Long-term strategy for biofuels

Biofuel producers and investors in Europe undoubtedly face a challenging future, although maybe one with a little more hope than has been true of the past decade of high promise and low achievement.
For all the ambitious words and targets attached to European biofuels in the recent past, the damming conclusion reached by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) at the end of last year is that most member states missed their 2020 goals, and that the EU’s biofuels’ policy lacks long-term perspective.
Looking for hope in the face of such a verdict may appear ultra-optimistic, but recovery and progress invariably starts with a clear, even blunt, diagnosis of what has gone wrong, and the ECA’s 61-page analysis was certainly that.
After listing the shortcomings of the EU’s approach to the fostering of biofuels as a green energy solution, the report concluded with three key recommendations:
1. Prepare a long-term strategic approach.
2. Improve guidance on advanced biofuels categorisation and assess the capping of feedstock.
3. Improve data and transparency.

The need for urgency in dealing with these issues was also...