Growing The Global Biofuels Market

The governments of the United States, Brazil and the European Union (EU)—the world’s major producers of biofuels—today released an analysis of current biofuel specifications with the goal of facilitating expanded trade.

Three of the world’s largest biofuels producers, the United States, Brazil and the European Union (EU) have released an analysis of current biofuel specifications with the goal of facilitating expanded trade of these renewable energy sources. Increased market demands for biofuels was the impetus behind this report and it was solicited by the U.S. and Brazilian governments and the European Commission (EC) on behalf of the EU, with the work conducted by an international group of fuel standards experts. Biofuels are gaining popularity worldwide as both energy producers and users seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, move away from dependence on fossil fuels and invigorate economies through increased use of agricultural products. This rising popularity has lead to biofuels becoming an increasingly important commodity in the global marketplace. The press release says that the lack of a common standard for characterizing the make-up and properties of biofuels is an obstacle and it is this obstacle that lead to the creation of a task force which was to clarify the current situation and identify potential roadblocks to improved compatibility. The task force is composed of experts from standards developing organizations (SDOs) to compare critical specifications in existing standards used globally (factors such as content, physical characteristics and contaminant levels that govern a fuel’s quality) for pure bioethanol and biodiesel, two key biofuels. The “White Paper on Internationally Compatible Biofuels Standards” was requested by the governments of the United States and Brazil and the EC, and was produced by the joint task force after a six-month review process that considered thousands of pages of technical documents produced by ASTM International, the Brazilian Technical Standards Association (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas or ABNT) and the European Committee for Standardization (Comité Europeén de Normalisation or CEN). Standards developed by these three SDOs are currently being used in support of biofuels commodities trading between nations. The White Paper published today identifies where key specifications in the standards are: • similar (and can be considered compatible); • different, but could be reconciled in a short period; or • irreconcilably different as they stand. The task force found that these three sets of bioethanol and biodiesel standards, and the specifications they contain, share much common ground and, therefore, impose few impediments to biofuel trade. Nine of the16 ethanol specifications reviewed are “in alignment” and all but one of the remaining specifications could be aligned in the short term. For biodiesel, the report lists six specifications as compatible. It suggests that many of the remaining differences could be handled by blending various types of biodiesel to create an end product that meets regional specifications for fuel quality and emissions.