Fuelling the biofuels debate

Any place where trade journalists congregate there is likely to be a high cynicism quotient. It is pretty much the de rigeur attitude for journalists. While it may seem unfair, it does, one hopes, keep the PR machine reasonably honest, and means that any story published contains more fact than promoter’s purple prose and gives a fair and reasonable view of what has, or is about to, take place.
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The increasingly acrimonious spat between the EU and the USA over the dumping of subsidised diesel on to the European market, will do neither party, or for that matter the biodiesel industry, any good in the long run.

For those of you who have, so far, missed this particular piece of nonsense let me bring you up to speed. Early last year the effect of a piece of US Federal legislation, enacted in 2004, started to be felt in Europe. The legislation, designed to support the US biodiesel industry, effectively gave a subsidy of about $300/tonne, in the form of tax credits, to a B99.9 blend biodiesel. In other words, a drop of mineral diesel in the tonne of biodiesel produced a huge subsidy.

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According to reports in a variety of news outlets over the weekend Nestle, in the form of its CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, said that planned subsidies for biofuels were irresponsible and immoral and would lead to higher prices for food staples, including maize, soya and wheat (Swiss Info, Nestlé boss warns against promoting biofuels).

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s always good to see large multi nationals taking the leadership role and setting an example for others to follow. However, I might be more impressed if this didn’t seem to be more about Nestle’s profits than an ethical stance on subsidised biofuels. Brabeck-Letmathe was certainly being disingenuous when he linked the subsidies for biofuels as the only reason for higher prices for agricultural products. Previous peaks in wheat prices in 1981, 83 and 95, all of which exceeded today’s price (USDA figures), were not due to biofuels, and did not create a food crisis.

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I was reminded of William Booth’s, founder of the Salvation Army, words (see the headline) during the World Biofuels Markets event in Brussels last week when one despairing industry figure said he was really “pissed off” about the coverage of biofuels in the general media. His frustration was palpable. However, the industry, perhaps lured by the initial warm reception of biofuels by the media, has never really engaged in terms of addressing the publicity deficit.

Talking to several delegates at World Biofuels it became apparent that generally the feeling was that a straight presentation of the facts would in most cases sort out the publicity deficit and that the media balance would be restored. In part, a very small part, they are correct. There is a huge amount of touchy feely ’science’ that is paraded as fact, which does need correcting. But where the industry really looses out in the media game is in the presentation, the spin of the story. In short the tune!
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