February 2010

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Bioenergy > Timeline > 2010 > February 2010

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This page includes information on News and Events in February 2010. (News and events are archived here at the end of the month.)

Events

• 3-5 February 2010, Washington, D.C., USA: RETECH - Renewable Energy Conference & Exhibition - hosted by ACORE (Themes: renewable energy)

• 4-7 February 2010, Verona, Italy: BIOENERGY EXPO - Renewable Resources Event - exhibition & workshops & dynamic show. (Themes: bioenergy, sustainability, renewable energy, technology).

• 7-10 February 2010, Grapevine, Texas, USA: 2010 National Biodiesel Conference & Expo. (Themes: biodiesel, feedstocks, technology)

• 11-12 February 2010, New Delhi, India: 7th International Biofuels Conference. (Themes: biofuels, feedstocks, food security, sustainability)

• 18-22 February 2010, San Diego, California, USA: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Annual Meeting. (Themes: science, sustainability, technology).

• 24-26 February 2010, Bali, Indonesia: Eleventh special session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum. (Themes: green economy, biodiversity, development).

• 24-26 February 2010, Sandton Convention Centre, South Africa: Energy 2010 - Solutions for Africa. (Themes: Africa, markets, policy, technology)

• 24-26 February 2010, Delft, The Netherlands: European Convention of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project. Organized by the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project. (Themes: bioenergy, sustainability)
  • "This is the first of a series of 5 conventions aiming to provide guidance on the feasibility of sustainable bioenergy production on a large scale as well as implementation paths and policies that foster this outcome."[1]

News

• Smoke from home fuels tied to emphysema, 25 February 2010 by Reuters: "People who burn wood or other biofuels for heat or cooking may have a heightened risk of emphysema and related lung conditions, a new study suggests."
  • "Biomass refers to biological materials that can be burned for energy, including wood, crops and animal dung. They are major sources of energy in the developing world, and are thought to be used for cooking and heating in half of homes worldwide."
  • "These latest findings strengthen the evidence that exposure to biomass smoke is a risk factor for [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)]".[2]

• (U.K.'s largest power station) Drax suspends plan to replace coal with greener fuel, 19 February 2010 by Times Online: "Britain’s biggest power station has suspended its plan to replace coal with greener fuel, leaving the Government little chance of meeting its target for renewable energy."
  • "The power station, which is the country’s largest single source of CO2, has invested £80 million in a processing unit for wood, straw and other plant-based fuels, known as biomass."
  • "Drax is also one of dozens of companies delaying investments in new biomass power stations because of uncertainty over the Government’s policy on long-term subsidies. Hundreds of farmers growing biomass crops may now struggle to sell their produce."
  • "Drax’s decision will make it almost impossible for the Government to meet its commitment to increase the proportion of electricity from renewable sources from 5.5 per cent to 30 per cent by 2020."
  • "The Renewable Energy Association said that plans for more than 50 biomass projects, totalling £13 billion of investment, had been suspended because of uncertainty over policy."[3]

• British Airways to buy jet fuel from city waste, 16 February 2010 by Reuters: "British Airways will start sourcing a small portion of its jet fuel from municipal waste from 2014, under a deal with U.S.-based biofuel company Solena Group."
  • "The plant would convert 500,000 tonnes of waste annually into 16 million gallons of green jet fuel."
  • "The aviation fuel will be produced from gasification of the waste into a so-called syngas which is then converted by the Fischer Tropsch process into liquid fuel."[4]
• Indonesia may open more forests to palm oil, 16 February 2010 by The Malaysian Insider: "As Indonesia looks for ways to meet its ambitious emissions-reduction targets, the Ministry of Forestry yesterday said it plans to issue a new regulation that would allow commercial forestry companies to plant crops such as palm oil in new concession areas."
  • "The regulation would stipulate that at least 49 per cent of forest concessions in question be used for planting commercial forests, while up to 21 percent could be planted in crops. The remaining 30 percent would be set aside for conservation and the use of local communities."
  • "A similar regulation was issued in 1999 but was withdrawn after many forestry companies planted more of their land in palm oil than permitted."[5]

