Biofuels: 'Irrational' and 'worse than fossil fuels'


The UK's "illogical" usage of biofuels will cost motorists around _ 460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank says.


A report by Chatham House, external says the growing dependence on sustainable liquid fuels will also increase food rates.


The author says that biodiesel made from veggie oil was worse for the environment than fossil fuels.


Under EU law, external, biofuels are set to make up 5% of the UK's transport fuel from today.


Since 2008, the UK has actually needed fuel suppliers to include a growing proportion of sustainable materials into the petrol and diesel they provide. These biofuels are mainly ethanol distilled from corn and biodiesel made from rapeseed, used cooking oil and tallow.


Deep fried fuel


But research study carried out for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level suggests that UK motorists will have to pay an additional _ 460m a year because of the greater expense of fuel at the pump and from filling more frequently as biofuels have a lower energy content.


The report state that if the UK is to meet its commitments to EU energy targets the cost to vehicle drivers is most likely to rise to _ 1.3 bn per year by 2020.


"It is hard to discover any good news," Rob Bailey, senior research fellow at Chatham House, informed BBC News.


"Biofuels increase costs and they are an extremely costly method to decrease carbon emissions," he said.


The EU biofuel requireds are also having extremely distorting results in the marketplace. Because utilized cooking oil is considered as among the most sustainable kinds of biodiesel, the cost for it has risen rapidly. Rob Bailey says that towards the end of 2012 it was more pricey than refined palm oil.


"It creates a financial incentive to buy refined palm oil, prepare a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and then sell it at revenue,"


"It is insane but the rewards exist."


There are also worries that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in specific is producing more environment issues than it fixes. The more fuel of this type that is taken into cars the larger the deficit developed in the edible oils market. This had caused increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, typically produced on deforested land.


"Once you consider these indirect impacts, biofuels made from vegetable oils in fact result worldwide in more emissions than you would get from utilizing diesel in the first place," said Rob Bailey.


"Plus you are asking motorists to pay more for the fuel - it makes no sense, it is an entirely unreasonable technique."


Biofuel benefits


The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the industry, external across the EU, stated it was aware of the issues triggered by the required. But it believes that biofuels have numerous positives.


"Blaming biofuels for all the difficulties worldwide is a bit too overstated," said Isabelle Maurizi, job supervisor at the EBB.


"It has actually brought great deals of advantages. It has actually enhanced the security of our diesel; it has actually reduced EU dependency on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel."


"If there was no biodiesel farmers would just make their land idle - no food, no feed!"


As the UK hits the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the government faces some tough decisions on how to progress on this issue as it faces tripling the expenses for drivers by 2020.


Insiders suggest its choice would be to try and get agreement in Brussels on the impacts of indirect expenses which might constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting arrangement from nations with powerful farming sectors who benefit from the present plan will be difficult.


"When you have a lobby which includes the farming sector and the oil sector it is very tough for Governments to make a U-turn," said Rob Bailey.


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