I spent Thursday and Friday last week (November 1^st and 2^nd) at the National Non-Food Crops Centre’s Green Supply Chain conference. There were some excellent presentations, and I particularly enjoyed Richard Miller’s introduction to the biorefinery concept, and the presentation by Michael Deutmayer of Choren on the work they are doing to develop a fully functioning Biomass to Liquids (BTL) plant in Germany. It was a very good presentation, and Choren are obviously pouring huge amounts of money into the project. The third phase of the project – the so-called sigma plant – will cost 700 million Euros, and its commercial viability is dependent on it being tax exempt.

To me it was fascinating, but also demonstrated that we are still a long way off commercially viable ‘second generation’ technology, despite what many of the opponents of the current biofuels technology think. There was a lot of discussion about the ‘food vs fuel’ debate. Many of the speakers emphasised that the industry understands the very real concerns about issues of food production and sustainability. There was a general consensus that the market will ensure that people do not go hungry while we put biofuels into our cars.

People were also concerned about sustainability, and there was a determination to let the public know that the biofuels industry in the UK does not want to see deforestation in order to plant palm trees for biofuels. Biofuels are not responsible, either for the vast amount of palm oil produced, or for the current high price of cereal crops. There was an accepted view that, while it is difficult to know exactly what should be done to counter the negative publicity, the industry cannot simply do nothing.