The future fuel Europe already has in the tank

POLITICO - The European Commission has just told the Belgian government that it needs to do a better job of tackling “serious air pollution problems” from vehicle emissions. That is, of course, an admirable goal but the warning raises the question of why the Commission is at the same time proposing to phase out an alternative transport fuel that already helps reduce harmful emissions and urban air pollutants from cars: renewable ethanol. The debate over how best to boost renewables in Europe’s energy mix has mostly been focused on which fuels can reduce greenhouse gases and which are the most sustainably produced. On that score, European renewable ethanol is already among the leaders of the pack, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by an average of 64 percent over fossil petrol in 2015 – and that performance is improving each year.