World Grain - April 2020 - 54

FEATURE: ETHANOL LEADS GROWING NON-FOOD USE OF GRAIN

Easter Ross, the northernmost constituency in the mainland of Britain, lobbied the tax authorities to allow the production of hand sanitizer to the World Health Organization
formula, following a request from Phil Thompson, owner
of Dornoch Distillery.
"What the distilleries have achieved in my constituency
shows that if you don't ask, you don't get," Stone said.
³7KH\SXWWKHLUFRPPXQLW\¿UVWDQGLQVXFFHVVIXOO\OREbying HMRC with me, we have made it easier to produce
hand sanitizer safely, cheaply and quickly. I hope distilleries across the UK follow suit and help make hand sanitizer available to those who need it."

"It's going to be interesting to see if they raise ambitions for emissions reduction and renewables, how they're
going to handle the cap on certain biofuels," he said. "If
they need things that are going to deliver immediate emissions reduction, they might have to lift that cap. There
are also targets for second-generation biofuels, which are
from agricultural waste."
Cellulosic ethanol is happening, but on a small scale.
"It will be interesting to see whether there will be the
uptake necessary to meet the targets for that under the
Renewable Energy Directive," he said. "At the moment
it's very small. There are producers in Europe who are
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have producers of both in our membership, so we don't
Craig Winneker, director of communications at ePURE, favor one or the other. We're just trying to dispel the nothe Brussels, Belgium-based organization that represents WLRQWKDWDOO¿UVWJHQHUDWLRQELRIXHOVDUHEDG
the interests of European renewable ethanol producers,
"In the case of European ethanol, it actually meets the
told World Grain that the sector produces animal feed, sustainability criteria set up by the EU. Among our memcaptures carbon dioxide as well as ethanol, which goes bers, the average greenhouse gas reduction compared to
mostly for fuel, but also for industrial and beverage uses. fossil is 71% and getting better every year. Some producIt is not yet clear where ethanol and other non-food uses ers are even higher than that."
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With the EU talking about more ambitious targets for
Commission's new plan to make the continent sustainable. emissions reduction, ePure was making the point that
"That's what we're waiting to see," Winneker said. "you're going to need all these tools."
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"You can't just rely on advanced second-generation
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cellulosic ethanol," Winneker said. "We're going to need
He explained that EU renewable energy policy for ¿UVWDQGVHFRQGDQGLQPDQ\FDVHVLW¶VREYLRXVWKH\ZRUN
2020-30 allows the use of ethanol for transport, but the together because you have residues coming from crops
use of food crops is limited.
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"Ethanol produced from feed crops, corn, wheat, sug"Obviously the other important angle for us is if you
ar beets, etc., is capped at 7% for each member state," ORRNDWWKH*UHHQ'HDODORWRIZKDWWKH\¶UHORRNLQJDW
Winneker said.
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He expected the EU's Renewable Energy Directive to so-called zero emission. But at the moment, for example,
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April 2020 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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Corn-based
ethanol use in
Brazil is on
the rise.

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World Grain - April 2020

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