April 2008

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This page includes information on news and events in April 2008. (News and events are archived here at the end of the month.)

Events

• 3-6 April 2008, Juraparc, Lons le Saunier, France: Bois Energie Exhibition (Themes: co-generation, wood energy, wood fuels, wood heating)

• 4-8 April 2008, Miami, Florida, USA: InterAmerican Development Bank Annual Meeting (Themes: Latin America and the Caribbean, international cooperation)

• 6-9 April 2008, Guimaraes, Portugal: Bioenergy 2008 - Challenges and Opportunities

• 7-10 April 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria: Exhibition on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources (Themes: bioenergy, biofuels, co-generation)

• 8 April 2008, Washington, D.C., USA: Lifecycle Carbon Footprint of Biofuels, organized by the Farm Foundation Forum. (Themes: biofuel, carbon emissions, life cycle analysis)

• 8-10 April 2008, Sydney, Australia: ethanol 2008: local solutions for global issues (Theme: biofuel)

• 8-10 April 2008, St.Petersburg, Russia: Sustainable International Biofuel Summits & Expos 2008 (Theme: biofuel)

• 8-10 April 2008, Madrid, Spain: Sustainable International Biofuel Summits & Expos 2008 (Theme: biofuel)

• 14-16 April 2008, San Diego, California, USA: 24th Annual BioCycle West Coast Conference 2008

• 15-17 April 2008, Minneapolis, Minnesota: International Biomass 08 Conference & Trade Show

• 16-18 April 2008, Dakar, Senegal: International Conference on Renewable Energy in Africa: Making Renewable Energy Markets Work for Africa (Themes: Africa, renewable energy) Organized by UNIDO.

• 17-18 April 2008, Alexandria, Virginia, USA: Biomass2008: Fueling Our Future. Organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – Biomass Program; a "two-day dialogue on the role of biofuels in reducing our nation's oil addiction." (Themes: biomass, biorefineries, financing, markets, sustainability, technology)

• 22-24 April 2008, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA: New World Biomass Conference (Themes: biomass, wood waste)

• 22-24 April 2008, Madrid, Spain: Third European Summit for Sustainable Biofuels (Themes: investment, quality standardization, sustainability certification)

• 23-24 April 2008, Moscow, Russia: Bioethanol Congress and Expo

• 24-25 April 2008, Moscow, Russia: Eurasia Bio

• 25 April 2008, Washington DC, USA: Biofuels, Land Conversion & Climate Change (Themes: biofuels, land conversion, climate change)

• 27-30 April 2008, Chicago, Illinois, USA: World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing. (Themes: biotechnology, bioprocessing)

• 29 April 2008, London, UK: London Biofuel Conference. (Theme: biofuel)

