Don’t abandon conventional biofuels, ePure urges EU

The European renewable ethanol association ePure has released a position paper on the European Commission’s (EC) proposed revision of the EU Renewable Energy Directive II (RED2).

In the paper ePure urges the EU not to abandon its climate and energy goals by phasing out conventional, first-generation ethanol fuels.

“Decarbonising the EU transport sector requires concrete and realistic policies”, ePure states, continuing by stating that the EC’s RED proposal “does not deliver” in this regard.

Instead of contributing to European climate and energy goals, ePure argues that the RED2 proposal will hinder transport decarbonisation efforts, devastate European agriculture and endanger “thousands” of rural jobs, and undermine investor confidence.

“The Commission’s proposal is counterproductive to the EU’s climate and energy goals, discourages investment in new technology (such as advanced cellulosic ethanol) and ignores the Commission’s own science,” ePure said in statement.

The group accuses RED2 of not being supported by evidence or public opinion and lacking ambition, flaws that the association says could be corrected by implementing its suggested six-point programme.

EU should increase its ambitions for renewable energy use in transport and have all Member States gradually increase their share of renewable energy in transport to a minimum of 15% by 2030, the paper reads.

Policy continuity should be guaranteed by maintaining the 7% contribution to biofuels from arable crops, which would help keep up the amount of biofuels in transport.

Sustainability criteria and traceability requirements equivalent to those of crop based biofuels should be introduced for all biomass, irrespective of the end use or feedstock, which ePure says would ensure their environmental performance.

Additionally, related to sustainability criteria, the paper calls for implementation of waste hierarchy to unlock the sustainable potential of waste feedstock, limiting the contribution of palm oil derivatives to the renewable fuel supply, and updating the GHG calculation methodology.

The EU should “provide a long-term perspective for investment in all sustainable biofuels” with low ILUC-risk, and sustainable biofuels should be defined as fuels that save at least 70% GHG emissions compared to fossil fuel and are produced from feedstocks that comply with mandatory sustainability requirements in relation to air, soil or water protection as defined in the EU agricultural policy.

EPure further calls for “dedicated support” to deploy advanced biofuels on top of conventional ones through fostering of investment, but insists that conventional biofuels must be kept safe in the background as a policy that would “play biofuels off against each other” would strengthen fossil fuels.

Finally, the paper urges EU to deploy higher blends of ethanol up to ED95, as they “would allow for advanced and crop-based ethanol to grow simultaneously”.

If implemented, ePure argues that the six methods would reduce GHG emissions by 64% when compared to fossil petrol and improve energy security, support up to 50,000 rural jobs, and reduce EU protein deficit through utilisation of ethanol production by-products.