Crop Shortages Could Curb European Biofuel Growth

Shortages of suitable nationally grown crops could slow European moves to replace contaminating transport fuel with clean-burning, plant-based alternatives, industry sources said at a conference on Wednesday.

About half the EU’s members have already adopted the European Commission target of replacing 5.75 percent of transport fuel with biofuel alternatives by 2010.

In many countries regular gasoline and diesel are already being blended at up to 5 percent with bioethanol and biodiesel respectively to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Ludz Wilkening, managing director of German alcohol producer KWST KG said the 5 percent ceiling was roughly what available cropland could support now.

“We have nearly reached maximum production of rapeseed now. After that we have to import, but that is not the idea of officials,” he told a World Biofuels conference in the southern Spanish city of Seville.

Planet Ark