"Setting binding targets has completely changed the prospects for bioenergy," said Alfonso Gonzalez-Finat, director of new and renewable energy sources at the EC. He told the 1300 delegates that the EC is holding a public consultation on how to integrate the new biofuels target into legislation. This issue quickly became the centre of the conference debate.
Hermann Scheer, chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy, said price regulations – not a quota system – would create an optimum biofuels market. "A quota system leading to blending obligations is wrong," he said. "Quotas will give industry a biomass monopoly and it will choose the cheapest over the most environmentally sound solutions." According to Scheer, favourable taxation for biofuels would empower regional biofuel suppliers and ensure residues from conventional agriculture were exploited to create a truly renewable bioenergy system.
Green capitalism – putting a price on carbon and letting the market decide which technologies and products are best – was put to the panel as a way to quickly achieve the biofuels target. Scheer disagreed: "If we have a free market we give it to big oil companies and there will be no market at all; it will be like what happened in the electricity sector after deregulation. If we want an ecological market we must create it at the regulatory level."
But Neil Hirst, director of energy technology at the International Energy Agency, said that his organization supports green capitalism and strongly favours open markets for biofuels. However, putting a price on carbon dioxide would take too long; instead Hirst recommended opening international biomass trade. "We will struggle to meet our needs from indigenous sources alone. Biomass should be bought from the cheapest source because this increases the economic efficiency of biofuels and creates economic development opportunities in poorer countries."
That said, the international biomass trade urgently needs the setting and enforcing of sustainability standards, added Hirst. The EC is looking at introducing a certification system so that only biofuels meeting minimum sustainability standards are counted towards the target. Gonzalez-Finat dismissed a total ban on palm oil imports, however, because it would go against World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations.
Europe is under increasing pressure to set clear sustainability criteria for biofuels and a workshop on this theme proved the most popular issue at the Biomass Conference, with standing room only.
Another hot topic was second-generation biofuels. Hirst said research should focus on ligno-cellulosic ethanol because it offers much cheaper production costs and can use all plant sources, including residues. Industrial research close to the market – rather than public research – is responsible for Germany's biofuels market success, said Scheer, and other European Union member states should follow suit.
Whatever measures the EC adopts after its public consultation ends on 18 June, the debate at the world's biggest bioenergy event made it clear that when it comes to creating an optimal biofuels market, technology and policy are inseparable.