The European Commission (EC) issued its proposed energy policy for the European Union earlier this week, which included a roadmap for renewable energy, requiring 20% of all energy to come from renewables by 2020. As part of that roadmap, the EC is calling for 10% of transport fuels to come from bio-fuels by 2020.
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A spokeswoman for ACEA, the European trade association for the automotive industry, said that the association is in favour of the use of biofuels (and has no problem with the target date) because these fuels can significantly help reduce CO2 emissions from cars.
“The industry needs enough time to adjust engines, PM filters and so on to reduce the negative effects of blending for the car engine and for fuel-efficiency,” Sigrid de Vries told just-auto.
She added that the industry has stressed the need for a separate availability of ‘old’ diesel (with up to 5.75% bio-fuels) and ‘new’ diesel for some time to come, to keep the existing car fleet running.
Indeed, there is an environmental argument for keeping used cars on the road, since around 10% of the carbon emissions of a car over its lifetime come from its manufacture.
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By GlobalDataACEA said that it is up to the consumer (and the politicians who can direct demand through CO2 emissions-based taxation of cars and alternative fuels) to decide which car and which fuel they buy/use.
