PLANES SHOULD FLY ON BIOFUELS
22 Jul 09. Planes ‘should fly on biofuels’. Biofuel research should focus on planes and not cars, the think tank Policy Exchange has said. A crop area the size of the USA would be needed to biofuel all the world’s cars and alternatives, such as electricity, exist for them, it added. Instead, it said the EU should fund research into using plant-based fuel for aviation to help cut emissions. Sceptics say some biofuels create more carbon than they save and push up the price of food for the poor. Most biofuels are derived from crops such as corn, sugarcane and rapeseed. Bioethanol is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture. The UK government, which is funding a £27m research centre to find economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels, says 25% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transport. In April 2008, it introduced a “Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation”, requiring 2.5% of all fuel sold at petrol stations to be biofuels, having revised its target from 5%. The EU also changed its stipulation that 10% of transport fuel had to be from crop-based fuel, instead saying the targets could be met by any renewable source, including fuel cells, hydrogen or solar power. Policy Exchange has previously said the government should spend its £550m annual biofuel subsidies on halting the destruction of rainforests and peatland, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now the centre-right think tank says the EU should switch policy to subsidising development of biofuels for aviation because planes cannot run on other sources of energy. (Source: BBC)