The rapeseed biodiesel that is used extensively in the European Union doesn’t come close to meeting the region’s sustainability criteria, according to a new study.
The study by GlobEcon, a German research and consulting group, has determined that the most popular biofuel in the EU does not meet the 35 percent greenhouse gas reduction threshold set out in the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED).
“The sustainability of rapeseed biodiesel in the interpretation of (the) RED is at best very questionable and in most scenarios simply unjustifiable,” said the study, which was published as a Jena Economic Research Paper.
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“We are not able to reproduce the GHG emissions saving values published in (the) RED for rapeseed biodiesel.”
Cory McArthur, vice-president of market development with the Canola Council of Canada, said the EU’s fats and oils processing association has criticized the study.
It says the paper wasn’t peer reviewed, used methodology that wasn’t aligned with the EU’s accepted approach to life cycle analysis and relied on selective data.
The study comes at a time when exporters of canola seed, canola oil and biodiesel are attempting to become certified to the EU’s sus-tainability criteria so their products can be used in the biodiesel industry.
Canada has chosen an EU approved certification scheme, and some crushers and exporters have been certified to the sustainability requirements. Canola biodiesel has been assigned the default 38 percent greenhouse gas reduction value used for European rapeseed biodiesel.
“We should have a value substantially higher than that,” said McArthur, because Canadian canola is grown under dryland conditions using no-till technology.
The council is conducting a life cycle analysis using the EU’s RED methodology in an effort to boost that number. It should be complete by the end of 2012.
In the meantime, the debate over the sustainability of biodiesel rages on in the EU.
Rapeseed oil accounts for two-thirds of the feedstock that will be used to make 10.9 million litres of biodiesel in the EU in 2012.
The 6.4 million tonnes of rapeseed oil used by the EU’s 257 biorefineries will be made from 16 million tonnes of rapeseed, which means the biodiesel sector is a massive market for the bloc’s rapeseed producers, who harvested 19 million tonnes in 2011-12.
However, GlobEcon said it’s a market that shouldn’t exist.
The company ran a life cycle assessment of rapeseed biodiesel using the same methodology and background data contained in the RED.
The alternative fuel failed to meet the EU’s 35 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction threshold in eight of the 12 scenarios considered in the study.
“It is extremely likely that European rapeseed biodiesel does not, in fact, meet the current EU definition of sustainability,” said the study.
It said the “typical” greenhouse gas emissions savings value of 45 percent used by the EU in the RED is laughable. It could not be achieved in any of the 12 scenarios.
“The simple and unavoidable conclusion is that these values stated by the EU are more than questionable,” said the study.
GlobEcon said it appears that the EU prefers to use “politically achieved” GHG emissions reduction values rather than scientifically proven ones.
