Biofuels in Europe: Overview and features of a new industry

Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel hold promises of becoming a strategic renewable energy source, achieving at once multiple and broad goals such as the security of supply, the mitigation of climate change through lower emissions of GHG in the atmosphere and the rise of new business opportunities in both the agricultural and industrial sector. However, a set of question marks emerge as many believe that biofuels are not able to achieve such ambitious goals, so that the paper will investigate hot issues such as the competition for land or the GHG savings actually achieved in Europe thanks to the shift to biofuels. Current progress in the use of biofuels is assessed, as well as the policies that are being implemented to support the young industry (mainly, excise reduction and blending obligations). The core of the paper is represented however by the analysis of the industrial structure of the European biofuel industry, with a specific focus on biodiesel, highlighting the groups of actors, their features and interactions, as well as overlaps and synergies with other sectors such as sugar, oil, chemicals and so on.