The Echoes from AEFJN No. 30 - July August 2016 are now available online. Update - November 2010
1. Grain prices rising on world market. A food crisis could overtake the world in 2011, according to FAO; this is due to Climate change, disease, speculation and biofuels use.
2. LAND & EU biofuels promotion
2.1 Analysis of National Action Plan for Renewable energy (NREAP)
The NREAP reports reveal a large new biofuels markets in United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. One part of biofuels should be produced from biomass, mostly issued by agriculture. The advanced biofuels should reach 10% of this market in 2020.
The amount of biomass requested by UK industrial biomass plants for energy will require great imports.
These reports show some problems.
UK government evaluated some figures without first assessing the proportions of bioenergy from renewable domestic and imports.
The biomass figures of Spain and Poland contain errors. The amount of biomass produced is greater than the amount needed to reach their targets (biofuels + heat + electricity). Do they miss to mention the imports from third countries?
2.2 How Member States plan to address the ILUC[1] factor in EU legislation?
UK recommends that EC “should develop detailed options for addressing ILUC, and subject these to a full impact assessment." But UK gives no timeline.
Netherlands urges the Commission to "shortly" amend the Directives "to prevent the continued use of... certain categories of biofuels which in a few years will be considered unsustainable". Netherlands says that EU should develop crop-specific ILUC factors by December 2014, and, until then, a "temporary, uniform factor should be set" for all biofuels. This should stop use of the worst biofuels as palm oil biodiesel.
France calls for an "arbitrary" ILUC factor to be applied "at very short notice" to biofuels made from palm oil, sugarcane and soy. This would be changed with further scientific research.
2.3 EC not neutral EC refuses to disclose information on the ten standard schemes submitted by companies. EC uses methodology partly financed by Shell and BP for identifying areas in developing countries where crops could be grown with little risk of causing ILUC.
3. EU-Africa Partnership on energy and climate change
By the Joint Africa -EU-Strategy, the heads of states of the African Union and the EU intend to adopt a 3-years action plan on energy and climate change and many issues. This Action plan misses to promote satisfying rural development, development-friendly trading and sustainable and decentralised energy supply.
To read the EC press release:
[1] Indirect Land Use Change due to biofuels crops