Three weeks ago he gave an interview to the French business daily La Tribune. In which he points out (as we did in the Biofuels Consultation) that there is little hope for first-generation biofuels in the EU:

Rather than produce ethanol themselves by calling heavily on subsidies, the US and Europe should import from India or Brazil, says the head of the IEA, Claude Mandil.

Plutôt que de produire eux-mêmes de l'éthanol, à grand renfort de subventions, les Etats-Unis et l'Europe devraient s'approvisionner en Inde ou au Brésil, estime le directeur de l'Agence internationale de l'énergie, Claude Mandil.

(From an AFP wire at Pleinchamp.com)

He does mention the environmental problems posed (destruction of the rainforest among them), but that doesn't appear to put him off. And he does go on to say that research should be funded into second-generation biofuels.

But the idea of making a big call on biofuels from emerging agricultural countries so as to be able to go on filling up tanks on cars -- instead of first talking about different ways of reducing consumption -- seems so wrong-headed to me that I wonder what Mandil is playing at. More specifically, what big business interests are behind what he's advocating.