News

• Food versus fuel debate not so simple, says IUCN, 30 April 2008 by IUCN: “The current media debate is simplistic,” says IUCN Deputy Director General Bill Jackson. “In reality, there are many factors affecting food prices and food security. What this debate should really be about is how the world produces food and how it is accessed by different groups of society.”
• UN food supremo warns against 'knee-jerk' response to biofuels, 30 April 2008 by Yahoo News: "A senior UN official who will lead a top international task force on the global food price crisis warned Wednesday against a hasty response to the growing use of biofuels."
• Molten salts give biofuels a boost, 29 April 2008 by ScienceNews: "A new approach for breaking down cellulose could improve prospects for energy-efficient biofuels, researchers report."
• ADM's CEO defends biofuels amid rising food prices, 29 April 2008 by Reuters: "Biofuels are a real solution to a real problem. To retreat from biofuels is wrong. It's foolish. It's dangerous. It's an empty gesture. It won't fill anyone's stomach. It won't fill anyone's gas tank," said Chairman and CEO Patricia Woertz on a conference call with analysts.
• UK govt review casts shadow over biofuels industry, 29 April 2008 by Reuters: "A British government minister on Tuesday sought to reassure the biofuels sector as uncertainty about a review initiated by Prime Minister Gordon Brown cast a further shadow on the already struggling industry."
• Monsanto Company and Mendel Biotechnology announce cellulosic biofuels collaboration, 29 April 2008 by Checkbiotech: "Monsanto Company and Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. announced yesterday a collaborative agreement to enhance the development of Mendel's BioEnergy Seeds & Feedstocks business..."
• Food price hikes fuel anti-ethanol moves in U.S., 28 April 2008 by Reuters: "now, in the face of growing criticism of the nation's ethanol-friendly policies, Missouri may be among the first to back away from ethanol supports."
• Texas A&M Food Policy Center Study Cites Rising Oil Costs as Underlying Force in Food vs. Fuel Debate, 26 April 2008 by Biofuels Journal: "A study released April 11 by Texas A&M's Agricultural and Food Policy Center illustrates corn prices have had little to do with rising food costs, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) notes."
• Insufficient ethanol to meet RTFO, 24 April 2008 by Biofuels International: "Fuel suppliers are worried there will not be enough ethanol to meet the UK's renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO), which was introduced on 15 April."
• €7 m CHP plant to use crude jatropha oil, 24 April 2008 by Biofuel Review: "An order for an engine-driven combined heat and power (CHP) plant that will run solely on a jatropha based, liquid biofuel, has been announced by the Finnish company Wärtsilä."
• US DoE funds three cellulosic ethanol projects, 24 April 2008 by Biofuels International: "The US Department of Energy has awarded $86 million (€55 million) to three cellulosic ethanol projects in Maine, Tennessee and Kentucky."
• Venture capital investment for biofuels reaches $360 million, 24 April 2008 by Biofuels International: "Venture capital investment in crop-based biofuels reached $360 million (€229 million) worldwide in Q1, despite fears that the industry is taking farmland away from food production."
• Sugarcane could drive Sri Lankan cars, 24 April 2008 by Biofuels International: "Sri Lanka's largest sugar factory operator Pelwatte Sugar Industries (PSI) has submitted a proposal to fulfill the country's requirement of fuel by cultivating 30,000 hectares of sugarcane."
• Dutch and Brazilian companies to develop jatropha plantations, 24 April 2008 by Biofuels International: "Brazil-based company Plant.a.Bio and the Netherlands-headquartered project developer and trading firm BioFuel Projects International (BFP International) have outlined their cooperation to develop and manage commercial scale jatropha plantations in Brazil."
• Biofuels not at root of food inflation: Potash CEO, 24 April 2008 by Reuters: "Government policies spurring biofuel production are not to blame for grain shortages and food inflation, said the chief executive of Potash Corp, the world's largest fertilizer company."
• Meerut admn asks residents to destroy Jatropha plants, 22 April 2008 by Express India: "The (indian) government may be promoting jatropha plantation to meet the fuel need of the country. But with 50 children falling sick in Meerut last week after eating jatropha seeds, the administration has issued a public notice asking people to destroy the plants."
• Possible push for changes in EU biofuel targets, 22 April 2008 by Reuters: "The (UK) government will push for changes in European Union biofuels targets if a review of policy shows rising production drives up food prices and harms the environment, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday."
• Large-scale biofuel production may increase marginalization of women, 21 April 2008 by FAO."Rapid increases in the large-scale production of liquid biofuels in developing countries could exacerbate the marginalization of women in rural areas threatening their livelihoods". Full report available here
• Peru's Garcia urges food, not biofuel, growth, 21 April 2008 by Reuters: "It's creating very serious problems for countries that have to import these (food) products. We believe there are alternative energies that do not put the world's food in danger," said Garcia
• Biofuel Community Mourns Berkeley Researcher, 19 April 2008 by GreenTechMedia: "Members of the biofuel- and transportation-research community say they are shocked and saddened by the death of Alex Farrell, a [University of California at Berkeley] researcher who led a study that drew up a blueprint for California's low-carbon fuel standard..."
  • "Biofuel researchers called Farrell’s death a major loss, citing his work in analyzing the overall impacts of fuels throughout their lifecycles, including their energy balances and their effects on air, water and land."

• Coalition calls on NGOs to withdraw support to Responsible Soy Roundtable. 18 April 2008 from the Global Forest Coalition. "The Coalition states that by supporting the roundtable, NGOs are legitimizing the expansion of large-scale soy monocultures that lead to massive deforestation, pesticide contamination, rural depopulation, malnutrition and violent land conflicts. It calls upon NGOs to instead address the over-consumption of products like meat and transport fuels in continents like Europe, which is the main destination of South American soy."

• Summary of Ecological Society of America Conference - Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels. ESA released a summary of this 10 March 2008 conference. Read the summary.

• Biofuel Rule Will Do More Harm Than Good, Oxfam Says, 15 April 2008 by Bloomberg: "U.K. fuels for cars and trucks must contain biofuels starting today, a move that may do more harm than good to the environment and drive food prices higher, charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace said."
  • "'The sorts of problems that biofuels are causing are irreversible,' Robert Bailey, policy adviser to the development charity Oxfam, said in a telephone interview. 'If rainforest gets chopped down, it's gone forever. If somebody loses access to food, they become malnourished, their physical and mental development is impaired and they may die.'"
  • "According to Oxford-based Oxfam, the U.K. policy will cost taxpayers 500 million pounds ($1 billion) a year, and may lead to 60 million people being forced from their land to make way for biofuel plantations. About 30 percent of recent food price inflation can be attributed to biofuel production, the group said, citing the International Food Policy Research Institute."[1]

