German Biofuel Industry in Jeopardy, and So Is Feed Production

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May 17, 2023

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(All about Feed) Germany mulls phasing out crop-based bioethanol production in the coming decade chasing a declared goal to fortify European and world’s food security. However, as market players reveal, the effect of the widely discussed reform is likely to be quite the opposite.

In early 2023, German environment minister Steffi Lemke prepared a draft bill proposing an end to the production of crop-based biofuels in stages by 2030

“Biofuels stand for land consumption and loss of biological diversity,” Lemke said in a statement published on the environment ministry’s website in January 2023. “To replace only around 4% of fossil fuel use in German road transport, a land space in Germany and abroad is needed, equal to about 20% of the German agricultural area. That is not future-orientated.”

Better to produce ‘real bioethanol’
As Lemke explained, it would be better to encourage the production of “real bioethanol” from garbage, waste and used edible oil instead of agricultural commodities.

The German bioethanol industry association calculated that only 4% of the grain harvest in Germany, in fact, was used for bioethanol. “Only 2% of the arable land is required for bioethanol production,” said Stefan Walter, the association’s managing director.

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FEDIOL, in general, agreed with the calculations of the German biodiesel industry organisations suggesting that the ban could end the production of roughly 3 million tonnes of feedstuff per year. “Germany used 2. 516 million tonnes of biodiesel in 2022. If all that biodiesel would come from rapeseed oil, that would represent close to 3.5 million tons of rapeseed meal, which would not be produced if there is no more demand for rapeseed oil-based biodiesel,” commented Geert Vanmarcke, International Market Adviser with FEDIOL.

The German environmental ministry believes that the ban on crop-based biofuel would drive farmers to grow other edible products, meaning that the food and feed sector will eventually benefit from the decision. However, market players pointed out that this is not how the industry works.

“The German environment ministry seems to forget that growing rapeseed, whereby part of the resulting rapeseed oil goes to biodiesel, also results in a substantial production of rapeseed meal as protein for Feed,” Vanmarcke said.

“If the production of rapeseed would be abandoned because of its use in biodiesel – and I do not see why there would be any environmental concerns around this, there would be no possibility to grow similar amounts of protein crops, and the EU and German protein balance would be endangered,” Vanmarcke added.

An acceptable compromise

Asbjørn Børsting, FEFAC President commented that the sector which processes crop-based biofuels for renewable energy purposes, such as biodiesel and bioethanol production, is an important supplier of key protein-rich co-products, in particular rapeseed meal, sunflower meal and DDGS.

“These resources are essential to the EU feed sector to help reduce EU import dependency on imported soybean meal. The production of bio-ethanol competes directly for certain cereals (mainly maize), which in poor crop years (drought impacts) may increase pressure for access to competitive feed grains for the feed industry as happened in 2022 in South-Eastern Europe,” Børsting said.

FEFAC therefore considers that the current maximum EU threshold of 7% for the contribution of crop-based biofuels towards renewable energy production targets is an acceptable compromise in terms of balancing feed industry access to both protein-rich feed ingredients and feed grains, Børsting said, adding that FEFAC recommends the EU to include a safeguard based on the EU food waste hierarchy to ensure feed security and functioning of the Single Market in case of crop shortages.

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FEFAC members are deeply concerned that diverting co-products traditionally used in animal feed, like wheat bran, sugar beet pulp, former foodstuffs to anaerobic digestion, will reduce the EU’s feed autonomy and the feed sector capacity to reduce GHG emissions linked to feed production, which heavily relies on raising the share of co-products in feed formulation. FEFAC therefore remains opposed to the classification of such co-products as an advanced biofuel.

Biogas production typically does not deliver any co-product that is used in animal feed production, meaning that this non-human edible nutrient source is lost from the feed and food production systems, Børsting said. However, FEFAC fully acknowledges that an increase of biomass production and better use of food waste streams for biomass production – excluding co-products traditionally destined to animal feed – can help meet increasing demand for both animal protein and renewable energy.

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But Brühning noted that the world’s top scientific organisation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), clearly states that due to a great number of shortcomings of the theory, there is low confidence in the attribution of emissions from iLUC to bioenergy.

