Advantages of biofuel use

There are definitely advantages of the use of biofuels. They do not contain sulfur and other pollutants. For the consumer, there are still important disadvantages. Current engines are not suitable for pure biofuels. Biofuels are more viscous than e.g. diesel, which requires a system that heats the fuel before the ignition starts. In Germany, the cost of this transformation is about € 800. However, the same mechanism for a gasoline car is much more expensive.

An alternative for this is the purchase of a flexifuel car. This is a car that is suitable for gasoline, pure bio-ethanol, or any mix of the two. Ford already sells two types of flexifuel models, at an additional cost of about € 900. In the Netherlands, quite a few people experiment with mixing biofuels and gasoline or diesel.

The extra cost for flexifuel cars is high, but the payback period is short. The main reasons are tax breaks for biofuels adopted by various governments. Many biofuels industry organisations call for higher or extended subsidies, claiming that the market for biofuels is much larger than most government programs can accommodate. In many European countries, the future of these subsidies is uncertain. In Germany, for instance, there are plans to reduce the current incentives.

Including subsidies, the cost of biofuels can be substantially lower than the price of diesel or gasoline. Let's take the Netherlands as an example. The subsidised price of vegetable oil or bio-ethanol ranges from € 0,70 tot € 1,00 per liter, as opposed to € 1,03 for diesel and € 1,38 for gasoline. A price difference of € 0,50 per liter implies that the € 900 price difference between a traditional and flexifuel car can be earned back after 1800 liters of fuel. At a fuel efficiency of 15 kilometers per liter, it takes 27,000 kilometers to break even.