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EU Commission deserts the climate

The long awaited proposal for directive, which was leaked last month, was Wednesday published by the EU Commission. New rules on Indirect Land-Use Change (ILUC) are now included, but only for certain types of feedstock.

Unfortunately, the proposed rules, which have been awaited for two years, do not account for the positive effects the co-product, protein, has on the ILUC factor. This is completely ignored in the calculations, which only include the negative effects and not the positive, like for example the fact that the protein product can replace soybean protein imported from South America. 

The Commission has chosen to change the rules on how to accomplish a 10 % share of renewables in the transport sector by 2020. In the new proposal, the use of crop-based biofuels (first generation – 1G) is limited to 5 % of total EU transport energy demand by 2020. The remaining 5 % is to come from so-called non-food feedstock (second generation – 2G). In order to speed up the development of second generation biofuels, these will be allowed quadruple counting. In practice, this means that you will only have to mix 2.5 % 2G to achieve a 10 % biofuel mix. 

When the Commission proposes to reduce the biofuel blend from 10 % to 5 %, the consequence is that we will not achieve the planned CO2 reduction. It also means that the 2G plants will have a hard time gaining a foothold, as there will be no established productions to integrate them into,” 

says Svend Brandstrup, CEO at hveiti.

No CO2 reduction

Most of all it looks like the Commission has forgotten why it in 2009 decided on a law to secure a mix of biofuels in all EU fuel. Back then the goal was to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce the climate changes hitting the poor regions of the world the hardest. With this new proposal, this goal is deserted.

It is a shame that the proposal does not distinguish between the different types of first generation biofuels. Some of them are good from an environmental point of view,” 

says Thomas Dalsgaard, director of thermal power in Dong Energy to the Danish newspaper Politiken 17 October.

There are 1G biofuels that provide as much high-protein animal feed as low-carbon liquid fuel – a protein in great demand in the EU, where the main part of the protein consumption is soybean protein imported from South America. 

With the new proposal, the EU is not only criticised for deserting the climate, but also for deserting an entire industry that has invested billions in the production of biofuels.

 “We have invested in good faith because there was a clear political signal and were not even half way into the game and they’re changing the rules. No football player would accept that,” 

says Rob Vierhout from the European Renewable Ethanol Association.

 

Follow the developments within biorefining. hveiti regularly informs about our efforts to improve the environment.



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