I have to precisify myself, what the minister stopped was a raising of bio-ethanol from 5% to 10%. The argument is that too many car drivers would be forced to fuel expensive Super Plus because their engines don't tolerate much bio-ethanol. He blamed it on the car industry, for giving him false initial estimates about the number of cars affected.
However, diesels are unaffected by this. (On that front, Greenpeace Germany just blasted the bio-diesel industry association, after conducting a study into the nitty-gritty of their claim about using only sustainably grown soya.)
The real good news is that given mandated CO2 reductions, now car transport emissions have to be further curtailed by other means. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
EurActiv.com: Biofuels for transport
The EU is promoting the use of biofuels as an alternative energy source for transport. In 2003, it set itself an indicative target of increasing the use of biofuels in energy consumption to 5.75% by 2010. But a 2007 progress report shows that it will likely only achieve a 4.2% biofuels share in that year. Therefore, the Commission proposed in its 2007 "Energy Package" to step up its effort and demanded a mandatory target of 10% by 2020.
If I remember correctly, the EU's entire oil seed production wasn't sufficient to meet the 6% biodiesel target (assuming 1:1 ratio of replacement of diesel with biodiesel and no demand increase to 2020).
This is madness. It'd be nice if the battle were only against the right wingers, not half of the left on top of that — François in Paris
