Biofuel Standards Sought to Weather Critics Storm

Once hailed for providing an alternative to fossil fuels, makers of crop-based biofuels must now fight criticism for pushing up food prices and rainforest depletion by proving they are still a sustainable energy source.

Industry players say biofuels’ effect on rocketing food prices has been blown out of proportion and that the original arguments for encouraging production, such as security of energy supply and reducing fossil fuel dependency, remain intact.
Experts say industry standards would help to counter criticism, highlight the differences between various types of biofuels and show that they can be produced with sustainable farming practices, land use and efficient carbon savings.

“If we don’t answer the public debate we will potentially fail as an industry,” said Ian Waller, director of biofuels business advisors FiveBarGate Consultants.

“If we set the bar high, then there are huge volumes of biofuels that can be brought to market that are sustainable. We don’t need to chop down rainforests,” Waller told an industry conference in Rotterdam, a major European gateway for biofuels.

Planet Ark