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

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

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

The author says that biodiesel made from grease was even worse for the environment than nonrenewable fuel sources.

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

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

Deep fried fuel

But research study brought out for Chatham House says that reaching the 5% level means that UK vehicle drivers will have to pay an ₤ 460m a year because of the higher cost of fuel at the pump and from filling more frequently as biofuels have a lower energy content.

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

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

"Biofuels increase costs and they are a really expensive method to decrease carbon emissions," he said.

The EU biofuel mandates are also having extremely distorting effects in the market. Because used cooking oil is considered as among the most sustainable types of biodiesel, the cost for it has actually risen rapidly. Rob Bailey says that towards completion of 2012 it was more expensive than refined palm oil.

"It creates a monetary reward to purchase refined palm oil, cook a chip in it to turn it into used cooking oil and after that offer it at profit,"

"It is crazy however the incentives are there."

There are also worries that taking EU land out of production to grow rapeseed oil in particular is developing more environment issues than it solves. The more fuel of this type that is taken into automobiles the bigger the deficit created in the edible oils market. This had lead to increased imports of palm oil from Indonesia, often produced on deforested land.

"Once you consider these indirect effects, biofuels made from vegetable oils really result worldwide in more emissions than you would receive from utilizing diesel in the first place," said Rob Bailey.

"Plus you are asking motorists to pay more for the fuel - it makes no sense, it is an entirely illogical method."

Biofuel advantages

The European Biodiesel Board (EBB), which represents the market, external throughout the EU, stated it was aware of the problems triggered by the required. But it believes that biofuels have numerous positives.

"Blaming biofuels for all the problems on the planet is a bit too overstated," stated Isabelle Maurizi, task supervisor at the EBB.

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

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

As the UK strikes the 5% of liquid fuels mark, the government deals with some difficult decisions on how to progress on this issue as it deals with tripling the expenses for motorists by 2020.

Insiders recommend its preference would be to try and get arrangement in Brussels on the effects of indirect expenses which may constrain what counts as biofuel. However getting arrangement from nations with effective agricultural sectors who gain from the present arrangement will be challenging.

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

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