Reuters has revealed that an EU document published in December 2009 cut out an annex showing that biofuels can produce up to four times more climate warming emissions than traditionals. According to the doc, Reuters relates, “Biodiesel from North American soybeans has an indirect carbon footprint of 339.9 kilograms of CO2 per gigajoule - four times higher than standard diesel.” And here’s more – “Biodiesel from European rapeseed has an indirect carbon footprint of 150.3 kilos of CO2 per gigajoule, while bioethanol from European sugar beet is calculated at 100.3 kilos - both much higher than conventional diesel or gasoline at around 85 kilos.”
The disappeared annex would have been truly embarrassing for the EU which by 2020 has set itself the modest goal of obtaining 10 percent of road fuel from renewables, mostly biofuels. However, a statement emanating from the glass palace of the European Commission denies that anything was “doctored”. “It was considered better to leave the contentious analysis out...” it goes. “The analysis prepared under this study applied a methodology which by many is not considered appropriate."
“Inappropriate methodology” is certainly unwelcome. We have only just emerged from environmentalism’s worst winter. Last year’s Climategate affair revealed climate scientists are averse to freedom of information acts and prone to bouts of screechiness. There was the IPCC prediction that glaciers will have all slushed off the Himalayas by 2035 that happened to be three hundred years off. To cap it all, the dark days of December, when the report was published, and cut, gave us the Copenhagen climate summit, an event in which some of the world’s best gasbags emitted speeches about our fragile planet and then, their consciences salved, sort of didn’t sign anything.
We now look forward to the results of “four major studies” that are currently underway, hoping that appropriate methodology produces results that are publishable, even if politically inappropriate.
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