EU might raise mandatory biodiesel blend
The European Commission is planning to increase the mandatory percentage of biodiesel that "regular" diesel should contain at European pumps before 2011. Some countries are planning to institute or already demand around 5 percent blends (or more) at the pumps but the plan has never been written on paper.
A new European Directive will be introduced in 2008 that will finally establish terms and blends. The plan is to increase the blends so that by 2020, 20 percent of Europe's energy comes from renewable sources - and biofuels have a key part in these plans: 10 percent. The European Parliament's proposal of certified sources seems not to be appear in this Directive.
By the end of December 2010, all EU countries should have some percentage of biodiesel added to "regular" diesel. Then a set of incremental objectives will set in every two years until 2020 when the aforementioned requirements will be met.
The Directive will also include plans for country members to promote locally-grown biofuels but, and this is where voices get raised, the EU might study helping developing countries if requirements can't be met. Adrian Bebb, member of Friends of the Earth, said that this measure won't avoid destroying rainforests to plant biocrops and it might harm poor communities that might lose their lands. He added that even the United Nations isn't sure about biofuels.
[Source: Agroinformación via Econoticias]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark 10:43AM (12/11/2007)
EU might rise mandatory biodiesel blend
You mean "raise".
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rgseidl 12:31PM (12/11/2007)
It's important to differentiate between biofuels that are produced using the whole plant and those based on just the fruit portion, which may be edible.
Any mandatory increase in biofuel blend ratios should therefore clearly limit the portion that may be derived from the fruit only. For example, the EU could require all on-road diesel to contain 10% renewable compounds by 2020 but limit FAME (aka biodiesel) content to 3%. The balance would than have to come from BTL or other processes that are deemed less problematic in terms of their CO2 balance (incl. rainforest destruction) and impact on wholesale prices for staple foods. The same logic could be applied to alcohol blending into gasoline.
However, since no-one knows for sure when the favored second-generation production processes will be economically viable at industrial scales, energy companies should be given an alternate compliance path based on NGVs running on an 80/20 mix of fossil gas and scrubbed biogas. This can be produced and distributed economically using a wide variety of cellulosic feedstocks (except wood) today. To avoid setting up a dedicated distribution infrastructure, it would be sufficient to prove that for every unit of gas dispensed at the pump, an equal amount of this blend was fed into the grid. A number of technical standards and legal roadblocks will have to be tackled first, though. In addition, gas station franchisees will need to connect to the nearest NG pipeline and install compressors, i.e. last mile infrastructure.
Note that there are still very few NGVs on European roads today. An alternate compliance option would require energy companies to successfully lobby for a tax holiday on biogas in the transportation sector, valid through 2020. The auto industry would need to successfully lobby for subsidies for a limited number of early adopters of NGVs, preferably based on adsorbed rather compressed NG. Direct injection would be preferable to port injection.
The overhead associated with a push for more NGVs would have to be balanced against the incremental cost of producing second-generation liquid biofuels.
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GreyFlcn 7:14PM (12/11/2007)
Yes, because chopping down whole trees and putting them into your car engine has nothing to do with chopping down trees....
And proliferation of Fischer Tropsch, the same technology used for Coal-to-Liquids, in no way encourages the use of Coal-to-Liquids....
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