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EU and US Move Apart on Biofuels
EU - The EU is set to ease biofuels targets in the face of global concerns over their inflationary impact on food prices.However, according to carbonpositive a business that develops sustainable agro-forestry and bio-energy ventures in non-industrialised countries there appears less chance of similar action in the US, no matter who is in the White House.
The push to substitute green fuels for fossil fuels following the spike in oil prices in recent years and the imperatives of greenhouse emissions reduction for global warming have led to alarm over food prices.
A jump in global food prices this year, has in part been attributed to competition for grain produce from biofuel makers. Question marks over the true environmental impacts of biofuel production and use have also arisen.
The debate has forced the European Union to reconsider mandates laid down in 2003 and 2007 to lift the proportion of transport fuels coming from biofuels to 5.75 per cent by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020.
In the US, President Bush announced a mandatory fuels standard requiring 35 billion gallons (132 billion litres) of renewable and alternative fuels per year by 2017, a five-fold lift in the previous requirement.
As they do now, corn and soy bean crops are expected to fill most of US ethanol and biodiesel production needs. The White House has so far stood firm on the policy, despite the Republican Party adopting a proposal earlier this month to get rid of mandates for the increased use of ethanol in fuel blends.
This month, the EU industry and energy committee overwhelmingly endorsed a plan to tighten up the targets to help ensure the increasing use of biofuels contributed meaningfully to emissions abatement and did not have perverse impacts on food production and prices, or landowners’ and workers rights.
The plan is very likely to be approved by the EU Parliament in a vote scheduled for October 8. It would see the overall 2020 target of 10 per cent biofuels stand, but with a limit of 6 per cent to come from food-based crops or any agricultural produce that might compete with crop production. The 5.75 per cent target for 2010 would be replaced by a 5 per cent target for 2015, of which only 4 percentage points can come from agricultural biofuels. Second-generation biofuels or other fuel and power technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells, would have to make up the rest.
As well, agro-biofuels would be subject to further controls over the sustainability of production. Producers would have to demonstrate at least a 45 per cent saving in emissions compared to fossil fuels over the full production and consumption life-cycle, rising to 60 per cent in 2015.
The revised biofuel mandate would be subject to a major review again in 2014.
The policy has gone a fair way to appeasing the concerns of environment groups but European biofuel producers say the turnaround is unfair. They say the changes mean the shorter term biofuel incentives have gone backwards, risking investments in higher production capacity already made.
Italy, however, says it will continue its push to aggressively lift biodiesel production because it is at levels still well below EU targets.
Meanwhile, in the United States, analysts say the worldwide concern over biofuel sustainability is not likely to lead to an easing of biofuel targets there – either from the Bush Administration or either of the presidential candidates who might take office in 2009.
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