EU Biofuel Policies for Road and Rail Transportation Sector

This chapter is about biofuel policies governing EU terrestrial transportation. We provide an overview of important historical and policy milestones fringing the path of ethanol and biodiesel production and consumption in the European Union. By discussing selected topics related to the biofuel production, we aim to lead the reader through the maze of interactions of the biofuel policies with other sectors of the EU bioeconomy. Initially food crops were seen as a promising candidate for a renewable biofuel feedstock; later developments at the global scale got EU policymakers thinking about the possible adverse effects of biofuel policies on food commodity prices and indirect land-use changes. These considerations resulted in capping first-generation biofuels and recently promoting second-generation (advanced) biofuels instead.