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Biofuels: 'Irrational' and 'Worse than Nonrenewable Fuel Source'

Biofuels: 'Irrational' and 'worse than nonrenewable fuel sources'

The UK's "illogical" use of biofuels will cost motorists around ₤ 460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank states.

A report by Chatham House, external states the growing reliance on sustainable liquid fuels will also increase food costs.

The author states that biodiesel made from grease was even worse for the climate than nonrenewable fuel sources.

Under EU law, external, biofuels are set to make up 5% of the UK's transportation fuel from today.

Since 2008, the UK has needed fuel suppliers to add a growing percentage of sustainable materials into the petrol and diesel they provide. These biofuels are primarily ethanol distilled from corn and biodiesel made from rapeseed, used cooking oil and tallow.

Deep fried fuel

But research study carried out for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level implies that UK motorists will need to pay an extra ₤ 460m a year since of the greater expense of fuel at the pump and from filling more typically as biofuels have a lower energy material.

The report state that if the UK is to fulfill its responsibilities to EU energy targets the expense to drivers is likely to increase to ₤ 1.3 bn per year by 2020.

"It is tough to discover any good news," Rob Bailey, senior research study fellow at Chatham House, told BBC News.

"Biofuels increase expenses and they are a very costly way to decrease carbon emissions," he stated.

The EU biofuel requireds are also having extremely distorting results in the marketplace. Because used cooking oil is considered as among the most sustainable types of biodiesel, the cost for it has actually risen rapidly. Rob Bailey says that towards the end of 2012 it was more pricey than refined palm oil.

"It produces a financial incentive to buy refined palm oil, prepare a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and after that sell it at revenue,"

"It is insane but the rewards are there."

There are also stresses that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in particular is producing more environment problems than it resolves. The more fuel of this type that is put into cars the larger the deficit created in the edible oils market. This had actually lead to increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, frequently produced on deforested land.

"Once you consider these indirect impacts, biofuels made from vegetable oils in fact result worldwide in more emissions than you would receive from using diesel in the first place," stated Rob Bailey.

"Plus you are asking drivers to pay more for the fuel - it makes no sense, it is a completely unreasonable technique."

Biofuel benefits

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the market, external throughout the EU, stated it knew the issues triggered by the mandate. But it believes that biofuels have many positives.

"Blaming biofuels for all the problems on the planet is a bit too exaggerated," said Isabelle Maurizi, task manager at the EBB.

"It has brought great deals of benefits. It has enhanced the security of our diesel; it has lowered EU reliance on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel."

"If there was no biodiesel farmers would simply make their land idle - no food, no feed!"

As the UK hits the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the federal government faces some challenging choices on how to move forward on this issue as it deals with tripling the expenses for vehicle drivers by 2020.

Insiders suggest its choice would be to attempt and get arrangement in Brussels on the impacts of indirect costs which might constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting agreement from countries with powerful farming sectors who benefit from the will be difficult.

"When you have a lobby that includes the agricultural sector and the oil sector it is extremely tough for Governments to make a U-turn," stated Rob Bailey.

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