Germany has feedstock for biofuel targets - group

16 April 2008 16:12  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Germany has enough feedstock to meet its biofuels blending targets from domestic and EU production and does not need to import from South America or elsewhere, local biofuels producers' group VDB said on Wednesday.

 

It was responding to claims by German oil refining association MWV that the country needed large volumes of imported biofuels to meet blending targets as there was not enough land to grow biofuel crops.

 

The EU was estimated to harvest some 256m tonnes/year of grain in 2008 alone, VDB said.

 

In addition, about 2.8m hectares of previously idled arable land would come back into production this year, adding some 10m tonnes of grain production, enough to meet the ethanol quota, said VDB.

 

VDB was particularly opposed to bioethanol imports from South America as there was no evidence that these were produced in an environmentally sustainable manner, it said.

 

While the oil industry kept importing large volumes of ethanol, in Germany producers had to idle highly-efficient production capacities, VDB added.

 

However, MWV said there was a need for large and increasing biofuels imports, in a report on its website.

 

The study also predicted global production shortfalls, rationing and higher food prices through 2010 – in particularly in developing countries - if biodiesel and bioethanol production from food crops was not reduced.

 

Germany earlier this month scrapped plans to raise bioethanol blending to 10% content from 5% but still plans to raise biodiesel blending to 7%, from 5%.

 

Bookmark Simon Robinson's Big Biofuels Blog for some independent thinking on biofuels

By: Stefan Baumgarten
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