US, Brazil, EU agree on Roadmap to common biofuels certification standards

The United States, Brazil and the European Union (EU) released their “White Paper on Internationally Compatible Biofuels Standards” that will pave the way towards a unified international standard for biodiesel and ethanol. An international committee found that 9 of 16 standards were “in alignment” while 6 could be be aligned in the short term. Only 6 biodiesel standards were found to be aligned, and the committee found recommended that the remainder could be aligned through blending biodiesel varieties.

In Washington, the Government Accountability Office said last week that biofuels trade would decline and energy prices would climb unless global standards for biofuels are developed. The GAO said that “the array of incompatible gasoline and diesel blending stocks, and final blended products that cannot be interchanged at the retail level” are reducing opportunities for trade. The GAO recommended that the Departments of Transportation and Energy “encourage uniform biofuel and petroleum product blending practices.”

The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), which met in Washington in November, is expected to propose definitive standards for biofuels trade.

Dr. Brenda Haendler, speaking at the Biofuels in the Americas conference in Miami recently, said that the US State Department, working in cooperation with the government of Brazil, had established an initiative to coordinate a global set of biofuels standards and codes.

ANSI from the US, CEN from Europe and ABNT in Brazil were among the organizations which have conducted initial meetings and are now preparing a report to their respective countries on areas where the standards in the three regions are virtually identical, need only minor “tweaking”, or require major changes. The goal of the US is to coordinate standards at the first two levels in 2008.

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