The European Commission (EC) has proposed to limit the amount of food crops that can be used for making biofuels in the European Union. The move comes after several studies have shown that not all biofuels are equal in greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Renewable Energy Directive, 10 percent of all transport fuels were to be renewably sourced by 2020. The related Fuel Quality Directive set a greenhouse gas reduction target of 6 percent by 2020 for fuels used in transport. When these goals were set, the contribution from biofuels was expected to be fairly high.
The European Commission wants to limit the use of food crops as a source of biofuel, and instead promote non-food sources, such as this Miscanthus, or elephant grass, grown in the UK, as a biofuel feedstock. (Source: Wikimedia Commons/David Wright)
The percentage of food-based biofuels allowed to contribute to that 10 percent will now be limited to 5 percent of the total, which is the current consumption rate, up until 2020. After that year, the EC wants to give financial incentives only to those biofuels that aren't produced from food and feed crops, and that lead to "substantial" greenhouse gas savings.
The EC's reasons for the changes are "to stimulate the development of alternative, so-called second generation biofuels from non-food feedstock, like waste or straw, which emit substantially less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels and do not directly interfere with global food production," according to a press release.
Some recent studies indicate that certain biofuels may actually add as much to greenhouse gas emissions as the fossil fuels they are designed to replace. The EC says this became clear when the studies accounted for changes in indirect land use. Those changes can happen when the production of biofuel from a food crop forces a shift in the production of human food or animal feed crops to land that has not been previously cleared for agricultural use, such as forests.
The proposal calls for several changes. It requires that, when assessing a biofuel's greenhouse gas performance, in order for it to be counted toward the targets and receive support, its estimated global land conversion impacts, or Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), must now be included in reports by fuel suppliers and member states. The proposal also increases the greenhouse gas savings threshold for new installations to a minimum of 60 percent.
Currently, biofuels must emit at least 35 percent less greenhouse gases than the fossil fuels they replace; increasing to 50 percent in 2017. This change is designed to improve biofuel production process efficiency and discourage more investments in existing installations with low greenhouse gas performance.
This is an interesting situation. I really thought that the reason for the EU to limit biofuels was that there are food shortages from the drought in the US that have driven up the cost of basic foodstuffs. The issue of using land that was not under cultivation is a really imprecise measure. This happens in the realm of food production all the time depending on market conditions. For example, in the US, peanut production was at an all time high this year. The reason is two fold. First, crops were down and prices up in the previous couple of years. So, more land was put into cultivation. There was also a very high yield becuase the regions where peanuts are grown had lots of rain this year. In the EU, there are major distortions caused by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This has nothing to do with fuel production. In the US we have our farm policy. In both cases we have been paying farmers for years to not grow cash crops to keep prices to farmers up. Now the market does that for us.
The alternatives are not all they are cracked up to be either. Algae would have to cover a large area to be useful. Are we ready for that? In addition, do the crops get credit for the CO2 they absorb while they are growing? This would be an interesting calculation. I have seen oil refineries and I have seen ehtanol plants. Is the CO2 from the oil refineries in the calculation? What about the transport of oil around the globe. Ethanol tends to be used near where it is distilled.
Any real comparison should take into account the whole cycle of production, including the equipment. I don't think we have seen that done for oil, or ethanol, in a comprehensive manner.
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