Biofuels Market to double by 2021
A new report from Research predicts the biofuel industry will double in size to
USD185 billion by 2021.
Meanwhile in the European Union - the world’s largest biofuel
market - the target=”_blank”>European Biodiesel Board(EBB), a producers
group, has rejected the findings of a EU-funded study into the
indirect land use change (ILUC) effect of biofuel production as
unscientific.
In its new report,
target=”_blank”>Biofuels Markets and
Technologies, Pike Research
says that as concerns related to energy security, climate change
and economic stagnation grow, at least 38 national governments
throughout the world have enacted blending mandates or targets to
accelerate the expansion of biofuels production and consumption in
the transportation sector displacing some of the demand for fossil
fuels. Currently the global market for biofuels stands at USD82.7
billion.
“The widespread scale-up of biofuels could radically alter
the industrial and geopolitical landscapes, by meeting an expanding
portion of consumer demand in ground, aviation, and maritime fuel
markets,” said Pike Research senior analyst Mackinnon
Lawrence.
“But with conventional biofuels constrained by social and
environmental concerns, and price parity and access to financing a
persistent obstacle to advanced biofuels scale-up, a number of
difficult challenges must be overcome if the industry is to keep
pace with emerging mandates.”
Those social and environmental concerns are particularly
manifest in Europe where the European Commission funded four
studies to assess the impacts of the EU’s 10 percent target for the
use of renewable energy in road transport fuels by 2020. The EBB
has taken particular issue with
target=”_blank”>a report published in March by International Food
Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
The EBB cites two studies, recently conducted by Don
O’Connor from (S&T) 2 Consultants and by researchers at Kiel
University, which it claims indicate that “the IFPRI study cannot
serve as a basis for policy-making on the highly debatable and
unscientific concept of ILUC.”
“By relying on a unique piece of research, conducted by
the US based consultancy IFPRI, the Commission endangers its main
goal to provide a fair and scientific-based policymaking,”
target=”_blank”>the EBB said in a statement.
It added that a knee-jerk reaction by European politicians
could wipe out the EU’s USD17.5 billion biofuel production industry
overnight and play into the hands of biofuel makers in Asia and
South America.
On the same day the EBB came out with its position paper
coalition of more than 150 international scientists warned that the
indirect land impact of biofuels was significant and that current
scientific understanding justified immediate action by EU
policymakers.
“All the studies of land use change indicate that the
emissions related to biofuels expansion are significant and can be
quite large,” the scientists said in a letter to the EU’s
executive, the European Commission.
Source: www.cleanbiz.asia
