France trumps the EU's biofuel objective

The European Union’s current objective of increasing the use of biofuels to 5.75 per cent of total transport fuel consumption by 2010 and 8 per cent by 2015 was trumped last week when Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, announced plans to boost the country’s use of biofuels to 10 per cent by volume by 2015.

The objective is for every French citizen to be able to buy a vehicle that runs on high biofuel blends by the end of this decade. These could either be petrol cars that can run on nearly pure ethanol, or diesel cars that can function on biofuel blends.

Villepin called for a network of green refuelling stations and said an action plan with be presented to farmers, consumers and car and oil companies this summer with which all parties will be required to engage.

Many oil and car companies are starting to focus in on technologies for producing biofuels that are equivalent to their fossil fuel counterparts, avoiding the need to adapt car engines or build separate distribution networks (see “The coming battle for second-generation biofuels”, Science|Business, 24 May 2006).

This may mean oil and automotive giants blowing cold over bioethanol, but for now European production is soaring: bioethanol production was up by almost 70 per cent to just over 950 million litres between 2004 – 2005.

Soaking up the wine lake

Much of the increase was due to higher production in France as a result of government subsidies and the crisis distillation of wine prompted by over production, according to Ramon de Miguel, President of the European Bioethanol Fuel Association (eBIO).

Speaking at the World Biofuels Conference in Seville, Spain, in the week before Villepin’s pronouncements, de Miguel said the bioethanol bandwagon was moving fast. eBIO was founded a year ago with six companies, now it had 20. “This would not have happened unless there was a clear feeling in the business community that biofuel use in the EU is on the right track and will expand in coming years,” he told delegates.

While EU production in 2005 was around 950 million litres, total consumption was close to 1,200 million litres. Sweden, the largest user of bioethanol, Germany and the UK all consumed much more than they produced (though Sweden and Germany are the second and third largest producers, respectively, behind Spain).

Swedish target

Sweden stands out for other reasons. It is the only EU country that has achieved the 2005 target of 2 per cent of total fuel consumption and is now blending up to 5 per cent ethanol in petrol. Along with Spain it has submitted a request to the EU Council of Ministers to raise the blending level up to 10 per cent.

Also, Sweden is the only EU country where a strong market is developing for “flex fuel” cars, with E85 cars that run on 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent petrol accounting for 15 per cent of sales of new vehicles.

Wine lovers will wince at the fact that wine alcohol accounted for 26 per cent of the total volume of bioethanol produced in the EU last year. “For several reasons the EC was forced to put an increasing volume of wine into crisis distillation last year, even French quality wine,” said de Miguel. “We are the only part of the world where this raw material is used.”

Dwarfed by US and Brazil

But however large the percentage increases, the EU’s production of bioethanol is dwarfed by the US’s at 16.2 billion litres and Brazil’s at 15.5 billion litres. The main driver is reducing dependency on foreign fossil fuel sources, which is a secondary motive to environmental concerns in Europe.

“In the EU we should be more ambitious in achieving this goal of improving security of supply and reducing our dependency,” said de Miguel.

And while there may be positive trends in some countries, other members of the EU are far from achieving their targets. “There is an enormous gap between what member states said they would do and what they did in reality,” said de Miguel. In 2004, ten EU countries produced no biofuels at all.

De Miguel called for the 5.75 per cent target to be mandatory. “Forcing member states, and indirectly oil companies to act is the only way forward that will reduce our dependency on foreign oil and increase our security of supply.”