European Commission science arm says the cost of biofuels “will almost certainly outweigh the benefits”

The European Commission’s Joint Research Center has drafted a study that said that increasing the use of biofuels in Europe would incur costs of $50-$100 billion that “will almost certainly outweigh the benefits.” The study also says that it is not possible to say whether “the EU 10 per cent biofuel target will save greenhouse gas or not.” The 10 percent target was proposed last year as part of an overall plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 by 20 percent (from 1990 levels).

Part of the cost issue in Europe is related not directly to biofuels, but to agricultural tariffs policies. In Italy, the chairman of the Global Bioenergy Partnership said that the food vs. fuel issue will only be resolved if the United States and Europe drop their protectionist agricultural policies and help developing nations produce biofuels. Corrado Clini, who was speaking at the World Energy Congress, said that there should be international rules on production standards to prevent environmental damage.

The UN Dispatch recently reported comments by the organization that trade in biofuels and biofuel feedstocks is too low. The report says that European and US subsidies for domestic production and tariffs for imported feedstocks and biofuels are reducing biofuel production in tropical and subtropical climates, where biomass productivity is significantly higher.

The European Union is expected to publish a draft law next week banning the importation of biofuels grown in forests, grassland or wetlands, and deliver a minimum of greenhouse gas emission reductions. The ban is expected to affect palm oil based imports due to deforestation, South American ethanol and biodiesel with grassland or forest land use issues, and US corn ethanol due to lower emissions savings.

Last week, a consortium of 17 non-governmental organizations called on EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs to require sustainability standards for biofuel production or eliminate biofuels mandates.

The NGOs were responding to a draft biofuels mandate for the EU which will be finalized later this month and raises the use of biofuels to 10 percent of all fuels by 2020. The NGOs said that the plan did not fully address water shortage and deforestation issues. The NGOs called for a ban on the use of sugar cane, corn, and some varieties of canola and palm oils in biofuels production. The NGOs proposed threshold, that only feedstocks producing a minimum savings of 50 percent in CO2, has won significant support in the European Parliament.

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), commenting on the draft law proposed by the EU, said  that it “even though a 14% minimum binding target for biofuels would represent an ideal basis for the promotion of biofuels, the 10% biofuels target endorsed by EU Heads of State in March 2007 represents a major step forward. The difficulties experienced until now in implementing long term targets at national level not only suggest the need for mandatory targets, but also the necessity that those targets are detailed over shorter periods of time, certainly not over a decade. A sustained and progressive growth in the use of biofuels could be best achieved by establishing intermediate targets of 7% in 2012 and of 8.5% in 2015 (in energy content).”

Key EU agricultural organisations (Copa-Cogeca, EOA, UFOP) have recently indicated that the very future biodiesel demand can be viably produced from EU-originated raw materials.

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