Availability of resources

In spite of the now recognized interest in biofuels, a vast majority of countries do not have enough resources to ensure a both viable and sustainable production of biofuels. If the renewable nature of biofuels indeed represents a major interest, it however implies a large availability of agricultural land (given the present situation regarding first generation biofuels). While this issue does not seem to be a problem in countries such as Brazil and China (although the issues of competition with food and sustainable agricultural practice are often neglected), it is by no means the case in all countries.

The diagram on the figure below indicates the share of AAU (agricultural area in use) that should be dedicated to the production of energy crops for biodiesel and bioethanol production in Switzerland and EU member states, in order to achieve the goals of the EU for 2010 (i.e. 5.75% of diesel and gasoline on an energy basis).

Figure : Availability of land in Switzerland and in the EU-27

The assumptions on the results of the figure above are as follows:

• the consumption of biofuels in 2010 in each country remains the same as in 2005 (see table below);
• the AAU in 2010 in each country remains the same as in 2005;
• each country is self-sustaining in terms of biofuels consumption;
• the objectives in terms of biofuels market share are satisfied for both biodiesel and bioethanol (with 5.75% respectively in diesel and gasoline);
• annual biodiesel and bioethanol yields are respectively 1'150 l/ha (100% rapeseeds) and 3'600 l/ha (50% sugarbeets, 50% wheat);

Given the assumptions and the data from the table above, the agricultural land that should be dedicated to biofuels production in order to replace 5.75% of vehicle fuels (on an energy basis) consumed in the EU exceeds 14.5 million hectares (i.e. more than 3 times the surface area of Switzerland). The corresponding biofuels volumes are given in the table below.

Tableau : Consumption of vehicle fuels in the UE-27 (situation in 2005, source: Eurostat)

The countries of Eastern Europe (i.e. Romania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia and Czech Republic), shown in light green on the diagram above, could also play a role of biofuels or feedstock suppliers to other member states, given their high agricultural potential and the possibly lower production cost in those countries.

The figure below illustrates (schematically) the requirements of agricultural land in Switzerland for various raw materials, according to the same scenario of a 5.75% biofuels penetration in 2010. These are not meant to be realistic scenarios, but rather an illustration of the differences between raw materials.

Figure : Requirements of agricultural land in Switzerland according to the feedstocks

There is on the figure above a very clear difference between the raw materials in terms of biofuels output per unit area. It comes out that the scenarios here are very difficult to sustain, even only in terms of farmland availability. If we add to this the high cost of Swiss agriculture, it is very likely that Switzerland will have to rely rely on a significant proportion of imports (raw materials or even directly biofuels).