A study performed by the European Union's own in-house research body, the Joint Research Center, concludes that the costs associated with biofuels outweigh their benefits. No doubt this is a major shock to the EU and their true believer bureaucrats. The costs are very high in terms of money – and there appear to be no savings whatsoever in greenhouse gas emissions. There is only one thing for the EU to do, given this new, damning information:
Change nothing and carry on with their plans exactly as they have been.
"The costs of EU biofuels outweigh the benefits," the researchers state.
EU taxpayers would have to fork out an extra 33-65 billion euros (48-95 billion dollars) between now and 2020 if the European Commission proposals go ahead, according to the study.
European Commission spokesman on energy Ferran Tarradellas Espuny stressed that the study was just a working paper and one of several opinions being taken into consideration as talks continued ahead of Wednesday's decision.
But he made clear that that the 10 percent biofuels objective for vehicles remained.
"Economically speaking there is only one option, that is biofuels," he told a press conference.
"It is good for the environment, it is good for transport and it is good for European agriculture".
On agriculture however the study warns that the proposed EU measures will require the use of huge swathes of land outside of Europe and it questions whether it will make any greenhouse gas savings at all.
Green groups warn that the EU plans could lead to forest clearances for biofuels or for food crops displaced by biofuel plantations as farmers switch over.
The report concludes that by using the same EU resources of money and biomass, significantly greater greenhouse gas savings could be achieved by imposing only an overall biomass-use target instead of a separate one for transport.
"The uncertainties of the indirect greenhouse effects, much of which would occur outside the EU, mean that it is impossible to say with certainty that the net greenhous gas effects of the giofuels programme would be positive," the study says.
Adrian Bebb, Agrofuels Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe, called it "a damning verdict on the EU's policy for using biofuels."
"The conclusions are crystal clear — the EU should abandon biofuels and use its resources on real solutions to climate change," he said of the leaked report.
Why it is so crystal clear that the bureaucrats can't see it at all. Or pretend not to. Therefore they will just carry on, secure in their self-righteous belief that they know best what is good for the world.
The illusional promise of biofuels is something that people want to believe in, regardless of the facts.
Real science, perhaps because of the advent of cheap computing, is so far removed from the average person’s life that it is frightening. We are getting close to repeating the dark ages where people believed the world is flat because it made sense to their simple minds.
Biofules have always been a farce, since the day they were invented back before oil. Diesels were invented to run on peanut oil. Natural petroleum came along and made possible the modern world, and those who wish to return society to the stone age have resented it ever since.
The whole green religion does this to people — The followers lose all ability to reason and just march like mind numbed robots. Fascism is, an authoritarian political ideology, generally based on some sort of mass movement that subordinates individuals to the perceived greater interests of the state as a whole. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, and most of it’s leaders want to be on the side of telling, rather than the side of being told.
Glow-bull warming is the perfect issue for the fascists, providing others are ignorant enough to go along. This is precisely what makes the issue of glow-bull warming so dangerous to free people.
Democracies are endless debates about everything, when anyone tries to tell you the debate is over, be very careful.
And one of the latest eco-fascist things we ALL have to do is to STOP using plastic grocery bags. You know; those bags the eco-fascists told us we HAD to use in place of paper grocery bags, which destroyed trees.
It is endless with these eco-fascists – they will always have something else we ALL have to do to save the planet; they are, of course, exempt from doing these things. The eco-fascist job is to “raise consciousness” and to force everyone else to change their behaviour.
Bill-tb,
Excellent post. I learned a few things. Thanks. I agree with your definition of Fascism. Very well stated.
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And terrance, we all reuse those plastic bags for garbage. What is the problem? Landfill technology has increased 10 fold. That plastic bag will eventually become oil.