Entries from The Big Biofuels Blog tagged with 'Policy'

Times twigs that biofuel policies have environmental impacts too

This article in the Sunday edition of the Times understands that there are environmental costs to biofuel policies. ...

Obama wants to double renewables production

Over on Greentech media, there's a piece about Obama wanting to double renewable energy production and make public buildings more energy efficient,  create three million new jobs. Through his Recovery and Reinvestment Plan with strategic investments as a down payment...

U.S. Biofuels : Near-term challenges and prospects

This is a guest post from Pradeep Indrakanti a regular contributor to this blog and author of the Energy Engineering Blog. Introduction: Recent high crude oil prices reaching 140 $/barrel and federal incentives have spurred biofuel production. Additionally, as...

European Bioethanol industry welcomes EU 20% by 2020 plan

The European Bioethanol industry body has welcomed the EU's plan to ensure that 20% of its energy comes from renewable sources by 2020, according to ICIS news.(Disclosure: I work for ICIS. About ICIS)The idea that governments will be able to...

Can the EU square ethics with trade, should it even try in biofuels?

Can the EU square its desire to import only biofuels that conform to high ethical standards with the needs of free trade? That might sound like the kind of question we'd be covering in an ethics course (which thankfully we're...

UK buries biomass will miss target

The UK is not doing enough to turn waste biomass into fuel, says the Guardian.  Key passage:"Of an estimated 7.5m tonnes of domestic wood waste, much from construction and demolition, some 80% goes to landfill. Only some 4% becomes sustainable...

Bill Clinton's ideas for agriculture

Bill Clinton, ex US president, was speaking at world food day recently. He said:"We should go back to a policy of maximum agricultural self-sufficiency," Clinton said. While there would always be a global market for crops like rice, wheat and...

Listen to Barak Obama's take on biofuels

You can hear Barak Obama talking about biofuels on Good fuels. ...

ICIS bioresources summit

ICIS (the people that I work for: About ICIS) will be holding the 2nd ICIS Bioresources Summit, in Hardwick Hall, County Durham, UK on November 25. The conference will discuss the advances in bio-engineering and their impact on biofuels, bio-polymers...

Could Russia become a biofuel superpower?

This is a bit of a long shot but reading this report in the UK's Daily Telegraph about Russia using big a good harvest as a foreign policy tool, got me thinking about the possibility of it becoming a biofuel...

How India could join the biofuel explosion

There's an interesting article about how India's policies are stopping India create biofuel on the Hindu  business line. They're subsidising the wrong thing, apparently. I think. ...

Biofuels subsidies at root of carbon dioxide problem

Subsidies for biofuels in the UK could be much better spent in environmental terms by helping the developing world cut back on the generation of carbon dioxide from deforestation and using unsustainable fuels such as peat, according to the Policy...

Mixed messages as India drops state funding for biodiesel

According to a report in India's Economic Times, on 4 August, the Indian Government has pulled out of a nationwide biodiesel plan, because ministers were worried that large corporations would buy large areas of the country for biofuel production. Companies...

India's state-subsidised biofuel project close to launch

India's state-subsidised biofuel project close to launch, according to the Indian Financial Express Newspaper on Monday. One of the high points will be a trial plantation of 4m acres of Jatropha, according to the report. The other is that the...

Are biofuels causing food price rises? Gallagher's answer

The Gallagher Review into biofuels has a view on how the diversion of food into biofuel crops affects prices but its not clear. Partly that's because it's economics (if predicting the weather is hard, why do economists try to produce simple...

This doesn't quite ring true to me

There's a long and thorough going piece over on Farm Futures about the Biofuel Smear Campaign. I'm not sure that I agree with it entirely. It is based on the US experience, and that as far as it goes is...

UK parliamentary committee calls for biofuel moratorium

The UK' House of Commons Environmental Audit committee, which keeps an eye on government environmental policies said today that the UK should pause in its policy to use biofuels to see if they really are environmentally sound, according to Reuters....

How to get your biofuel policy wrong

Belgium wins today's prize for how to get your biofuel policy wrong. According to SenterNovem. Belgian motorists are paying over 35 million euro too much excise duty to the government because biofuels are only available at a few locations. I...

The next two weeks are going to be important for biofuels in Europe

The next two weeks are going to be important for biofuels in Europe. Setting the tone for policy we have the UK Royal Society calling for Biofuels to meet a 50% reduction in greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuels they...

A smarter ethanol policy for the US?

I like this analysis of the US ethanol from corn market as it now stands and Geoffrey Styles, proposal for a smarter ethanol policy for the US. Styles points out that after 25 years' of subsidies the US ethanol market...