Country Specific Conditions for the Introduction of Biofuels in Europe

Country specific conditions have a major influence in a Member States' interest and economic capability in supporting biofuel consumption and in its (agricultural) potential in producing biofuels. It is thus important to set into this context the assessment of past policies and - even more so - potential further strategies and individual targets. Having in mind the main drivers for setting up a biofuels policy, in the PREMIA project the overall economic strength of a country combined with energy demand in transport and the importance of the agricultural sector were seen as the most relevant characteristics of a country with regard to biofuels. Even though all of these factors influence a country's interest in promoting biofuels together with additional factors such as collaboration of the domestic car manufacturers or a country's interest in pushing innovative biofuel technologies, a rough distinction can be made between the interest in increasing cultivation of biofuel feedstock and consumption of biofuels. A cluster exercise taking into account the arable land, average yield, transport energy use and economic strength indicated that most EU15 countries (with the exception of France and Denmark) will probably need to import feedstock or biofuels if they want to reach the European target for 2010. On the other hand there is big potential in new EU member countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states to produce feedstock for biofuels, although they have only limited economic strength to support developments in the area.

GOVAERTS Leen;  PELKMANS Luc;  GEORGOPOULOS Panagiotis;  WIESENTHAL Tobias; 

2007-12-11

ETA-Renewable Energies

JRC37380

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC37380,