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October 23, 2012

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) As drought, recession, and capital starvation form a perfect storm, will advanced biofuels be thrown under the bus? Industry leaders say that dropping biofuels production targets will not reverse impacts of the 2012 drought. Instead, it may extend a devastating drought in project capital markets.
…But is the most severe drought in the skies, or in the capital markets? Biotechnology industry leaders are pointing to capital formation woes as a cause of a lot of the trouble.
…“It is totally unacceptable to use a International Food Policy Research Institute report which has not been peer reviewed, as a basis to introduce iLUC values. The model used for the report is not suitable for precisely estimating the extent of land use change and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, due to critical data errors and important methodical problems,” ePure said.
ePure also blasted a clause intended to review ILUC in 2017, saying that the clause only increased regulatory uncertainty and would discourage investments.
…“The new EU policy will not exclusively benefit energy crop companies such as Ceres,” said Raymond James’ Molchanov. “Waste biomass and algae can also serve as non-food feedstocks that would meet the new EU criteria – in fact, the Commission specifically identifies them as good options – but there is no question that the new policy would meaningfully support the adoption of energy crops.
“First, we would expect to see actual cultivation of energy crops in EU members with large agricultural sectors (such as France and Poland). Second, in countries where population density or other factors result in small agricultural sectors, imports of energy crops (from say, Brazil or North America) would be the realistic solution. Either way, this policy shift stands to create a very large addressable market for energy crops.
…“Algae based biofuels will count quadruple towards EU biofuels and GHG emission reduction targets under the new proposal for revising the EU biofuels policy and ILUC that the EC Commission is expected to publish later today,” said European Algae Biomass Association executive director Raffaello Garofalo. READ MORE Download EU Policy

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