Switching gears: Swedish policy and practice with respect to biofuels

On January 1, 2012, Swedish tax rebates favoring ethanol and biodiesel-fueled cars came to an end. Rebates are still offered for plug-in hybrid and gas-driven cars. The shift gives rise to several questions at Sustainable C about biogas, including biogas used for cars as well as that used for heating.

Why the policy shift on ethanol-driven cars? According to one energy expert, the Swedish government is more pointedly moving towards a fossil-fuel independent fleet of vehicles by 2030. http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article3386365.ece The policy shift may also be inspired by close scrutiny of what goes into making the biofuel.

When the biofuel is made from crops such as corn, soybean, palm oil or other crops that directly replace food crops, such fuel may give rise to food insecurity.

Cultivating biofuel crops may also lead to “indirect land use change”. Indirect land use change refers to biofuel crops that take the land where food or other crops otherwise would have grown. When such biofuel crops are grown, farmers of other crops look further for land, sometimes expanding into climate crucial areas such as the Amazon rainforest or Malaysia’s tropical peatswamp forests. Some of these forms of biofuel may be even worse for the climate than oil from the Canadian oil sands, as leaked data from the European Commission suggest. http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/biodiesels-pollute-crude-oil-leaked-data-show-news-510437

But is all biofuel bad? No. In fact, a pitch should be made in support of biofuels made from waste. Farm waste, for example. One such project includes the waste-to-fuel project in Sweden’s Skaraborg municipality. http://biogasregionen.se/index.php?page=ide-fran-skaraborg-blir-eu-projekt These and other projects produce biofuel that is used for heating systems.

Sustainable C continues to watch these developments with interest, particularly biogas projects that take a climate problem like waste (which leaks methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere) and turns it into a climate solution. Sustainable C readers may also be interested in following EU policy on biogas. In spring 2012, the EU is expected to introduce new legislation concerning biogas and indirect land use change.