• Amazon rainforest will bear cost of biofuel policies in Brazil, 8 February 2010 by Mongabay: "Business-as-usual agricultural expansion to meet biofuel production targets for 2020 will take a heavy toll on Brazil's Amazon rainforest in coming years, undermining the potential emissions savings of transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels, warns a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research suggests that intensification of cattle ranching, combined with efforts to promote high-yielding oil crops like oil palm could lessen forecast greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use in the region."
  • The researchers find "that while relatively little forest land will be directly converted for biofuel production, large swathes of rainforest and cerrado will be indirectly impacted through displacement of cattle ranching, presently the dominant form of land use in the Brazilian Amazon."
  • "'To fill the biofuel production targets for 2020, sugarcane would require an additional 57,200 [square kilometers] and soybean an additional 108,100 sq km. Roughly 88% of this expansion (145,700 sq km) would take place in areas previously used as rangeland,' the authors write."
  • The authors "'argue that to avoid the undesired indirect land-use change by biofuels presented here, strategies for cooperation between the cattle ranching and biofuel-growing sectors should be implemented".
  • See the PNAS paper, Lapola et al. Indirect land-use changes can overcome carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil.[6]

• Palm oil plantations could be classified as forests, 8 February 2010 by The Ecologist: "European Commission guidance would allow biofuels to be labelled as sustainable even if forests have been destroyed to make way for the palm oil plantations."
  • "According to a leaked document from the European Commission, reclassifying palm plantations as forested land could be justified and allow it to meet sustainability criteria."
  • According to the document, this would mean "'for example, that a change from forest to oil palm plantation would not per se constitute a breach of the criterion.'"
  • "Friends of the Earth said the plans, if accepted, would allow rainforest to be destroyed to make way for palm plantations and the resulting biofuel to still be classified as sustainable."
  • "The EU is due to publish a report on greenhouse gas emissions from biofuel production in March 2010."[7]

• Administration Support for Biofuels is Part of a Bigger Policy Need, 4 February 2010 blog post by 25 x 25 Alliance: "The final rule adopted by EPA this week to implement the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) set in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act correctly recognizes that high-efficiency, first-generation ethanol can, and will continue to, contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
  • "The agency and Administrator Lisa Jackson, a member of the working group, wisely broadened the scope of the research to cover wider spectrum of countries impacted by ILUC (from 40 to 160) and took into account more recent crop yield and land productivity numbers."
  • "The latest research also saw an improvement in numbers for soy biodiesel, which now will be able to qualify for the advanced RFS subcategory, biomass-based diesel." [8]

• White House Clears Rules on Indirect GHG Emissions From Biofuels, 2 February 2010 by Greenwire/New York Times: "The White House has completed its review of controversial U.S. EPA regulations aimed at curbing renewable fuels' greenhouse gas emissions."
  • "The Office of Management and Budget signed off on the rule yesterday..., clearing EPA to finalize the long-delayed implementation of the renewable fuels standard that Congress included in the 2007 energy bill."
  • "The standard requires EPA to assess the "lifecycle" emissions of biofuels -- weighing the emissions from growing crops, producing fuels made from them, and distributing and using the fuels."
  • "The draft regulations EPA proposed last year sparked outrage from biofuels advocates and farm-state lawmakers who maintained the agency was unfair to ethanol."
  • "The EPA proposal measures emissions from "indirect" land-use changes associated with biofuels -- such as land that is deforested in other countries because of increased crop growth in the United States. The agency concluded, depending on the time frames modeled, that traditional corn ethanol could have a slightly larger emissions footprint than gasoline when land-use changes are factored in."[9]

• Global deal on climate change in 2010 'all but impossible', 1 February 2010 by The Guardian: "A global deal to tackle climate change is all but impossible in 2010, leaving the scale and pace of action to slow global warming in coming decades uncertain, according to senior figures across the world involved in the negotiations."
  • "'The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army,' said a senior British diplomat."
  • "Many of those contacted say only a legally binding deal setting "top-down" global limits on emissions can ultimately avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures. But a global deal at the next major climate summit in Mexico is impossible, says the former deputy prime minister John Prescott".[10]

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