The latest government figures reveal that the vast majority of biofuels supplied in the UK are made from imported feedstock, with almost nine out of every 10 litres of foreign origin.
This collapse in biofuel production from British raw materials is even worse than last year’s figures from the UK Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, which showed that less than a quarter (22 per cent) originated from British feedstocks in 2010-11.
“The efforts of British farmers and certification bodies to meet EU sustainability criteria under the Renewable Energy Directive and the UK RTFO are being ignored,” comments NFU chief arable adviser, Guy Gagen.
These figures show the damaging impact of UK government dithering over the past year, with British production capacity lying idle and British-grown and processed biofuel feedstocks progressively replaced by imports. A combination of policy delay, inaction and extending timescales for renewable transport fuel targets has hit UK use of home-produced biofuels hard.
“Biofuel imported from third countries and used cooking oil (UCO) is not expected to meet the same sustainability standards for crop feedstocks as EU and UK crop based fuel, a slap in the face for our farmers who have been at the forefront in demonstrating their sustainable production standards” Gaegen goes on. “As a biofuel feedstock, UCO benefits under the UK RTFO by being double-counted compared to UK beet, wheat or oilseed rape based fuels, but it is mostly imported and of uncertain provenance– a perverse outcome indeed.”
Gagen stresses that while it was good to hear at April’s Clean Energy Ministerial that the Prime Minister is ‘passionate’ about renewables, including bioenergy, “his government has got to get behind the domestic renewable fuels sector and stop putting barriers in the way of British growers and processors”.
[Inset: Courtesy of David Castor, via Wikimedia Commons]
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