Green light for green diesel

16 January 2004

BRUSSELS – From next year Belgium’s drivers will be able to fill up with diesel made partly from crops like beetroot and wheat, the Belgian government has confirmed.

The new bio-diesel will be a mix of the traditional fossil fuel and the new green variety. It will go on sale in 2005.

In a bid to encourage motorists to use the new fuel, the government has promised that it will be cheaper than traditional diesel. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt’s team also says that the biofuel will work perfectly in any cars that run on standard diesel.

To begin with, bio-diesel will only contain two percent of non-fossil ingredients, but this proportion is set to rise to six percent by 2010.

Biofuels have numerous advantages, say their supporters. For example, they have a minimal impact on global warming as they do not increase levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) – a major ‘greenhouse gas’- in the atmosphere.

Biofuels only release back into the air CO2 absorbed by their ‘ingredient’ plants.

Increasing the use of biofuels would also reduce Europe’s dependence on energy supplies from politically unstable regions like the Middle East, their defenders add.

Subject: Belgian news