GreenFleet

A year ago, biofuels were generally welcomed as a useful tool in the fight against climate change. This might seem difficult to believe, given recent media coverage. Biofuels are now blamed for deforestation, loss of biodiversity and making climate change worse. They are apparently also responsible for high food prices and global hunger.
    
What is the truth behind the hysteria? Are biofuels good or bad? And what does all this mean for the general public?

What biofuels?
Before we can answer that, we have to remind ourselves exactly what we mean by ‘biofuels’ and what the rationale is for using them in the first place.
    
Put simply, biofuels are fuels made from renewable, biological sources. There are many possible ways of producing them but the biofuels that will be used in the UK over the next few years are predominantly liquids made from plants, with some biodiesel coming from used cooking oil and tallow.
    
Bioethanol is made by fermenting the sugars and starches in plants such as sugarcane or beet, maize and wheat. It is used as a substitute for petrol.
    
Biodiesel is made from oils and is a substitute for mineral diesel. Suitable plants include oilseed rape, soy and palm.
    
The plants absorb CO2 from the air when they grow and this is then released when they are used as fuel. In theory, biofuels could be carbon neutral. In practice, significant energy will be expended growing the feedstock (including the use of fertilisers), turning the feedstock into biofuel and transporting it to where it is needed.

Savings
The most useful approach is to work out the total carbon footprint of producing the biofuel and compare this with the equivalent fossil fuel. We can then say the biofuel gives a percentage of greenhouse gas (GHG) savings, relative to fossil fuel. Savings vary widely, but around 50 per cent is probably a good average on current technologies.
    
The REA is certainly not here to defend all biofuel programmes. Some biofuels produce negligible savings – such as some of the ethanol produced from maize in the USA. Worse still, if the feedstock is grown on land that was previously rainforest or peat bog, stored CO2 is released that will take many decades to pay back.

Good and bad
So, there are good biofuels and bad. We cannot even say that one feedstock is good rather than another - everything depends on the way in which the biofuel was produced. It is therefore essential to be able to tell the good from the bad.
    
It’s an obvious enough point, but one that tends to get drowned out amid the shouting and our desire for quick, simple answers.
    
UK legislation on biofuels – the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) – came into force 15 April this year. Under it, fuel suppliers, that is the oil companies and the fuel importers, have to replace a certain percentage of their annual fossil fuel sales with biofuels. The target is 2.5 per cent for this year, rising to 5 per cent by 2010/11. If the targets are met, the carbon savings should be the equivalent of taking nearly a million cars off the road.
    
The Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) will run the scheme. To show they have met the obligation, suppliers have to present certificates, or pay a ‘buy-out price’. In order to get the certificates, the suppliers must make a report for every litre of biofuel they provide.
    
This is where the ability to separate the good from the bad comes in. The reports cover the environmental and social impacts as well as the carbon intensity of the fuels supplied. The RFA gathers the information and will make it public in quarterly and annual reports.
    
This scheme is truly world-leading. There is nothing of the sort in the US, south America or Asia, for example.

Sufficient incentive
Having said that, it is by no means perfect. The fuel companies will be able to report little or nothing on sustainability and they will still get the certificate. The calculation is that the fear of exposure and bad publicity will be a sufficient incentive for potential backsliders to do the right thing.
    
Similarly, the reporting mechanism gives no financial incentive to improve GHG performance. However good or bad you are, you still get one certificate for every litre you supply.

The government made it clear from the start that the reporting mechanism was transitional – to gather robust information and make sure the next stage will work. Financial rewards are due to be directly linked to GHG savings from 2010 and complying with sustainability standards should be mandatory from 2011.
    
This should sit well with upcoming European legislation. The proposed Renewable Energy Directive is now being discussed and should be agreed over the next 12 months. It sets an overall EU target of 20 per cent of energy coming from renewables by 2020 and a sector-specific target of 10 per cent of energy for transport being renewable by then. There will be a minimum greenhouse gas saving for biofuels – currently 35 per cent, but this may well rise – and mandatory compliance with a range of sustainability requirements. The REA will be working hard over the coming months to strengthen the criteria but the current draft is a good starting point.

Food security
One issue that cannot be directly addressed by sustainability schemes is any impact on the cost of food. Food prices have risen worldwide in the last 12 months and biofuels have often been named as a driving force behind it.
    
Food security is certainly an important issue. Short term spikes in prices cause serious hardship for the urban poor who cannot grow their own food and the question of how we manage land use in an international system is something that governments have neglected for far too long.
    
Putting biofuels into context, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that one per cent of global land suitable for agriculture is used for biofuels. If the various targets around the world are met, they estimate that this could rise to just two per cent by 2030. Within the EU, the 10 per cent target in 2020 would require an additional four million tonnes/year of production. That’s out of a total market of 4,000 million tonnes/year.
    
It is difficult to see how biofuels that are not yet even being produced in the EU or the UK can be responsible for to day’s price rises. A series of poor harvests and increasing demand for meat in the developing world are far more significant, not to mention the recent action of speculators in the world’s commodity markets.

Future technology
In fact, there is a lot of research going on at the moment to find alternative ways of making biofuels that do not involve food crops. These include new feedstocks such as jatropha – produced by a tree that can grow on land not otherwise suitable for agriculture – and ways of using the whole of plants rather than just the oil or starch-bearing parts. Some of these may be only five years away from the market. There is also a great deal of scope for improvement in current technologies.
    
Biofuels are still in their infancy. If these advances are to happen the biofuel industry in the UK needs clear and binding targets to get the necessary investment. In particular, we will not see the more advanced technologies being developed and commercialised unless there is a working market now.
    
If we accept that concerns about sustainability are being dealt with then the next stumbling block is that there are limits on how much biofuel you can add to fossil fuels without harming performance. Car warranties in the EU are only valid with up to five per cent biofuel – although many cars are designed to take more.
    
You can run cars on significantly higher blends, but that requires modifications to the engine – and an additional pump at the forecourt. There are some schemes in the UK but the fuel is not widely available.
    
The Budget didn’t help – it withdrew the duty rebate on biofuel from 2010 and therefore the only guaranteed financial support for selling high-blends. The sector will need specific government support to break the deadlock, or we will not be able to get the full benefits that are possible.

Making a contribution
What does all this add up to? Well, the petrol and diesel you buy from now on will probably have around 2.5 per cent biofuel in it. This is perfectly safe for your car and will not affect its performance. In doing so, you will be making a small but genuine contribution to dealing with climate change.
    
There are good and bad biofuels – and the REA is committed to producing good biofuels in the UK - the important thing is to be able to tell the difference. The UK has a world-leading system of reporting and the threat of being exposed publicly should keep the fuel companies on the straight and narrow. Over the next three years compliance with sustainability standards will become mandatory and financial rewards will be directly linked to environmental performance. This should drive both new technologies and improvements to existing technologies.
    
Finally, a quick reminder of the need for action. Transport accounts for around 25 per cent of UK emissions and is almost entirely dependent on oil. Biofuels can make a significant contribution, but they are certainly not the answer on their own. We need the whole range of measures – improvements in engine efficiency, reducing car use and driving more efficiently. Biofuels are currently the only renewable fuel available at the required scale.
    
No one is saying that dealing with climate change, particularly in the transport sector, will be simple or easy. But the consequences of not taking action will be much worse. Doing nothing is not an option.

The REA has set up a website to provide balanced, accessible information on biofuels. You can find it at biofuelsday.co.uk .