ABSTRACT
In Chapter 15 we saw how enabling policies triggered biofuel production increases, raising production by 70 billion litres of ethanol and 14 billion litres of biodiesel between 2000 and 2010. The speed at which this has happened is remarkable, and targeted biofuel expansion largely has been realised. There are, however, large differences in profitability of biofuel plants. These differences are mostly caused by changes in feedstock prices, which have shown high variations partly because of the linkages between food and energy markets. At a given moment, on average one in three or four plants may be either inactive or running below optimal capacity. This applies mostly to corn ethanol plants in the USA and biodiesel plants around the world.