• Sustainability Must Guide New Rules on Biofuels, New Paper Finds, 15 April 2008 by ENN: "The long-term sustainability of the fast-moving global biofuel market will depend on changes to international trade and investment rules that govern energy, environment, agriculture and rural development, according to a new paper published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)."
  • "The paper, 'The Multilateral Trade and Investment Context for Biofuels: Issues and Challenges (PDF file),' outlines the different interests of the largest global players in the biofuel market, including the U.S., European Union and Brazil. The paper analyzes biofuel trade within the context of World Trade Organization rules governing agriculture, environmental goods, services, patents and investment. Biofuels raise a number of tricky trade questions, including the acceptability of production and processing methods (PPMs) as a basis for discrimination among goods; the legitimacy of trade restrictive measures that support goals set in multilateral environmental agreements; and the effects of private standards on market access."[2]

• Brazil's president says biofuel crops are not pushing up food prices, 10 April 2008 by the International Herald Tribune: "Brazil's president insisted Thursday that crops used for ethanol are not responsible for driving up food prices, and said Haiti — where food riots have erupted recently — could benefit from a biofuel industry."

• The World Food Crisis, 10 April 2008, editorial by the New York Times: "Last year, the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 percent as food prices rose to levels not seen in a generation....The increases are already sparking unrest from Haiti to Egypt....The rise in food prices is partly because of uncontrollable forces — including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India....But the rich world is exacerbating these effects by supporting the production of biofuels."
  • "The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years."
  • "At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports."[3]

• 'Splash and dash' hits UK biofuels firm, 9 April 2008 by the Guardian: "The enormous damage being done by "splash and dash" imports of American biodiesel were highlighted today when one of the UK's leading operators, D1 Oils, said it was closing down all its refining operations in Britain after running up a £46m loss annual loss."
  • "Splash and dash is where biodiesel is carried to the US by ship - sometimes from Europe - purely to add a drop of ordinary diesel and take advantage of public money" for refining.[4]

• Inter-American Development Bank Announces Partnership to Develop Sustainable Biofuels, 5 April 2008, press release: "The Inter-American Development Bank’s Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI) announced a partnership with the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels to integrate the Roundtable’s sustainability principles into their lending and support Latin America stakeholder involvement in the Roundtable’s global standards-setting process."
  • "Over the next two years, SECCI plans to test the principles in five projects to which the IDB is providing support, and co-host four regional stakeholder meetings to ensure that Latin American stakeholders are helping to write these global rules for biofuel sustainability."
  • "With 40 percent of global bioethanol production and a biodiesel market expanding rapidly to meet demand at home and in Europe, Latin America is a world leader in the biofuel industry."
  • The first regional stakeholder meeting to take place under this new partnership will be held in Bogotá, Colombia."[5]

• Water for Fuel, by the WBCSD. "As demand for biofuels increases, industry will face additional questions: How can the water be equitably shared? Is biofuel a practical energy solution? What are the options? These questions and others at the water and energy nexus will be the focus of a new WBCSD water and energy workstream of the Council’s Water Project."

• German minister stops biofuel blending plans, 4 April 2008, by Reuters: "German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Friday he had stopped government plans to raise compulsory bioethanol blending levels in fossil gasoline."
  • "Politicians and industry groups had criticized the plans to raise the level to 10 percent for some gasoline grades from five percent, fearing the increase would damage older cars."
  • "German biofuels industry association VDB welcomed the decision. It had argued that the bioethanol used for blending in Germany was imported largely from third world countries where deforestation may have taken place to expand farmland."
  • "Germany had viewed biofuels blending as a way of achieving reductions in greenhouse gases without imposing restrictions suggested by the European Union which could hit its high performance car industry".[6]

• Food prices to rise for years, biofuel firms say, 3 April 2008, by Reuters: "Staple food prices will rise for some years, but should eventually fall to historical averages as harvests increase, biofuel company executives said on Thursday."
  • Victor Deike of Novus Europe said that second-generation biofuels -- (those made from non-food crops such as jatropha, miscanthus or reed canary grass) "should take the heat out of food prices as many did not compete with food for land."
  • "Jean-Marc Jossart, secretary-general of the Belgium-based European Biomass Association (AEBIOM), said opinion was divided over whether second-generation biofuels could take the pressure off food prices....[since] crops such as miscanthus could also reduce the availability of land that could be used for food."[7]

• Victims of Biofuel: Nicaraguan Communities Affected by IFC-Funded Ethanol Plant File Complaint, 1 April 2008 press release by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL): "Over 700 community members and ex-sugarcane workers from the Pacific coast of Nicaragua filed a complaint yesterday with the International Finance Corporation for injuries to their health and environment caused by the operations of Nicaragua Sugar Estates Limited (NSEL). NSEL received a $55 million loan from the IFC in 2006 to increase its sugarcane production and to fund the construction of an ethanol plant. The complaint (PDF file)...presents evidence that NSEL activities violated these standards."
  • "Much of the sugarcane produced by this project, like an increasing percentage of the one hundred forty-five million tons of sugar produced each year worldwide, will be used for biofuels."[8]

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