EU BIO-FUEL TECHNOLOGIES AND POLICIES: AN ENVIRONMETAL BENEFIT FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

The production and use of bio-fuels in Europe has been developing more seriously only just the past five to ten years. Bio-fuels are an important technology for reducing the CO2 emission in transport. For fuels produced from biomass, various conversion routes are available that follow from the different types of biomass feedstock's. Although insights on technological and cost developments and the expected commercial availability of these bio-fuels are changing continuously, it can be stated that these bio-fuels will probably not be produced and applied on a commercial scale before 2010. Currently, only ethanol, (and its derivative ETBE) are applied on a commercial basis on the European market. They will remain the dominant bio-fuels in the coming decade, as alternative bio-fuel technologies are still in the development stage. At present, the bio-fuel producing countries in the European Union only have a small share in global production of bio-fuels, (<6%). The main ethanol producers are the USA and Brazil. However, Europe is the most important producer of bio-diesel on the global market. Although the importance of the use of bio-fuels in transport has already been stressed in the EU White Paper on renewable sources of energy ( 1997) and the Green Paper on a European strategy for the security of energy supply (2000), this has not led to the development of concrete bio-fuel specific national policies in many EU Member States.