Development Status in EU Biofuels Market

Are biofuels sustainable? The EU perspective

Background On 21 January 2008 the UK Government's Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) published its report on the inquiry 'Are biofuels sustainable?' [1]. Their short answer, which has since been echoed by a wave of media coverage and environmental group campaigning, was a resounding 'No'. The report concludes that the stimulation of biofuels production by the UK Government and by the EU is rec...

Certification Strategies, Industrial Development and a Global Market for Biofuels

A disproportionately large amount of the world's agronomic potential for the production of bioethanol is concentrated in a subset of developing countries. To develop that potential, countries need both the existence of an appropriate local business ecosystem and reliable global demand. The creation of a global market for green biofuels, however, is affected by a constellation of diverse and som...

The Long-term Prospects of Biofuels in EU-Countries

The core objective of this paper is to analyse the economic, ecological and energetic perspectives of biofuels second generation compared to biofuels of first generation and fossil fuels in a dynamic framework up to 2050. The most important result of this analysis is that in Europe second generation biofuels might become economically competitive between 2020 and 2030. Yet, this will only be ach...

Neoliberalising technoscience and environment: EU policy for competitive, sustainable biofuels

Since the 1990s the European Union’s biofuels policy has espoused several aims: energy security, greenhouse gas (GHG) savings, technology export and rural development. On these various grounds, by 2007 the EU was moving towards statutory targets, i.e. to mandate larger markets for ‘renewable energy’ including biofuels. However, controversy erupted over harmful environmental and social effects, ...

Biofuels’ Role in Mexico’s Rural Development