofuels U-turn

The EU has been a strong supporter of biofuels over the past decade.  However, there has been a change of direction more recently.  In 2012 the EU Commission proposed a cap on the amount of ‘conventional’ biofuels; i.e. those grown from edible agricultural crops.  On the 11^th July 2013 the European Parliament Environment Committee (ENVI) backed the Commission’s proposals.   The aim is to drive a shift towards the use of ‘advanced’ biofuels; those produced from algae, seaweed, waste and other sources than do not have the same impacts on indirect land use change (ILUC), food prices and the environment.  

The move came just a few weeks after the House of Commons International Development Committee found that increased biofuel production was undermining food security by driving up crop prices.  According to ENVI, ILUC occurs when biofuels replace food crops on existing arable land, and food production is displaced onto new land or concentrated onto a smaller area.  This leads to deforestation and over-farming which increases greenhouse gas emissions and cancels out the benefits of using biofuels over fossil fuels.

The main targets under the proposals are that:

• Advanced biofuels should account for at least 2% of the total energy consumption for transport by 2020.
• Electricity from renewable sources accounts for at least 2% of the total energy consumption for transport by 2020.
• Conventional biofuels account for no more than 5.5% of total energy consumption for transport by 2020.

The committee also supported additional incentives to encourage the uptake of ‘advanced’ biofuels and to factor-in the effects of ILUC into official emission calculations.  However opponents of the cap suggest this could prevent any chance of meeting the Renewable Transport Directive, which aims for 10% of fuel from renewable sources by 2020.  The full proposal will go before the European Parliament in September.  If this change were introduced it could have a big effect on the two existing UK bio-ethanol plants, Ensus and Vivergo (see article below).  The oilseed rape market would also be affected as considerable quantities of the European crop currently are processed into biodiesel.