{"id":57078,"date":"2018-10-10T06:55:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T04:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rss.nova-institut.net\/public.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.euractiv.com%2Fsection%2Ftransport%2Fnews%2Fshowdown-over-biogas-on-margins-of-car-co2-vote%2F"},"modified":"2018-10-09T19:56:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:56:57","slug":"showdown-over-biogas-on-margins-of-car-co2-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/showdown-over-biogas-on-margins-of-car-co2-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Showdown over biogas on margins of car CO2<\/sub> vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s gas industry wants renewable fuels completely accounted for in updated car CO2 rules. But the MEP charged with helming the legislation\u2019s revision hopes to shield her report from industry attacks ahead of a crucial vote on Wednesday (3 October).<\/p>\n

An amendment to pending car emissions rules, backed by the gas industry, is set to reappear during a full plenary vote in Strasbourg tomorrow, after it was nixed by MEPs on 10 September in a committee vote.<\/p>\n

The amendment backs a plan to fully consider renewable fuel contributions in meeting the CO2 reduction target for 2030 by introducing the so-called carbon correction factor (CCF).<\/p>\n

When applying this factor, the tailpipe emission value for cars and vans operating on natural gas is reduced by the percentage of renewable gas in the national gas mix.<\/p>\n

It means, for instance, that if the share of biomethane used in transport is 20% in one country, the tailpipe emissions of gas vehicles in the manufacturers\u2019 fleets will be reduced by 20%.<\/p>\n

The main scope of this provision is to partially mitigate the tailpipe approach, which is not considered technology-neutral as it only considers emissions from driving the car (\u201ctank-to-wheel\u201d) and not from the whole cycle, including extraction, production, transport, and distribution of the fuel (\u201cwell-to-tank\u201d).<\/p>\n

Debate is mounting<\/p>\n

\u201cA vehicle is not necessarily linked to one fuel type, as in many cases the same vehicle can run on several fuels, either conventional fuels, biofuels or other low-emission alternative fuels,\u201d the rapporteur for the updated CO2 regulation, Miriam Dalli, told EURACTIV.<\/p>\n

The Socialists and Democrats lawmaker also said that her group is calling for a review from the Commission on this issue by 2023 at the latest, in order to make sure that any technological advances and alternative fuels are taken into account without jeopardising what MEPs want to achieve in this legislation.<\/p>\n

ALDE also tabled a similar amendment.<\/p>\n

However, the gas industry is not satisfied with an approach that will postpone this assessment, given the urgency of the matter.<\/p>\n

As Emmanuel Tuchscherer, EU affairs director at French gas company Engie, told EURACTIV: \u201callowing biogases to contribute to CO2 reduction through a carbon correction factor is necessary now to scale them up in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

ENVI Committee chairwoman Adina-Ioana V\u0103lean (EPP) said that \u201cwe need to keep this legislation open to all new technologies including renewable gas\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout technological neutrality, we will be gambling again against science and markets, as we have done with solar panels and first generation biofuels,\u201d she added, warning that \u201cunrealistic targets and imbalanced measuring standards will only slow down any impulse to innovate and change.\u201d<\/p>\n

A matter of approach<\/p>\n

Miriam Dalli also added that she is moving away from measuring simply tailpipe emissions to having an analysis of the whole life cycle of a vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is this, together with the well-to-tank and tank-to-wheel approach, that can award cleaner technology, cleaner production, and cleaner fuels,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are addressing future technologies with the wrong tool: tailpipe CO2 emissions measurement does not express anymore, neither vehicle\u2019s efficiency on hybrid architectures, nor climate change impact when renewable fuels are used,\u201d Andrea Gerini, secretary general of natural and biogas vehicle association NGVA Europe, said in a press release.<\/p>\n

The industry\u2019s position maintains that the whole regulation is way too orientated towards electric vehicles and that biogas is not really represented at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are convinced that electrification is a powerful way to decarbonise the sector, but to fully tackle the issue we need a complementary set of solutions, including natural gas, biogases, and tomorrow hydrogen,\u201d said Engie\u2019s Tuchscherer.<\/p>\n

Double counting<\/p>\n

According to its main critics, the inclusion of mandates for renewable fuels in the cars regulation would create a double incentive, since there are mandates already in the recently revised Renewable Energy Directive, as director at Transport & Environment (T&E) Greg Archer wrote in an opinion published on EURACTIV.<\/p>\n

According to NGVA, the CCF does not bring any double counting but it solves the limitation of the current methodology (tailpipe emissions measurement) which does not distinguish the origin of the fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not looking for a double incentive or a cheating way to be compliant with CO2 emissions targets, but are simply reflecting reality into legislation,\u201d they write in a joint press release with\u00a0European Biogas Association (EBA), EUROGAS, and Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s gas industry wants renewable fuels completely accounted for in updated car CO2 rules. But the MEP charged with helming the legislation\u2019s revision hopes to shield her report from industry attacks ahead of a crucial vote on Wednesday (3 October). An amendment to pending car emissions rules, backed by the gas industry, is set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5714,7670],"supplier":[8885],"class_list":["post-57078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biofuels","tag-biogas","supplier-alde-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57078"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=57078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}