Biofuels: ‘Irrational’ and ‘Worse than Nonrenewable Fuel Source’

Biofuels: ‘Irrational’ and ‘even worse than fossil fuels’

The UK’s “unreasonable” usage of biofuels will cost motorists around ₤ 460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank says.

A report by Chatham House, external says the growing reliance on sustainable liquid fuels will likewise increase food prices.

The author says that biodiesel made from grease was worse for the environment than fossil fuels.

Under EU law, external, biofuels are set to make up 5% of the UK’s transport fuel from today.

Since 2008, the UK has needed fuel providers to add a growing percentage of sustainable materials into the fuel and diesel they supply. These biofuels are generally ethanol distilled from corn and biodiesel made from rapeseed, utilized cooking oil and tallow.

Deep fried fuel

But research brought out for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level means that UK drivers will need to pay an extra ₤ 460m a year due to the fact that of the higher expense of fuel at the pump and from filling more frequently as biofuels have a lower energy material.

The report state that if the UK is to satisfy its responsibilities to EU energy targets the cost to drivers is most likely to rise to ₤ 1.3 bn per year by 2020.

“It is hard to discover any great news,” Rob Bailey, senior research fellow at Chatham House, told BBC News.

“Biofuels increase costs and they are a really expensive way to minimize carbon emissions,” he stated.

The EU biofuel mandates are likewise having extremely distorting effects in the marketplace. Because used cooking oil is considered as among the most sustainable types of biodiesel, the price for it has increased quickly. Rob Bailey states that towards completion of 2012 it was more pricey than refined palm oil.

“It produces a monetary incentive to purchase refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into utilized cooking oil and after that offer it at earnings,”

“It is insane however the incentives exist.”

There are also worries that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in specific is creating more environment problems than it fixes. The more fuel of this type that is taken into vehicles the larger the deficit produced in the edible oils market. This had caused increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, typically produced on deforested land.

“Once you take into account these indirect effects, biofuels made from veggie oils in fact result worldwide in more emissions than you would get from using diesel in the first place,” said Rob Bailey.

“Plus you are asking motorists to pay more for the fuel – it makes no sense, it is a completely irrational method.”

Biofuel benefits

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the market, external across the EU, said it knew the problems caused by the required. But it thinks that biofuels have numerous positives.

“Blaming biofuels for all the troubles in the world is a bit too exaggerated,” said Isabelle Maurizi, project supervisor at the EBB.

“It has actually brought great deals of benefits. It has actually enhanced the security of our diesel; it has actually reduced EU dependency on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel.”

“If there was no biodiesel farmers would simply make their land idle – no food, no feed!”

As the UK strikes the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the government faces some hard decisions on how to move forward on this problem as it faces tripling the expenses for drivers by 2020.

Insiders recommend its choice would be to attempt and get agreement in Brussels on the effects of indirect costs which may constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting contract from countries with effective farming sectors who benefit from the current plan will be challenging.

“When you have a lobby which consists of the farming sector and the oil sector it is very tough for Governments to make a U-turn,” Bailey.

County begins recycling chip fat

8 December 2010

How does Qantas fly on chip fat? Video, 00:02:00 How does Qantas fly on chip fat?

13 April 2012

Measuring energy crops’ footprint

18 October 2012