Roddy Graham’s Blog: 24 January 2008

Biofuel agenda

Interesting to learn the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, an all-party group of MPs, says that plans to increase biofuels will do our planet more harm than good and should be scrapped. Is this why the Government has been so reluctant to get behind biofuels and really subsidise their use?

The thrust of the argument is that the growth of crops for biofuels will damage the economies of developing countries and destroy forests. Additionally, the group argues biofuels are not as green as they are portrayed to be because of the energy required to produce them.

Currently, the Government is committed to making sure at least 5% of transport fuel sold in the UK is biofuel by 2010, half of the EU target set for 2020.

As usual, there is no Holy Grail, with alternatives being sought here and there. When it comes to biofuels, environmentalists argue that specific crops should not be grown for transport but biofuels extracted from waste, sustainable forests and from plants found away from land earmarked for edible crops.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the EU has informed the UK Government that it must increase the proportion of its energy coming from renewable sources sevenfold.

The European Commission has declared its clear objective to reduce Europe’s carbon emissions by a fifth by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. It also wants to generate one-fifth of the EU’s power from renewable sources by that time.

For the UK, this means getting 15% of its energy for electricity, heat and transport from renewable sources such as solar, tidal, wave and wind power plus biomass. Currently, only 2% of the UK’s energy is renewable, the worst figure among major European countries.

I bet your bottom dollar biofuels will be back on the agenda pretty swiftly.