Articles related to "Biofuels: The Next Generation"

Appropriate implementation of the relevant EU directives will increase bioenergy use, but significant technology development is still required if a new generation of biofuels and feedstocks is to be developed to meet European targets for 2020, argues Kai Sipilä (et al.) of the Bioenergy Network of Excellence (Bioenergy NoE).

The Commission's recent proposal to ban "bad" biofuels as part of its climate and energy package may benefit all parties and even the industry itself by "restoring some faith" in the much-critisised product, according to a January analysis from the Worldwatch Institute.

Food prices are rising in Europe because it has been too hot and has not rained enough, but also because farmland is increasingly being used for biofuels instead of food production, writes Hans-Werner Sinn, President of the Institute for Economic Research (IFO) and Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Munich.

Biofuels will be the biggest contributor to the EU’s target of providing 10% of transport fuel from renewable energy by 2020, but consumers at the petrol pump could be forgiven for feeling confused about their environmental benefits.

Several environmental NGOs have written to the European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, demanding action on five scientific studies that question the clean energy benefits of biofuels, as a row over a land use report by the EU's scientific advisors escalates.

The EU's approval of a first batch of seven sustainability schemes for biofuels marked a "big step" towards climate-friendly transport, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said on 19 July. But reactions have been mixed.

Collecting agricultural residues could prove a lucrative business for Europe's farming sector if EU policy were to offer the right incentives for using biomass to produce biofuels.

Tackling climate change and its consequences, reforming the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, improving air quality and reducing the environmental impact of biofuels will top the bloc's environmental policy debates in the coming year, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The EU's energy and agriculture commissioners have joined hands in defending the bloc's commitment to biofuels, following calls by a UK parliamentary committee for a moratorium on the promotion of the controversial alternative to fossil fuels. 

Climate professionals across the world have no faith in the current generation of biofuels, placing them bottom of a list of 18 technologies with carbon-reduction potential, according to a survey published on 10 December 2007 by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the World Bank.

Assessing the environmental and social impacts of biofuel production and the sustainable recycling of metals are likely to top the agenda of a new global think tank on resource efficiency, set up by the United Nations on 9 November.