Biofuel producers face double whammy of bad news

Jul 7 2008 Evening Gazette

BIOFUELS producers in the region woke up this morning to a potential double whammy of bad news for the industry.

Transport secretary Ruth Kelly was due to announce this afternoon the conclusions of the Gallagher Report, produced in response to concerns that biofuels were inflating world food prices, while in Europe MEPs are preparing to vote on whether to scrap their target of achieving 10% of fuel from renewable resources by 2020.

John Seymour, spokesman for North East Biofuels, urged the Government not to backtrack on its commitment to Teesside’s industry, but said producers would welcome stricter rules on sustainability. He said jobs should not be sacrificed over ‘misconceptions’.

“We have a fledgling industry on Teesside and jobs at stake.

“We are way ahead of the game on Teesside and to jeopardise the industry on a flawed report would be very disappointing.

“Our trump card is that there are no sustainability or land use change issues with UK biofuels. What we need to produce bioethanol from wheat is starch.

“We take the maximum amount of starch from the food chain and the maximum amount of proteins from the fuel chain to produce a very valuable animal feed.

“That replaces UK soy imports from South America which are definitely genetically modified and do have land use change issues attached to them.”

The food versus fuel debate, fanned last week by a leaked report from the World Bank, which was believed to blame biofuels for a 75% increase in food prices, was also on the minds of G8 leaders at their summit in Japan today.

Alwyn Hughes, chief executive of the emerging Ensus bioethanol plant on Teesside, said he was “confident that we address a number of concerns that people often raise around biofuels and we remain positive that we have a good story to tell.

“We just hope the government differentiates between good and bad biofuels”.

He said the Government had created an expectation in the industry that there would be a growing market for biofuels and he called on it not to “dither or backslide but provide strong leadership and clear rules that mean the only biofuels in our tanks are good biofuels.

“I recognise there is an issue out there with some biofuels causing deforestation and competing with food, but ours is strengthening the food supply chain and the question of deforestation does not apply,” he said.

He added he would support any recommendations tightening rules governing traceability of feedstock for biofuels.

“We owe it to ourselves to figure out how to solve the problem. But we do not want to be held back by bad biofuels.”

PAGE TWO: Reasons to back Teesside biofuels.