Wheat Based Ethanol - a good RTF

 
EU manufactured ethanol from EU cereal crops delivers significant savings of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions compared to fossil fuels.  Wheat ethanol delivers default GHG emissions savings of between 45-75% compared to the fossil fuel equivalent.

The Gallagher Review concluded that RTF policies have much less impact on prices for EU cereals than for other feedstocks.  For wheat, they ranged from a drop in price of 2.6% in the EU to a price increase of just 0.2% in southern Africa and Brazil.  By contrast, oilseeds (the feedstock for most biodiesels) are the worst affected with projected price increases of 50-72%.

Using wheat as an RTF feedstock produces two important products.  In addition to the primary ethanol product, a high protein co-product - Dried Distillers Grains and Solubles (DDGS) - is produced, which can be used as an alternative to soy meal in animal feed.  Slightly more than an additional tonne of high-protein animal feed is created for each tonne of ethanol produced from wheat.

To mitigate against the change in land use arguments, the Gallagher Review recommended the adoption of policies that promote the increased use of idle/marginal land and also suggested that increased yields from existing arable land may go some way to meeting the increase in demand for both 'millers' wheat' (used predominantly for food stuffs) and 'feedwheat' (used for animal feed).  Furthermore, the production of co-products (such as DDGS) means that less land is needed to grow traditional animal feedstocks.  More recent work by the specialist consultancy E4Tech for the Department for Transport in 2010, examining the impacts Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) of Biofuel feedstock most likely to be relevant to the UK market, found that wheat, under every scenario assessed, had a negative ILUC factor due to the key role of the co-product DDGS displacing the use of imported soy as an animal feed protein source.

EU wheat is sustainable - one of the requirements for a 'good RTF'.  One way of being confident that an RTF's environmental credentials are sound is to conduct an audit of its full supply chain.  In many feedstock growing regions of the world, this is extremely difficult.  However, ethanol made from EU cereal crops can be audited by existing food safety standards such as Red Tractor (formerly known as the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme (ACCS) - as required in existing food products such as bread).

An increasingly important benefit of EU ethanol is its contribution to energy and fuel security.  This will help reduce the need for oil imports, which are on course to account for more than 90% of the EU requirement by 2030.