In principle, suspending the 10% target at this time is sensible because the technologies for producing that much fuel sustainably and without any impact on food prices are not yet available. In its present state, the directive is very much in the interest of the EU farm lobby that is trying to switch subsidies from food to non-food agriculturals in response to pressure from the WTO.

Some have argued that biomass is best used for space heating (dry wood pellets) and for small-scale electricity generation (stalks, straw, slurries) on farm properties. This would leave more fossil natural gas for transportation (via CNG/ANG fuel systems or chemical liquefaction) and/or reduce the need for coal-fired power stations. It would also reduce the need for transporting solid biomass. In some countries - Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland(?) - biomass is already being used in this way on a significant scale.

However, transportation fuels carry higher margins and the sector is highly dependent on a small number of supplier nations. Italy has the largest CNG fleet in Europe, because it had some domestic natural gas. Those fields are in decline and there are plans for a new South Stream pipeline from Russia. Afaik, there are none for switching to biomethane instead, even though the EU has decided to let anyone feed pipeline-grade gas into the grid.

Therefore, a straight suspension the biofuels directive would only serve the interests of the European oil & gas industry. Instead, the EU should aggressively pursue R&D into dedicated energy crops that deliver very high yields per acre, especially if they can recycle CO2 emitted by gas- and coal-fired power plants. Algae grown in vertical bioreactors are an obvious starting point, especially in Europe's sun belt, because they use little water and do not depend on soil quality.

Nevertheless, further improvements in fuel economy will be essential if biofuels are ever to meet a substantial fraction of total demand. Over-and-above engine enhancements, avenues of improvement already include non-transport (telecommuting, videoconferencing), bicycle fleets, fully electric vehicles (trains, trams, trolleybuses) and electric hybrid cars & trucks (start-stop systems). Until battery prices come down, PHEVs, E-REVs and BEVs will not reach high enough unit volume to make a significant difference.

Somebody is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The long term choice between our ICE vehicle and our stomach will have to be addressed.

Biofuel is not the best sustainable way (in most countries) to feed the gas guzzler monsters that too many are using. As the number of ICE vehicle increase the problem will be amplified and become unmanageable.

Much more could be achieved with 100+ mpg PHEVs and BEVs than 10% or 20% or even 80% biofuel.

Once we have reduced vehicle fuel consumption to less than 1/5 of current level (100+ mpg instead of 20 mpg), it may be possible to use second or third generation biofuel to satisfy part of the fuel required without major impact on world food production.

Higher priority must be given to fuel consumption reduction, not biofuel production.

In the U.S. we have made some improvement with a few percent biofuels a few percent telecommuting and a few percent on fuel economy standards, while we import 70% of our oil every day.

We are going to need much more than trimming around the edges to address the problem. I think the people all know this and are looking to their leaders and decision makers to get us on a good sustainable track.

One of the core values in America is self reliance. Conservatives will tell you not to expect anything from government, do it yourselves. Then they call conservation nothing more than a personal virtue and try to drill more wells off the coast lines.

Biofuels can be a big part of our future in America. We have a strong agricultural base and lots of land. Some might say that we should not do this, it will only encourage gas guzzlers. That misses the point. People can be wasteful when there is cheap abundance. It is not a good thing, but fairly predictable. I do not think that biofuels will bring us cheap abundance, so worrying about waste may not be our problem.

@ allen_xl_z -

Naples actually sends two full freight trains of trash up to Germany (!) for incineration every day there because its citizenry refuses to accept another landfill near their city. The full ones are run by companies with ties to the Camorra - the local mafia - and emitting all kinds of pollution. Of course, it doesn't help that Neapolitans can't be bothered to separate their trash.

The idea of neutralizing organized crime syndicates isn't new but it's a lot harder to do than you seem to think. Italy has some of the most courageous crime fighters (prosecuting magistrates) in the world, they regularly get assassinated. It doesn't help that most Italian governments are so short-lived.

Hmmm... I think the EEA is probably right that the goals should be suspended based on current technology, but I suggest that suspension is the proper word. Europe doesn't, so far as I am aware, have the excess land to divert to bio-fuel production based on crops used only for that purpose and I'm not even sure that it could divert sufficient crop production acreage even to relatively higher yield algae based methods, assuming such methods were available right now to implement. The US has large areas of non-arable land that could be used for algae based schemes and might even have the excess production of crop remnants (stalks and such) that second generation bio-fuels make sense for us. Indeed given sufficient gene engineering it might be possible to use older southern crop lands of marginal soil nutrition value to grow large quantities of bio-fuel plants on (rapeseed or saw grass). Europe simply doesn't have the luxury of that much free land area.
I do like the idea of sewage conversion to methane/fuel gas and I have to wonder if plasma conversion of regular trash shouldn't be pursued as well. I would, however, argue against throwing the baby out with the bath water. Electric vehicles are wonderful in the long term, but people can only afford to replace automobiles every so often. Even if electric vehicles were offered for mass sale today, it would be decades before they could replace significant numbers of ICE based vehicles currently on the road. Fuel additives and blends that offer increasingly better carbon balances can be phased in over time. And offering fuels that are greener (not perfect perhaps but better then what you have), provide more self sufficiency (Doesn't Europe import even higher percentages of it's transport fuel then the US does? I don't know, but it's what I've always understood), and don't require major infrastructure change (always expensive)(Would a massive switch to electric cars require major increases in European base line power production?) seems like a good mid term solution. It's simply clear that the first generation solutions (based on food plant ethanol)weren't the right answer, but second generation approches based on better science and non food sources probably make up a healthy portion of the correct answer. Even if the current approches turned out to be nothing but thinly disguised farm subsidies (in both the US and Europe) at least they were something, and now having the results of that trial we can urge our politicians to better solutions in the next round.