Sweden top list of biofuel use in Europe

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Since 1st January 2011, the German law on biofuel sustainability puts the focus on distributors to demonstrate that the types of biofuel used in petrol and diesel blends comply with the European Commission’s sustainability criteria. In doing so, Germany leads the way by setting up a national certification scheme, supervised by the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), which guarantees biofuel sustainability the 2020 horizon is still a long way off. As total consumption reached 13.8 Mtoe in 2010, the biofuel incorporation rate in the energy content of all transport fuels used in the European Union will not exceed 4.7%, which is a little more than one percentage point short of the 2003 biofuel directive target for a 5.75% incorporation rate in 2010. In fact only a handful of countries will have made the mark, just 7 of the 27, namely Sweden, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia. The last three took until last year to achieve their targets, whereas the first four were already outstripping their European commitments as early as 2008. Sweden have now passed over 40 % of the new car sales with alternative fuels. Sweden is also expanding its work with the second generation of bio ethanol and methanol – based on cellulose. Sweden differs also in several ways from the rest of Europe, the statistics show. Among other things, the growth of biogas as a vehicle unique. The increased last year by 40 percent, while large parts of Europe have nobiogas as vehicle fuel. Total biogas is too modest 0.4 percent in the consumption of biofuels in the transport sector in Europe. In Brazil, 86.5% of the cars sold in 2010, that is 2.9 million vehicles, were of the flex-fuel type, so 42.2% of Brazil’s fleet runs on ethanol, which amounts to 11.7 million vehicles. Kaj Embrén, Sustainable Business Coach, +46-70-398 22 11, kaj@embren.com.