However, for the German green party, which is currently controlling the Environmental Ministry, these arguments don’t sound convincing enough.

The proposal is still the subject of fierce debates among German government officials and lawmakers.

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German green party members believe the farmers should quit growing food and rather capture CO₂ by leaving their land to restauration, but financing this and stabilising the captured carbon in the long term is really questionable, Brühning claimed.

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In addition, the German government set a target to become more independent on feed protein in the coming years. “So, in light of this, phasing out crop-based biofuels would be clearly a move in the wrong direction,” Brühning warned.

Green agenda

Another part of the problem is that European green parties have all similar views about crop-based biofuel production, which means that in the long run, biofuel production could be endangered in other parts of the continent. READ MORE

Evogene Receives Grant to Develop Oilseed Crops with High CO2 Assimilation (Seed World)

Eat less meat, we need space for biofuels, German producer says (EurActiv)

New EU renewables rules could be a step back for German biofuels sector (EurActiv)

Excerpt from EurActiv:

The new greenhouse gas emission reduction target for transport fuels under the updated Renewable Energy Directive could reduce the amount of crop-based biofuels used in German road transport if implemented strictly, biofuel producers say.

In March, EU negotiators struck a deal on the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The final vote is currently on hold due to a spat over the role of nuclear energy in clean hydrogen production.

Under the revised rules for the transport sector, EU countries must oblige fuel companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of their used fuels by at least 14.5% by 2030. Alternatively, they can opt for a target of 29% renewable energy for all energy used within the transport sector.

The revised rules also require at least 5.5% of the energy used in the transport sector to come from either advanced biofuels or synthetic, hydrogen-derived fuels, known as e-fuels. However, this is halved in practice due to the double counting of such fuels towards the target.

For Germany, the 14.5% target could be reached as fast as 2028, according to a scenario developed by German biofuel association VDB. This is based on the currently planned roll-out of alternative fuels, such as biofuels and synthetic fuels, as well as electric mobility.

Due to the growing use of electric vehicles, which can be credited under the rules, the target would theoretically be overachieved in the years afterwards.

However, as fuel providers have no obligation or incentive to overachieve the target, in practice, this would lead to a decrease in the use of conventional biofuels, the industry fears.

“The result would simply be a crowding out of other fulfilment options,” Marco Zühlke, sustainability advisor at VDB told participants at a conference in Berlin on Thursday (11 May). This would affect “all those that do not have a sub-quota,” including crop-based biofuels, he added.

Theoretically, the REDIII 2030 target could be reached in Germany without the use of any conventional biofuels, the scenario shows.

For Germany to achieve the REDIII’s greenhouse-gas emissions quota, “it is sufficient to use renewable electricity from e-mobility and rail as well as the combined sub-quota [for advanced biofuels and e-fuels],” Zühlke said.

“For Germany, the one-to-one implementation [of the new REDIII] would be a step backwards,” he warned.

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Under its current law, Germany has a higher greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for transport fuels of 25% by 2030, meaning that implementing only the new EU minimum target of 14.5% would lower the amount of renewable fuel needed.

“We hope that the German implementation will consider this and will not take a step backwards compared to the REDII implementation,” Zühlke said.

However, not all stakeholders agree that an ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) quota for fuels would be a good idea.

“Central to the understanding of the GHG quota is that a reduction in specific emissions does not necessarily go hand in hand with a reduction in absolute emissions,” a briefing by NGO Transport & Environment reads.

“The GHG quota sets no incentives to avoid transport or to shift to climate-friendly alternatives and only weak incentives to electrify transport,” the organisation argues.

“Often, the reduction on paper does not correspond to a real emission reduction because, for example, the enormous land consumption for the production of agrofuels is not taken into account,” the T&E briefing adds.

The organisation has called for a phase-out of crop-based biofuels, pointing to competition for agricultural space with food production, as well as nature conservation.

To reduce the need to use crop-based biofuels, in T&E’s view, “the [German GHG] quota should be reduced within the framework provided by EU legislation.” READ MORE