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Published on: Monday March 3rd, 2008
Are biofuels sustainable? It seems the current debate on how to reduce dependence
on oil in the transport sector is narrowly limited to this question. The issue is
so crucial that the European Union is working on sustainability criteria for biofuels
that will be included in two different directives, while EU member states such as
Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have already drafted their own set
of sustainability requirements that biofuels must meet to be sold in their respective
markets. The debate is propelled by countless articles published around the globe
that reshape, at their convenience, the conclusions of more or less serious studies,
most of them critical of the environmental performance of biofuels.
The public debate on biofuels deserves a more balanced and objective approach. The
main rationale behind the utilization of biofuels is their capacity to reduce emissions
of greenhouse gases (GHG) as a way to reduce global warming. But all biofuels do
not have the same potential to reduce emissions, so they cannot be treated as a
homogeneous product with similar characteristics. It has been largely demonstrated
that sugarcane ethanol can reduce GHG emissions by up to 90%, a reduction unmatched
by any other biofuel, including cellulosic ethanol currently produced from straw.
Its energy balance is also remarkable, since 9.3 units of renewable energy are produced
for each unit of fossil fuels used in the production of sugarcane ethanol.
© Ethanol Statistics 2008
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