Energy Systems and Technologies for the Coming Century ...

The European Biofuels Policy: from where and where to?Henrique Pacini *Semida Silveira *Summary of paper for presentation for Risø Energy Conference,Denmark May 10-12, 2011* Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden.E-mail: pacini@kth.seExecutive summaryBiofuels for transport had a long history prior to their formal introduction in theEuropean Union by means of formal directives in 2003 and 2009. Dating back toyears before the First World War, busses were already rolling in Paris on a mixture ofethanol and petrol. Between 1920 and 1950 the French continued using sugar-beetbasedethanol as a tool to improve energy independence and reduce trade deficits(Kutas et al, 2007 p. 15). Ethanol utilization as a fuel blend only fell once oil pricesachieved record lows in the 1960´s, as large reserves started being tapped in themiddle-east.In the 1970s oil price shocks brought concerns about the European dependence onforeign energy, and the following decades saw many actions which started to changethe biofuels panorama in Europe. By 1973 biodiesel research was already beingconducted in Wieselburg, Austria, and in 1982 the country had its first pilot plant forbiodiesel (producing fatty-acid methyl ester - FAME). After successful experienceswith ethanol in Brazil, the first European directive which opened potential largemarkets for biofuels in Europe was the Council Directive 85/536/ECC, whichauthorized blends of 5% ethanol and 15% Ethyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (ETBE, a bioether)on petrol. The usage of bioethanol for blending, however, was hampered by thelow prices of oil products which marked the late 1980s and most of the 1990s (thesame reasons which dealt a blow to the Brazilian ethanol program during that time). 1In tandem with the development of biofuels in Europe, carbon emissions were alreadyconsolidated in scholarly literature as the major causal factor behind climate change(Nordhaus, 1983; Daansgaard, 1993). Since the UN's Brundtland commission reportfrom 1987, alternatives to de-carbonize the transport sector were in high demand, butthe deployment of alternatives was hampered by a conjuncture of low oil prices. Thefollowing years in the 1990s were instrumental for the emergence of the modernenvironmental policy pursued by the EU, which became rooted in its commitment tothe Rio-92 conference and later commitment to the Kyoto protocol. Early in thatdecade the first attempt at biofuel-promotion legislation at the EU level took place,while at national levels the adoption of technical standards for biofuels gained steam.1 Calls for air quality control prompted the introduction of oxygenating chemicals into gasoline,producing the so-called reformulated (oxygenated) gasoline which emits less pollutants into theatmosphere. Due to it low price and sinergies with oil refineries, methyl tertiary buthyl ester (MTBE)was the main gasoline oxigenate since the 1980s, only recently being challenged by bioethanol. See:Linak et al (2009).Risø International Energy Conference 2011 Proceedings Page 268