Palm | Kelapa Sawit

A bill that would have banned the EPA from taking into account the impact of indirect land use changes in bio-fuel emissions was defeated by 36-20 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, Dow Jones reports.

A Republican Representative for Nebraska had tried adding the measure to a climate change bill that appears likely to be passed by the Committee. “There's no way you can reasonably say that bio-fuels production and the effect on a forest in South America or Indonesia or anywhere else is related,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee said adding an ILUC ban to the climate change bill is unlikely to work as it would probably be taken out before the final legislation is passed, Congress Daily reports. He expects the climate change bill to be sent to his panel in June but reiterated that he has a long list of issues that must be addressed before he would consider backing climate change legislation, and top of his list is passage of a renewable fuel standard measure he introduced last week to repeal the provision on ILUC impact on bio-fuel emissions.

Inside EPA Weekly Report adds that the industry is pushing amendments to the House climate bill to boost the use of bio-fuels and wants to add the ILUC ban. The industry also intends to push the bill (HR 2409) sponsored by the House Agriculture Committee Chairman (mentioned above).

There is a suggestion that bio-fuel producers could use a cap and trade system, enabling them to qualify for allowances or offsets if they use biotechnology that reduces their carbon emissions.

Ambassadors from the EU, Canada, Brazil and Chile called on US Congress to close immediately a US tax loophole used by paper makers that distorts world pulp markets and violates trade rules, Reuters reports. A tax credit designed to boost bio-fuel use has been an unintended windfall for US paper manufacturers, who stand to receive up to US$8 billion in 2009, the ambassadors said. “From a legal perspective, it is clear that this tax credit amounts to an actionable subsidy and that any adverse effects ... could be subject to remedies in the (World Trade Organization) or through domestic countervailing duty investigations,” they warned. At issue is a by-product called "black liquor," produced when wood is processed into pulp to make paper: last year, paper makers started to add small amounts of diesel to it and to claim the bio-diesel tax credit.

A new study has found that Styrofoam can be used to increase bio-diesel power output, New Zealand Transport Intelligence Briefing reports. Iowa State University researchers found that by dissolving polystyrene packing peanuts in bio-diesel, scientists were able to increase the power output of the fuel, while finding a solution to disposing of the material at the same time. They dissolved Styrofoam into bio-diesel at a concentration of 2 to 20%, and discovered that while plastic does not break down easily in petroleum-based diesel, it breaks down almost instantly in bio-diesel. When they tested the polystyrene-bio-diesel blend in a tractor engine, they found power output increased as polystyrene concentrations increased up to 5% but tailed off after that.

New Generation Biofuels Holdings, Inc has signed a bio-fuel sales contract with the Tri Gas and Oil Co Inc of Federalsburg, Maryland, to market and distribute NGB bio-fuel, PR Newswire reports. Under terms of the contract, Tri Gas and Oil will endeavour to sell up to 1 million gallons in the first year of a three-year contract.(May 21, 2009)