Richest nations want norms for bioenergy biz

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Nov 13: The world’s richest nations need to devise standards for growing bioenergy crops and trading biofuels as soaring costs for oil and coal spur alternative energies, the Group of Eight countries said.

“ We have to see biofuels as a global commodity,” Corrado Clini, Global Bioenergy Partnership’s chairman, said on Tuesday; at a press conference at the World Energy Congress in Rome. The group represents G8 governments and five emerging-economy nations.

Bioenergy became attractive as fossil fuels surged toward records. Crude oil futures climbed to $98.62 a barrel on Nov. 7 in New York, the highest intraday price since trading began in 1983. “The potential of bioenergy is huge and it can compete with fossil fuels,’’ Clini said. Countries including the US, Germany and Japan, together with emerging economies such as China, must develop global mechanisms for trading biofuels and rules for growing crops in a more sustainable way, the partnership, registered with the United Nations, said in a report published on Tuesday.

“Trade is a key issue. If we could set international rules in the World Trade Organization for sustainable biofuels, maybe we could have a good result,’’ Clini said. Common rules will boost both food security and energy security, he said.

The global bioenergy market is worth “billion of dollars,’’ with agricultural commodity prices doubling in past two years, said Alexander Mueller, assistant director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, at the conference.

Biodiesel and ethanol may account for 8% of world demand for liquid fuels in 2030, with consumption rising fourfold to 36 million metric tons a year from today’s eight million tons, the report said.

International standards will also need to be set to mitigate the potential negative side effects of increasing use of bioenergy, including land-use change and the risk of converting large natural forests and grassland to energy-crop production, the report said.

“We are working in order to set the rules to develop sustainable bioenergy on a global level,” said Clini, who is also director general of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea.

Bioenergy accounts for about 10% of the world’s primary energy supply, representing 78% of all renewable energy produced in 2005. More than 70% is used in heating and cooking, according to the report.