Fuelling a pollution solution
An East Midlands rural watchdog says the European Union goal of obtaining 10 per cent of its road fuels from renewable sources by 2020 will only be achievable in the UK if Government policy catches up with science.
Tim Barnes-Clay, Motoring Editor of the CLA’s Land & Business magazine says the organisation has been arguing for years that incentives for biofuels should be calibrated to reward the carbon saving of the fuel.
His claims come in the wake of findings from a new report that show some biofuels can lead to four times more carbon dioxide polluting the atmosphere than equivalent fossil fuels.
The report for the European Commission, released under Freedom of Information rules, looked into the "indirect emissions" from biofuels caused by land use change. The worst example is soy beans in America. Because the land that used to grow soy beans for animal feed is now being used for biofuels, it means that more soy beans must be grown in the rainforests of Brazil to make up for the loss in the domestic market.
Biodiesel from European rapeseed has an indirect carbon footprint of 150kg of CO2 per gigajoule, while bioethanol from European sugar beet is calculated at 100kg – both much higher than conventional diesel because of indirect use of land in other countries to replace the food crops that are no longer grown in Europe.
However, Mr Barnes-Clay, speaking from the CLA’s regional bureau near Market Harborough in Leicestershire, said: "The CLA has reinforced the drive for biofuels to be calibrated to reward the carbon saving of the fuel through lobbying and responses to Government consultations. We are pleased to note that the EU biofuels policy is now beginning to move in this direction, but in our view much faster progress is required.
"We know that UK crops when grown and processed sustainably can make very large carbon savings, and that the best renewable transport fuel is biomethane made by anaerobic digestion, but policy has sadly not yet caught up with the science," he added.