Spanish company Ferry Group is to invest €42/US$55.2 million in a project for the production of biomass fuel pellets in Bulgaria.
The 3-year project consists of establishing plantations of paulownia trees near the city of Tran. Paulownia is a fast-growing tree used for the commercial production of fuel pellets.
U.S. ethanol subsidies and tariffs to be lifted - good news for developing world
Quicknote biofuel trade
In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the United States "will need to have more imports of ethanol" if it is to meet the new mandate to cut gasoline use. The secretary also said that he did not see subsidies to U.S. farmers remaining in place beyond 2010 or import tariffs on ethanol beyond 2008. "The idea is that at some point in the future all these technologies need to stand the test of the free market," he said. Currently, American corn and ethanol producers receive billions worth of subsidies each year (earlier post), whereas a US$0.54-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol protects the market against competitors from abroad.
This is very important news for the developing world, which stands to benefit immensely from what is perhaps the largest economic opportunity some of these largely agrarian societies faced in decades (see prof. John Mathews' Biofuels Manifesto). Countries in the tropics and subtropics have an important competitive advantage for the production of biofuels: they have large amounts of unused arable land, a large rural population and agro-climatic conditions favorable for the cultivation of energy crops.
The largest external barriers to the development of an export-oriented biofuels industry in the South are subsidies and tariffs imposed by industrialised countries. Once these are lifted, the global biofuels market is set to be supplied by developing countries who will benefit economically and socially. Some analysts think the emerging biofuels market may offer the key to unlock the World Trade Organisation's Doha Round of trade negotiations, which collapsed last year over U.S. subsidies (earlier post). We will follow up on the ramifications of Bodman's stance, as soon as potential biofuel producers from the South react or as soon as the role of the renewable fuels in the Doha negotiations is highlighted [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: subsidies :: tariffs :: biofuel trade :: Doha :: WTO :: U.S. ::
In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the United States "will need to have more imports of ethanol" if it is to meet the new mandate to cut gasoline use. The secretary also said that he did not see subsidies to U.S. farmers remaining in place beyond 2010 or import tariffs on ethanol beyond 2008. "The idea is that at some point in the future all these technologies need to stand the test of the free market," he said. Currently, American corn and ethanol producers receive billions worth of subsidies each year (earlier post), whereas a US$0.54-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol protects the market against competitors from abroad.This is very important news for the developing world, which stands to benefit immensely from what is perhaps the largest economic opportunity some of these largely agrarian societies faced in decades (see prof. John Mathews' Biofuels Manifesto). Countries in the tropics and subtropics have an important competitive advantage for the production of biofuels: they have large amounts of unused arable land, a large rural population and agro-climatic conditions favorable for the cultivation of energy crops.
The largest external barriers to the development of an export-oriented biofuels industry in the South are subsidies and tariffs imposed by industrialised countries. Once these are lifted, the global biofuels market is set to be supplied by developing countries who will benefit economically and socially. Some analysts think the emerging biofuels market may offer the key to unlock the World Trade Organisation's Doha Round of trade negotiations, which collapsed last year over U.S. subsidies (earlier post). We will follow up on the ramifications of Bodman's stance, as soon as potential biofuel producers from the South react or as soon as the role of the renewable fuels in the Doha negotiations is highlighted [entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: subsidies :: tariffs :: biofuel trade :: Doha :: WTO :: U.S. :: 
1 Comments:
Wishful thinking, folks. Either that or naivety. In any case, rumours of the tariff's death are premature.
The U.S. Administration tried to temporarily suspend the import tariff last summer, in part to ease the sharply rising price of ethanol in the USA. Even in the Republican-dominated Congress, the proposal went nowhere. Rather, before the year was out it extended the tariff by another 15 months (until 00:01 on 1 January 2009). By that time, the 2008 elections will have taken place.
These kind of announcements cost little, and may temporarily relieve pressure on the Administration from disgruntled trading partners. (This one may also be aimed at keeping yet more countries from joining Canada's WTO dispute with the USA over farm subsidies.) But the road between a wish and a change is very, very long and winding. And, at the end of the day, the Administration can simply hold up its collective hands and say, "Hey, we tried, but Congress wouldn't let us!"
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