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Biofuels: 'Irrational' and 'even worse than fossil fuels'

The UK's "unreasonable" usage of biofuels will cost vehicle drivers around ₤ 460 million over the next 12 months, a think tank says.

A report by Chatham House, external states the growing dependence on sustainable liquid fuels will also increase food rates.

The author says that biodiesel made from veggie oil was even worse for the climate than nonrenewable fuel sources.

Under EU law, external, biofuels are set to comprise 5% of the UK's transportation fuel from today.

Since 2008, the UK has needed fuel suppliers to include a growing proportion of sustainable products into the fuel and diesel they supply. These biofuels are primarily ethanol distilled from corn and biodiesel made from rapeseed, utilized cooking oil and tallow.

Deep fried fuel

But research study performed for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level indicates that UK drivers will need to pay an extra ₤ 460m a year due to the fact that of the greater expense of fuel at the pump and from filling up more frequently as biofuels have a lower energy content.

The report say that if the UK is to satisfy its obligations to EU energy targets the cost to drivers is most likely to increase to ₤ 1.3 bn per annum by 2020.

"It is difficult to find any good news," Rob Bailey, senior research fellow at Chatham House, told BBC News.

"Biofuels increase costs and they are an extremely pricey way to lower carbon emissions," he said.

The EU biofuel mandates are likewise having extremely distorting results in the marketplace. Because used cooking oil is considered as one of the most sustainable types of biodiesel, the cost for it has increased quickly. Rob Bailey states that towards completion of 2012 it was more costly than refined palm oil.

"It develops a monetary incentive to buy refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into utilized cooking oil and then sell it at profit,"

"It is crazy however the incentives exist."

There are also stresses that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in specific is producing more environment issues than it resolves. The more fuel of this type that is taken into cars the larger the deficit created in the edible oils market. This had resulted in increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, often produced on deforested land.

"Once you consider these indirect effects, biofuels made from veggie oils in fact result worldwide in more emissions than you would obtain from utilizing diesel in the very first location," said Rob Bailey.

"Plus you are asking vehicle drivers to pay more for the fuel - it makes no sense, it is a totally unreasonable method."

Biofuel advantages

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the market, external across the EU, said it knew the issues triggered by the required. But it thinks that biofuels have lots of positives.

"Blaming biofuels for all the difficulties worldwide is a bit too overstated," stated Isabelle Maurizi, project manager at the EBB.

"It has actually brought great deals of benefits. It has improved the security of our diesel; it has actually lowered EU dependence on animal feed imports, thanks to the rapeseed we grow for biodiesel."

"If there was no biodiesel farmers would simply make their land idle - no food, no feed!"

As the UK strikes the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the federal government deals with some hard choices on how to move on on this issue as it deals with tripling the costs for by 2020.

Insiders suggest its choice would be to try and get agreement in Brussels on the impacts of indirect expenses which may constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting agreement from countries with powerful farming sectors who gain from the present arrangement will be difficult.

"When you have a lobby which consists of the farming sector and the oil sector it is really tough for Governments to make a U-turn," said Rob Bailey.

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