Environment DAILY, 26 April 2006 - The EU and US are considering joining forces to promote transport biofuels, following ‘enthusiastic’ exploratory discussions between senior officials in Brussels on Monday. Joint activities would most likely focus on developing standards to support international trade in green fuels and research into second generation biofuels (EED 29/03/06).

Interest in alternative fuels has grown on both sides of the Atlantic in recent months, with EU leaders considering new long-term targets on the use of transport biofuels (EED 24/03/06) following the launch of a new commission strategy in February (EED 08/02/06). Meanwhile, in a speech on Tuesday, US president George Bush said that the best way to break America’s oil dependence was to expand the use of bio-ethanol.

Following Monday’s informal talks the US ambassador to the EU, C. Boyden Gray, told ENDS that both sides had been ‘in violent agreement’ over the general direction of future developments in biofuels, and had agreed on their potential contribution to energy security, the environment, agriculture and trade.

* In a separate development Swedish farmers’ conglomerate Agroetanol has announced plans to build a SKr 1bn (€107m ) biofuel plant capable of producing 150m litres of bio-ethanol annually. The new facility will be ready by 2008, at which time Sweden’s demand is predicted to be 500m litres per year - almost double the current level.

Follow-up:

European Commission, tel: +32 2 299 1111 and biofuel strategy ; US energy department biomass program and president Bush’s speech. See also Agroetanol press release (in Swedish).