Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
give support to national, regional and local authorities working towards the
objective of reducing dependence on oil use in transport; give coni dence to
companies, investors and scientists who are working on more ei cient ways
to do this; and give pause to those who believe that European consumers will
always remain hostage to oil prices, whatever the price. (European Commission,
2007b, p. 7)
Positing that 'a signal in the form of legally binding targets is stronger
than a purely voluntary commitment', the biofuels progress report calls
for the EU to set minimum targets for the future share of biofuels in
transport, and suggests a minimum target of 10 per cent biofuels in the
transport market by 2020 (European Commission, 2007b, p. 8). Moreover,
the report presses for 'ei ciency in biofuel policy' so as to build investor
coni dence, reduce administrative burden and encourage production of
biofuels such that it helps meet the directive's objectives (ibid.).
As mentioned above, biodiesel is the major biofuel adopted within
the EU Member States with a signii cantly higher share of total trans-
port market fuels than bioethanol. Of the two Member States exceeding
the 2 per cent target by the end of 2005, Germany's biofuel market is
mainly biodiesel, whereas that of Sweden is mainly bioethanol (European
Commission, 2007b). However, in aggregate the total proportion of bio-
fuels in the EU transport fuel market is very skewed towards biodiesel.
The main reason for higher use of biodiesel is the availability of the
biodiesel feedstocks, such as oilseed rape, within the EU. Furthermore,
biodiesel requires very little adjustment in the engine as well as the supply
infrastructure, which is a great incentive for the investors. In fact Rudolph
Diesel's i rst diesel engine was designed to run on vegetable oil (Demirbas,
2003). On the other hand, bioethanol is produced mainly from corn and
sugarcane at this early stage of technological progress, and has to be
imported from countries like Brazil. Although the next generation (the
so-called 'second generation') of biofuel production technologies are cur-
rently being developed and tested, such as the production of ethanol from
straw and wood chips, it might be a number of years before their produc-
tion is commercially viable and they are supplied to the market (Herrera,
2006; Schubert, 2006). Thus, in the meantime, EU Member States have to
either import bioethanol, as Sweden is doing from Brazil, or rely largely on
biodiesel produced within the EU to meet their biofuels targets.
Production of biodiesel within the EU Member States should be able to
supply enough fuel to meet the 2 per cent target set for 2005, however, it
will be dii cult to meet the 5.75 per cent target set for 2010 from domestic
production alone. Apart from increasing the production of the biofuels
within the EU, meeting this target will be further complicated by the fact
that all of the EU member countries will not be able to grow all of the
