Report Compares Global Standards Specifications for Bioethanol, Biodiesel

The governments of the United States, Brazil and the European Union (EU)—the world’s major producers of biofuels—released an analysis of current biofuel specifications with the goal of facilitating expanded trade of these renewable energy sources.

One potential obstacle to achieving greater efficiency in the global biofuels market is confusion over differing—and sometimes conflicting—standards for characterizing the make-up and properties of biofuels. To clarify the current situation and identify potential roadblocks to improved compatibility, the US and Brazilian governments and the EC convened a task force of experts from standards developing organizations (SDOs) to compare critical specifications in existing standards used globally (factors such as content, physical characteristics and contaminant levels that govern a fuel’s quality) for pure bioethanol and biodiesel.
The resulting White Paper identifies where key specifications in the standards are similar (and can be considered compatible); different, but could be reconciled in a short period; or irreconcilably different as they stand.

The experts found that these three sets of bioethanol and biodiesel standards, and the specifications they contain, share much common ground and, therefore, impose few impediments to biofuel trade.

Nine of the 16 ethanol specifications reviewed, the task force states, are “in alignment” and all but one of the remaining specifications could be aligned in the short term. A significant difference among the three sets of standards is water content, which is set at different levels primarily due to the varying ethanol concentrations permitted in gasoline and the gasoline distribution differences:

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