Germans Vote To Increase Bioethanol Inclusion Rate
28/10/10 -- The German government yesterday approved the proposal to raise the maximum inclusion rate of bioethanol in petrol from 5% to 10%.
The necessary paperwork is expected to be completed by the end of the year, with sales of the new fuel starting early in 2011.
The Ministry estimate that 90% of German tanks, sorry cars, will be able to use the new blend.
Volley of criticism means shaky outlook for EU biofuels
FWi -- It has been an eventful few weeks for biofuels in Europe. Each week has brought another volley of criticism. Like a punch-drunk boxer, the biofuel industry is still there fighting, but to take the analogy further, a stumbling fighter attracts fewer bets.
It is no wonder that potential investors are looking elsewhere for better prospects, a development that could leave Europe dependent on imported biofuels, removing one of their main advantages. So what has led to this situation?
First we had the publication of the Renewable Energy Strategy and the Gallagher Review into the indirect effects of biofuel production. Both of these were reasonably balanced documents, and while I have a few queries about some of the assumptions made by Gallagher (particularly the different treatment of set-aside and unproductive land), overall they provide a sound framework that will still allow the European industry to move forward.
OPEC claims dismissed
Further mud was flung at biofuels by the oil cartel OPEC, which claimed that 40% of the price of crude oil could be attributed to bioethanol. The main European, Brazilian and North American bioethanol trade associations quickly responded in an open letter which politely suggested that OPEC president Chakib Khelil was talking out of his bottom. Since you, as head of OPEC, provide no explanation for what in our view constitutes a self-serving and misleading statement that goes counter to any independent analysis of the fuels market today, one can only conclude that OPEC views competition with biofuels as a direct threat, they wrote.
Next, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report on 16 July which concluded that biofuels are currently highly dependent on public funding to be viable. The OECD says US, Canada and the European Union government support for the supply and use of biofuels is expected to rise to around $25bn a year by 2015 from about $11bn in 2006.
'The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a primary reason for current biofuel policies, but the savings are limited. Ethanol from sugar cane - the main feedstock used in Brazil - reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% compared to fossil fuels. But emission reductions are much smaller from biofuels based on feedstocks used in Europe and North America.'
Stunning: EU Ministers Admit Misreading Rules - There Is No Biofuels Obligation
PARIS (AFP)--European Union energy ministers said at an informal meeting Saturday they had been labouring for 18 months under the false impression that an E.U. plan to fight global warming included an obligation to develop controversial biofuels.
What seems to be a stunning misreading on the part of policymakers in Brussels comes at a time when the image of biofuels has shifted over a matter of a months from climate savior to climate pariah.
Documents issued by the E.U. describing its ambitious energy and climate plan, unveiled in January 2007, have consistently said that 10% of all the fuel powering vehicles would come from plants by 2020.
A closer reading of the texts by the ministers apparently revealed otherwise.
"The member states realized that the Commission's plan specifies that 10% of transport needs must come from renewable energy, not 10% from biofuels," Jean-Louis Borloo, the French environment and energy minister, said at the close of the three-day gathering.
Jurgen Homann, the junior economy and energy minister from Germany, also confirmed the misconception.
The ministers "discovered" that requirements for transport "do not speak of biofuels, but renewables," he told AFP.
The majority of biofuels produced in the world today are extracted from corn in the U.S., sugar in Brazil, and both grain and oilseed crops in Europe.
Heralded as recently as last year as a silver bullet in the fight against global warming, biofuels were seen as a relatively carbon-free way to fuel cars and trucks.
"A year ago you were considered an ogre if you were not in favor of biofuels," Borloo told journalists on the sidelines of the meeting.
In recent months, however, biofuels have been fiercely criticized for driving up world food prices, diverting precious crop land and aggravating deforestation.
An unpublished World Bank report blamed biofuels for a 75% rise in the price a basket of staple food items, the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper reported Friday.
The new reading of the E.U. "action plan" for energy and climate policy immediately raises the question of what - if anything - will replace biofuels in fulfilling the 10% transport requirement by 2020 for renewable energy.
"Things are changing very, very quickly," said Borloo, citing a number of new technologies under development ranging from hydrogen fuel to fuel cells.
At the same time, he acknowledged that "99.9% of the renewable fuel now available for vehicles is biofuel."
The E.U. plan calls for 20% of all energy needs in the 27-nation bloc to be met from renewable sources by 2020, and for an 20% reduction of greenhouse gases - compared with 1990 levels - by the same date.
Borloo also noted a shift already underway towards so-called "second generation" biofuels made from non-food sources such as switchgrass and wood byproducts.
OECD Official Urges That Biofuel Subsidies Be Scrapped
BERLIN (AFP)--An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agriculture official urged Monday that biofuel subsidies be scrapped, saying this was the quickest way to fight rising food prices.
"I call urgently for reduced support for biofuels," said OECD agriculture director Stefan Tangermannt.
"It is the only lever on which we can act rapidly," he added during an address to a farm forum in Berlin.
The OECD forecasts that food prices, in particular the cost of cereals, will remain high and that development of biofuels is responsible for around one-third of recent increases.
Leaked reports suggest EU biofuels U-turn on the cards
Leaked reports of an impending U-turn by the EU over the inclusion of 10% biofuel in road petrol and diesel by 2020 are cinculating in Brussels, bringing uncertainty to the green fuel industry and farming organisations.
The latest suggestions that the 10% figure may be scrapped, despite commitments to reduce climate change, comes on top of reports that Chancellor Alastair Darling, in his letter to fellow EU finance ministers on action to curb food price inflation, also called for an investigation into the effect that biofuel production was having on food.
And European Commission president José Manuel Barroso is also reported to have ordered a study into possible links between biofuels and the recent rapid rises in food prices.
Although an EC spokesman insisted the president was not considering changing the 10% target and might not even publish the results of his study, Mr Barroso is reported as saying: "We must have the courage to re-examine our [biofuels] objectives."
The latest concerns over the possible effect of the target on food prices are expressed in a leaked draft report by Claude Turmes, the European Parliament's lead rapporteur for the draft EU renewable energy directive and vice chairman of the Green Party in the European Parliament.
