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ScienceBusiness » Critics of biofuels under no obligation to be accurate
This week sees the start of another of those green initiatives that set out to meet the environmentalists' demands to "do something about climate change". As from today, under something called the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), transport fuels sold in the UK have to contain 2.5 per cent biofuel. Just two weeks before it was due to come into effect, and after companies had committed themselves to spending billions to meet the RTFO, Greenpeace, aroused by reports of shippers wanting to grab at US subsidies by shipping biofuels to and fro across the Atlantic, suddenly decided that it didn't like the idea. ... Sustainable energy is a hot area for investors these days. The Carlyle Group, for example, has invested in a bunch of businesses including Ensus. This startup company, with both a chairman and CEO who spent years developing their engineering skills in ICI, before that bastion of the chemical sector evaporated, is spending £250 million building a plant on Teesside to turn wheat into bioethanol. What can they be thinking of? Wheat? Should that be going into loaves of bread? ... The point of the story is that Ensus has backed up its sales pitch, and the all important business plan, with a detailed sustainability analysis, and one that it has thrown to the wolves, in the shape of a bunch of expert scientists. ... It is for someone else to tell if Ensus really does have a strong case. The point is that it is irresponsible of groups like Greenpeace to flail around indiscriminately knocking a whole industry. If the EU had heeded the organisation's warnings, then a bunch of investors could have kissed goodbye to their money. Companies cannot turn investment strategies on and off just because a bunch of greenies have had second thoughts. After all, they were the ones pushing for transport to do its bit for climate change. Let's hope that they don't put off too many investors. More important, let's hope that Brussels ignores their shrill screams. The first wave of biofuels may not be perfect, but, as Alwyn Hughes says, you cannot have a more efficient second generation process without building a first generation.
This week sees the start of another of those green initiatives that set out to meet the environmentalists' demands to "do something about climate change". As from today, under something called the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), transport fuels sold in the UK have to contain 2.5 per cent biofuel.
Just two weeks before it was due to come into effect, and after companies had committed themselves to spending billions to meet the RTFO, Greenpeace, aroused by reports of shippers wanting to grab at US subsidies by shipping biofuels to and fro across the Atlantic, suddenly decided that it didn't like the idea.
...
Sustainable energy is a hot area for investors these days. The Carlyle Group, for example, has invested in a bunch of businesses including Ensus. This startup company, with both a chairman and CEO who spent years developing their engineering skills in ICI, before that bastion of the chemical sector evaporated, is spending £250 million building a plant on Teesside to turn wheat into bioethanol.
What can they be thinking of? Wheat? Should that be going into loaves of bread?
The point of the story is that Ensus has backed up its sales pitch, and the all important business plan, with a detailed sustainability analysis, and one that it has thrown to the wolves, in the shape of a bunch of expert scientists.
It is for someone else to tell if Ensus really does have a strong case. The point is that it is irresponsible of groups like Greenpeace to flail around indiscriminately knocking a whole industry. If the EU had heeded the organisation's warnings, then a bunch of investors could have kissed goodbye to their money.
Companies cannot turn investment strategies on and off just because a bunch of greenies have had second thoughts. After all, they were the ones pushing for transport to do its bit for climate change. Let's hope that they don't put off too many investors. More important, let's hope that Brussels ignores their shrill screams. The first wave of biofuels may not be perfect, but, as Alwyn Hughes says, you cannot have a more efficient second generation process without building a first generation.
As Jérôme says, famine is a market solution. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Because obviously, investors losing their investments is so much more of a problem than people not being able to eat the food.
Er, yes. Of course.
The only surprise is why more people don't understand that this is exactly how it works.
