Bridging generations with biotechnology

When it comes to bio-fuels, Europe is looking for ways to bridge the generation gap.

The EU does not have enough land to grow all the crops it needs to hit a 10% biofuels target by 2020 using conventional agriculture. And the alternatives are politically more than sensitive: importing larger amounts of crops from outside the EU, or increasing the use of genetically modified (GM) crops to ensure higher yields.

Most biofuel supporters are hoping that new, second-generation biofuels will soon deliver a solution to reaching the EU target.

Biofuels currently divide into biodiesel, made by blending plant-based fuel and conventional diesel, and bioethanol, a blend of plant fuels and petrol. The greatest potential for improvements is in the bioethanol sector.

Europe has limited quantities of crops to convert to ethanol. This is partly because the ideal crops - mainly corn - cannot be grown everywhere in Europe and partly because they are also needed as food crops. Using food crops for fuel would both create supply problems and drive up prices, at least in the short term.

Scientists hope that, by developing new ways to break plant fibres into starch and sugar, they will soon be able to turn agricultural waste into fuel. Essentially this means that, instead of turning a corn cob or head of wheat into starch and then ethanol, the stalks and leaves could be used. Any plant waste, including wood, in theory offers the same potential.

But it is much harder to break down the ‘lignocelluloses’ (woody fibres) of a plant into starch or sugar than it is to break down the fruits and seeds. Fungi can successfully perform the process, but over a period of months and years.

"The technology already exists in nature, but we need to make it industrial," says Dirk Carrez of EuropaBio, the biotechnology umbrella group.

He says that the industrial, or ‘white’, biotechnology sector is developing ways to control living cells like moulds, yeasts, bacteria and enzymes and use these to break down the lignocelluloses quickly and with a minimum of waste.

This could have the added benefit of significantly reducing the environmental impact of biofuels, by using up parts of crops that might otherwise be wasted.

European companies head the field for developing second-generation biofuels, according to EuropaBio. Abengoa, a company based in Spain, will, for example, open a second-generation biofuel plant this year, but only after years of high-profile work in the US.

Carrez says that this is partly again because corn can be grown more widely in the US than in the EU and partly because European companies are faced with a confusing patchwork of initiatives and regulations for the development of biofuels.

"We have the biofuels directive, the biofuels strategy, the biomass action plan, the energy and climate change policy, and sugar sector reform, to name just a few of the policies affecting biofuels," he explains.

"We are talking about a good concept that we support, but it has been developed in a very fragmented way."

To hit the 10% biofuel target, according to EuropaBio, the EU urgently needs to draw up a new framework to hold its many policies together. This would mean thinking up a policy implementation plan and ways to stimulate demand for biofuels, as well as encouraging investment in second generation technologies.

"In Europe we are ready," says Carrez. "We have the technology, we have industries that are active and we have the policies to stimulate them. We just need a framework to develop them to find the money to make sure it works."

When it comes to bio-fuels, Europe is looking for ways to bridge the generation gap.