Policy

Just one month into the UK Government’s initiative to introduce biofuels into the country’s transportation fuel system, less than one-fifth is meeting environmental standards.

According to the Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA), who monitors the supply of biofuels to the UK under the auspices of the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO), only 19% of biofuels during the first reporting period from 15 April to 14 May were up to the Government’s environmental standards. By the end of the year, 30% of biofuel is supposed to meet these standards.

Even more damaging for the Government is that while the market is currently dominated by imports, the RFA only have information about the feedstock and country of origin for just over half (57%) of that biofuel.

“The shocking admission that we are unable to identify the origin of nearly half the biofuels used in the UK means that the Government cannot assure the British people that the biofuels in their petrol tanks have not destroyed rainforests,” says Asad Rehman, biofuels campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

Where the RFA does have data, the most common feedstock is American soy (22%) for biodiesel and Brazilian sugarcane (79%) for bioethanol.

Friends of the Earth are now calling for the Government to put the RTFO on hold and lobby the EU against its biofuel targets.

Currently, biofuels account for only 2.14% of UK road fuel against a target of 2.5 % by the end of the year. Of this small market share, biodiesel accounts for 86% and bioethanol for 14%.

The RFA claims that this use of biofuel has resulted in 42% savings in greenhouse gas emissions – but this figure does not include emissions from indirect changes in land use, as suggested in the recent Gallagher Review.

For further information:
www.dft.gov.uk/rfa/reportsandpublications/rtforeports.cfm
www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/405/
www.renewablefuelsagency.org/reportsandpublications/reviewoftheindirecteffectsofbiofuels.cfm
www.foe.co.uk
www.renewablefuelsagency.org
www.dft.gov.uk/rfa/aboutthertfo.cfm