I view this as a good development. They may have recognized ethanol use leads to worse green house warming in the short term, and in the intermediate term time-frame.

Let's not dive into ethanol before we figure out the land displacement issue.

"the land displacement issue?"

Ethanol made from waste e.g. Range Fuels plant in Georgia displaces only the land it is built on. There are no displacement issues. Biofuel foot dragging now only convinces petros to drill more black gold. Which way is better?

greencarcongress.com/2008/04/range-fuels-rai.html

Where do you suppose that e95 is getting the "extra" Octane? (in the U.S. it's, usually, ethanol that gives the "Premium" brand it's higher octane.) The poor old Germans are getting played like violins.

Well said Anne.

I would make an exception. To cleanly transform garbage and other undesirable waste into useful biofuel for irreplaceable applications + chemical, plastic and clothing industries would be acceptable.

Why couldn't we clean our environnment and reduce fossil fuel consumption at the same time.

Fair enough, then the Global South will go it alone. They will follow the lead of Brazil.

The Europeans once again show that they are conservative and sclerotic by nature and fail to see the bigger picture of global energy security and the development opportunities biofuels bring to poor countries in the South.

I suggest we all ditch the Europeans. After all, they're becoming more irrelevant by the day.

I see Brazil, Africa, China and India collaborate on biofuels all across the Global South. They have a far better grasp of the impacts of high oil prices on their economies, so they will not hesitate to go for the most sensible alternative, which is obviously biofuels.

Germany pioneered synthetic fuels in the 1930s. I find it ironic that they would not be promoting them now. They could synthesize them from waste material and label them as biofuel and reserve the label agrifuel for corn based ethanol. The classification is not that difficult.

Interesting to note that the big issue there is speed limit. In a country that has very few fossil fuel resources, this is surprising to me. I would think that with the Green party there promoting solar, they would promote cellulose biofuels and synthetic fuels from waste materials, along with solar panels.

Some similar claims were made about the Altamonte Pass between San Francisco and Sacramento. In the 70s there were tax breaks for renewable energy. Lots of different wind turbine designs went up and some said it was a boondoggle.

I used to drive past that area now and then and I have seen quite a few wind turbines running and producing 30 years later. There are more advanced designs today that require less repair and are more reliable.

It is a shame that there are scam artists out there trying to take advantage of people, but this is a case of buyer beware. The government can police some fraud, but it is up to the consumer to judge. If it sounds too good too be true, it probably is.

We are going to need renewable energy for all those EVs and PHEVs. It would be harmful if a few scam artists were allowed to give renewable energy a bad name.

I'm in support of the german decision, even if the german adopted cliche 'oldtimer' is used in english translations. (thanks Rafael, we know what you mean. In UK english we say 'Classic Car', by the way)

@sjc

Germany is well represented on the development of synthetic fuels from gasification of wood and forestry waste. See http://www.choren.com/en/

Austria has been working on it too see http://www.ficfb.at/renet_d.htm and this is an interesting Austrian view on using their copious forestry waste, google this:

"C_6_04_Hofbauer_presentation_L2L_2007.pdf"

As many people have written: Besides the pre-set threshold of less than 1 Million legacy vehicles unsuitable for E10, there is political pressure due to recent studies that suggest we should continue investing in R&D and put off the deadline for adoption.

It seems clear that second generation fuels are the way to go, using agricultural, forestry and even domestic and industrial waste as a feed stock.

E10 was due to become mandatory *next year*, however, and it is not clear that these second generation fuels will be producible in the required volume by then.

In General:
Ethanol:
As is also said here - well to wheels studies have shown CO2 reduction potential of first generation Ethanol to be low. Brazil has been listed as the one exception, but the fear is that significant increases in demand would result in detrimental changes of land use in that country, degrading the fuel's environmental value.

Diesel:
The CO2 reduction potential of well-sourced biodiesel is found to be much higher, but the land area available is limited. The mechanism to trace land-use practices to source, and the international standards to support it are not yet in place.

Other uses:
In the UK, government studies concluded that the CO2 reduction potential of waste Biomass was best used in heating and cogeneration for large rural buildings such as schools, hospitals and housing blocks. Future housing developments in rural towns may be constructed with district heating for this purpose.

bert;

We have the same impression around here. Many local gas stations offer E-10 and have done so for a few years without drivers complaints. Unfortunately, corn ethanol is used.

Personally, I find reduced liquid fuel consumption a much more logical approach. This can be done different ways with more efficient, lighter, ICE, diesels, hybrids, PHEVs and eventually pure BEVs.

With cars doing 100+ mpg instead of 20 mpg + BEVs using no liquid fuel, reduced biofuel production could become more manageable. Using edible crops to feed ethanol and biofuels plants is not the solution, even if it seems to temporarily help farmers in poor countries.

Transport vehicle electrification + lower cost solar panels and batteries is a better way to go for all countries.

Of course, richer countries can afford up-to-date nuclear plants. wind power, etc.

@ Bert -

I couldn't find authoritative information on the situation in the US, but it seems cars there have generally been compliant with E10 for many years now because of federal rules on the oxygenation of reformulated gasoline.

Ironically, those were lifted in 2005 in the context of eliminating legal cover for blends containing MTBE, which had leaked from some single-hulled fuel tanks at certain CA gas stations, polluting the ground water there.

http://www.winktimber.com/reader/reader13.htm
http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/gasoline/Oxy/uswinter.pdf

In Australia, too, (new) cars are E10 compatible:
http://www.allbusiness.com/operations/facilities-office-equipment/613019-1.html

In Europe, a lot of cars still cannot handle more than E5 because politicians did not require car makers to ensure that they can before embarking on a quixotic quest to increase blend levels.

NOTE: the engineering impact of ethanol blending, i.e. swelling of rubber components etc., is actually worst in the 20-50% range for materials that are commonly used in fuel systems today. For E85, the impact is about the same as for E5.

http://www.atzonline.com/index.php;do=show/site=a4e/sid=90358d9778b263c336cd77c0b9e0df15/alloc=3/id=7353

The U.S. ethanol laws seem to be setting higher levels each year a bit at a time. It almost looks like they are looking at what can be produced and saying that is the level for next year.

The last time I looked at information on it, they said that if a state could not make the targets they would have to make it up the following year.

California had opposed it, because they did not make much ethanol. They wanted a waiver to produce clean air gasoline with blending. They failed in that effort and had to import ethanol from other states.

Without Biofuelimport Europe will not have enough Energy in the Future .

It is nice to see you mention Tesla pumps. It is a good simple design that can pump many types of fluids and slurry well.