Biofuel in the European Union
Open-knowledge reference entry
Strict sustainability standards for biofuel in the European Union (EU) are set by the European Commissioner on Energy. Biofuels are considered a renewable alternative to fossil fuels in the transportation sector for the EU. The EU has played a large role in increasing the use of biofuels in member states; however, it has also aimed, to some extent, to mitigate the potential negative impacts of biofuel production. Current EU legislation on biofuels includes a goal to increase renewable energy consumption by 20%, eliminate biofuel feedstock sourced from carbon-rich land, accounting for emissions caused from land use change as well as solely biofuel usage, and reducing greenhouse gas intensities from fuels used in transport and machinery.
Background
The European Union (EU) has its own subsidiary body that handles all energy-related issues, called the European Commission on Energy. They define biofuels as "liquid or gaseous transport fuels such as biodiesel and bioethanol which are made from biomass". Chemically, biofuels are alcohols produced by fermenting raw materials from starch and sugars. One of the more prominent biofuels, ethanol, is made up of biomass such as sugarcane and corn. Other sources of biofuel such as biomethane and biofertilizers are produced from unusable straw. The use of these products increases the energy yield per hectare of agricultural land by as much as 50%. Compared to petroleum, this process leads to up to an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide production.
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This entry incorporates text from “Biofuel in the European Union” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.