.
"Some first-generation biofuels are considered a problem is that
they increase demand for crops, displacing food production into new
areas, forcing forest clearance and the draining of peat land. They can
also add to food price inflation."...
7/11/13, "EU lawmakers deal a blow to crop-based biofuels," Reuters, Barbara Lewis
"EU efforts to
limit the use of crop-based biofuels, increasingly seen as doing the
planet more harm than good, won parliamentary backing on Thursday in
what a top biodiesel company called "a very bad blow".
The vote in the European
Parliament's environment committee will be followed by a plenary vote,
expected in September. It will also require endorsement by EU member
states, which are deeply divided on the issue.
Environmental campaigners said Thursday's vote marked progress towards more sustainable biofuels.
But
biofuel producers and their suppliers are furious at the policy U-turn.
They said the proposed limit of 5.5 percent of total transport fuel use
was far too low and would lead to plant closures and job losses.
Jean-Philippe
Puig, CEO of Sofiproteol, which owns the EU's largest biodiesel
producer Diester Industrie, said the vote "was a very bad blow".
Earlier this month Sofiproteol said it would close two units of Diester Industrie because of overcapacity.
In 2008, an EU target was introduced to get 10
percent of transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020, most of which
would come from so-called first generation biofuels made from sugar,
cereals and oilseeds.
Since
then, a series of studies has underlined the potential environmental
damage caused by some biofuels, particularly biodiesel, which accounts
for more than two-thirds of the estimated 13 billion euro ($16.71
billion) EU biofuel sector.
Most
recently, a study by the Joint Research Center (JRC) - the European
Commission's in-house research body - confirmed earlier EU studies that
biodiesel made from crops such as rapeseed does more harm to the climate
than conventional diesel.
SOME BETTER THAN OTHERS
Other biofuels are less problematic, the research finds.
Fuels
made from cereals and sugar crops have much lower carbon emissions than
those from vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil, palm oil from Malaysia
or soyoil from the Americas.
The
reason some first-generation biofuels are considered a problem is that
they increase demand for crops, displacing food production into new
areas, forcing forest clearance and the draining of peat land. They can
also add to food price inflation.
The displacement of land is known as ILUC
(indirect land-use change) and can result in enough carbon emissions to
cancel out any theoretical savings from biofuels.
The Commission proposal includes ILUC factors to estimate the indirect emissions of biofuels made from cereals, sugars and oilseeds, but they carry no legal weight.
Thursday's committee proposal makes them binding from 2020 for industry and in the case of governments with immediate effect.
"This
vote will pave the way for truly sustainable transport fuels, which
actually reduce emissions, as of 2020," said Nusa Urbancic, a manager at
campaign group T&E.
Committee
members also voted for extra incentives to promote advanced or
second-generation biofuels. Made from waste or agricultural residues
rather than food crops, these are seen as the most sustainable type of
biofuel, but are still at an early stage of commercialisation.
The
science of biofuels is still evolving. Among those tracking it is the
European Environment Agency, set up to gather scientific data to inform
EU policy-making.
Its Executive
Director Hans Bruyninckx said the challenge for policy-makers was to
balance the very latest knowledge with the need to give investors time
to adapt.
"If you take that
(science) into account, you know there are better choices than using
primary (major) crops and pouring them into cars as biofuel," he told
Reuters."
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