French Group Floats Non Food-Based Biofuels Plan
Date: 12-Sep-08
Country: FRANCE
The Futurol project aims to produce up to 180,000 litres of ethanol within a year of its launch later in 2008, rising to 175 million litres from 2016, said Dominique Dutartre, president of Procethol 2G, the consortium that is leading the programme.
Procethol 2G, which incorporates research, financial and industrial partners including oil giant Total, will invest 74 million euros on the project.
"A lot of work needs to be done to overcome the technological barriers," Dutartre told a news conference in Paris.
Second-generation biofuels, which extract plant cellulose from non-food crops and waste biomass, have attracted interest as potentially more sustainable than today's first-generation biofuels, which are produced from crops.
Targets for current biofuel use have attracted criticism for diverting crops away from human supply, as well as consuming significant amounts of energy and leading to deforestation.
The European Parliament's industry committee voted on Thursday to reduce the 10 percent target for use of traditional biofuels in road transport by 2020, calling for the difference to be made up by electricity, hydrogen or second-generation biofuels.
Alain Jeanroy, head of French beet growers group and Futurol member CGB, played down the impact of the vote, saying that in his view both the European Commission and member states oppose cutting the target.
"The solution at the moment (to reach the 10 percent figure) is in biofuels that are available now," Jeanroy said.
A final decision on the targets could come before the end of the year since the French EU presidency is keen to make its mark on environmental legislation.
French oil industry institute IFP, another project partner, estimates that new-generation biofuel will account for two-thirds of European biofuel production by 2030.
Futorol is to receive 44 million euros in financing from its partners and 30 million of public funding.
One of the biomass sources the project will explore is wood. France's forests, whose total area is growing by 40,000 hectares annually, can sustainably provide 10 million tonnes of wood, of which 30 percent would be for biofuels, Futurol said in its presentation.
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; editing by John Stonestreet)
