British campaign against EU biofuels fails

Today, the European Commission will unveil its proposals setting out how the EU will meet targets on energy and climate. In the run up to this event, a British campaign against liquid biofuels was launched with the aim of influencing the decision making process. This campaign failed. It might however be interesting to analyse in detail how this coordinated attack was mounted, because it yields some insight into the reasons why resistance to biofuels is so great in the UK and not elsewhere. What follows is baded on extensive communication with biofuels experts across mainland Europe and Brazil.

First let's look at the shots that were fired over the past few days, all in the time-span of less than one and a half week.

• The campaign began with the BBC airing a five week old interview with EU Environment Commissioner Dimas, in which he said nothing that wasn't already known; namely that the Commission is working on sustainability criteria for biofuels. However, the BBC presented this weeks old interview with its old insights as 'news' and tried to hint at possible conclusions that were totally unjustifiable on the basis of what Dimas actually said a month earlier - namely that the EU is 'revising' its biofuels policy and could lower targets. The review process was announced more than a year ago.
  
• Next, the British Royal Society published a report about the advantages and disadvantages of biofuels; it was a relatively objective and rather shallow study, not presenting any new facts about biofuels. The authors acknowlegde that the report mainly offers a status questionis, even though it looks at future biofuels and biorefineries, mainly seeing them as a necessary and useful step towards more efficiency. However, some media only highlighted the well known negatives about biofuels contained in that report.
• Shortly after, Greenpeace UK supposedly 'leaked' an internal, non-reviewed report about biofuels written by the EU's Joint Research Center. The report was six months old, well known by the bioenergy community, contained nothing new, and was not formally peer-reviewed. Because this study was seen by other experts as being too much on the side of the petroleum industry, a critique also leveled against the JRC's earlier controversial well-to-wheel study on future fuels and propulsion concepts - it has never been published. However, Greenpeace 'leaked' it to the press - acting as if the EU Commission has anything to hide. This was a bit of a weak attempt by Greenpeace UK to discredit a fairly open consultation and decision making process by the EU.
• Finally, a report by a British group of MPs came out, calling for the abandonment of biofuels targets. This report was quickly debunked by the EU Commission itself, because it is, and we have to agree here, one of the most static and shortsighted reports on biofuels ever written. First, it (again) contains nothing new; secondly, it draws highly subjective conclusions on the basis of facts that allow for exactly the opposite conclusions (e.g. the idea that rising prices for agricultural commodities could damage developing countries, while many an economist has argued the opposite); third, because it contains a large number of factual errors (e.g. extrapolating findings from a localised Swiss study, to biofuels as such); fourth, because it presents an extremely static view on biofuels, not taking into account neither their evolvement and the role of change through science and technology, nor the possibility of trading fuels dynamically across continents. Lastly, because it doesn't contain any analysis of the many other benefits of biofuels (energy security, rural development, North-South cooperation, etc...); this total lack of perspective does not justify the sweeping conclusions contained in the report, let alone a call for the abandonment of targets.

This barrage of arguments, all coming out at the same time, contains some much needed warnings that have to be taken seriously. But the way in which they were levelled and their origin, has led many an observer to suspect that there's more to this campaign.

So why would precisely Britain be so much against biofuels? Why hasn't the criticism come from, say, France or Germany, two European countries with much more weight within the EU?

There seems to be some agreement on the manifold reasons, which appear to be quite obvious. We sum up those given by some European and Brazilian biofuels experts, who we contacted for their opinion.

First, Europe has only two major oil companies, both having tremendous power but feeling threatened by EU climate and biofuel policies. Their headquarters are based in London. The petroleum industry is known for its war against biofuels, not only in Europe, but elsewhere. Biofuels, and especially the next generation based on very abundant and low value biomass, present a real threat to the sector. If the EU were to retain its 10 per cent target (which it will), then this gives the signal for a rapid development of a viable biofuels industry that could replace much more oil after the 10% target has been reached. The British petroleum industry, which offers the UK its socalled 'petrobonus' (a huge national income), would obvisouly prefer not see this happen.

Secondly, the EU's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) mainly benefits countries with a large farming community, such as France. As is well known, Britain has always been the number one enemy of the CAP. The introduction of ambitious biofuels targets - which stimulate agriculture and forestry in these countries further - would obviously be to the disadvantage of the UK, whose farming sector is relatively small and receives very little under the CAP. Note that Biopact is in favor of CAP reform, but this doesn't mean biofuels have to become the victim of an attack on the CAP. Biofuels and the rationale for their introduction, should be seen independently from agriculture reform.

Thirdly, of all major European countries, the UK has a relatively small local biofuels potential. To meet the EU's ambitious targets, the country would have to import biofuels from abroad - from mainland Europe or from countries like Brazil:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: petroleum lobby :: car manufacturers :: agriculture :: CAP :: EU ::

In principle this should not be problematic (see Sweden, for example, which has been importing large quantities of ethanol from Brazil), but for the UK it is, as the time-frame in which it would have to invest in such import chains, biofuel infrastructures and biofuel capable cars is much shorter than that of countries that already proactively made policies to make this transition (again, see Sweden).

Fourth, the UK has no car manufacturing industry left. Mainland Europe, and especially France , Scandinavia and Germany, do. These countries also happen to have a large biofuels potential. Car manufacturers are set to play an important role in getting biofuels off the ground, by offering flex-fuel vehicles. To give just one example of what this means to manufacturers: the Saab Bio-Power, which runs on E85 and even pure ethanol, has been a runaway success, offering Saab one of its best selling cars in years. This new outlook for car manufacturers in mainland Europe is welcomed by many, but obviously not by the UK which no longer has such a sector.

Fifth, the world's largest food multinationals are all Anglo-American and British. These UK-based food concerns have been waging a long campaign against the biofuel sector, because the industry has pushed up raw materials prices. Even though the raw materials price for vegetable oils, grains and sugar, makes up only a small fraction of the cost of producing processed food - meaning consumers should not feel it in their pocket -, this lowers some of the food industry's margins.

These are some of the possible reasons suspected to be behind last week's coordinated attack on biofuels, coming solely from the UK. Although one can understand Britain's perspective on the issue, it would be unwise to have the entirety of Europe's biofuels policy depend on such national considerations.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs therefor reacted quite angrily against his week of campaigns, putting the record straight: biofuels do definitely reduce greenhouse gas emissions (some not much, others in a great way), they definitely contribute to energy security by allowing for the diversification of fuel sources, they offer the only alternative to oil (electric or hydrogen fleets are decades away, and the climate problem must be tackled today), and finally, the biofuel sector offers chances for development cooperation with poorer countries.

To stress the last point, Piebalgs will travel to Brazil over the coming months, to see the industry's model at work, and to find out whether this highly efficient and largely sustainable system can be replicated in other countries, mainly African, where the potential is so large.