By MEGGIE I. FOSTER
Assistant Editor

BERLIN, Germany — While legislators and farm groups continue to disagree over the complex U.S. climate change bill, the European Union forges ahead with its goal to fulfill 50 percent of its energy needs through renewable resources by 2050, with the overall intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

And Germany is hoping to not only meet the European Union’s goals outlined in the Renewable Energy Act, but surpass them.
“Next year, all states in the EU have to implement the Renewable Energy Act and Germany has already been quite aggressive by meeting 18 percent of our energy needs with renewables (wind, solar, water and biomass),” said Dr. Hans-Jurgen Froese, deputy director for the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection.

Froese and his colleagues at the Ministry described Germany’s goals outlined in the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) and the implementation of energy and climate-protection goals focusing on EU agricultural policy and the sustainability ordinance during a recent Farm World visit to Berlin, as a journalist on the 2009 study tour of “The Role of Green Energy in German Agriculture.”

Officially adopted in 1991, EEG provides written incentives for commercial operators and farmers interested in the production of regenerative power, as well as energy recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Froese stated that key reasons for Germany’s focus on a renewable energy strategy are environmental and climate protection issues, food security, conflicting demands from other countries and the security of the energy supply.

“Currently, 70 percent of the energy supply is received from outside the country lines, forcing the area to be highly dependent on its political connections in neighboring countries such as Russia and the Ukraine,” said Froese. “We want to create a high demand of renewable energies based on the high destruction of forestland around the world in respect to climate change protection.”
Broadly, the target for the EU is to nearly double the electric share from heat and power to 25 percent renewable resources by 2020 and increase the share of renewable energy in power regeneration to at least 30 percent by 2020.

Currently, renewable energy makes up only 7 percent of primary energy consumption in the EU. In 2008, Germany landed ahead of the curve with nearly 15 percent shared in renewable energies in the gross power consumption, tripling its number in the last three decades, according to Froese.

Wind makes up for 44 percent, water power 23 percent, and around 29 percent of the power is generated from biomass.
And while biomass in the United States, especially the Midwest, is defined as corn residue, wood, paper waste and cattle and hog manure, in Germany, biomass also includes rapeseed, wheat residue, grass and pasturelands.

Froese also discussed Germany’s climate protection goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent in the next 10 years through the use of bioliquids and biogas to generate fuel, heat and electricity.

According to Froese, this all plays into the EU Directive on the Promotion of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources, in which Germany has played a strong role.

“This directive is being implemented in two separate ordinances including biofuels and power generation, with a central focus on sustainability,” he added. “Energy sustainability is certainly more of a concern to us than efficiency and energy independence.”
Opportunities for farmers

With more than 82 million people residing in Germany, there is an increasing energy demand and a growing opportunity for German farmers to find an additional income source through renewable biomass production, according to Christian Virks, at the Ministry office. Additionally, biomass production offers an opportunity to fulfill new climate protection goals, secure the energy supply, provide job opportunities in rural regions and further technological advancements, Virks confirmed.

While the incentives are complex and varied, renewable energy plant operators can receive up to 11.67 cents per 150 kilowatt hour for producing energy; or operators can market their “power” directly to grid operators on a month-to-month basis.

According to Virks, German farmers are paid for renewable energy production dependent on the size, type of energy resource they produce and year that they get started.

Currently, nearly 4,000 farmers in Germany own and operate their own biogas generators replacing their energy system with a renewable resource as well as providing a second income source for their family, Virks described.

“The biomass sector is playing a major role in the role of bioenergy consumption in Germany and farmers are big contributors to that of course,” he said, adding that “as of 2008 nearly 500,000 hectares (equivalent to 1.24 million acres) of agricultural land in Germany is made up of energy crops.

That is a considerable increase in the last 10 years. Additionally, the biogas sector in Germany employs nearly 100,000 people.”

Biofuels plays growing role
According to Virks, biofuels from sugar beets and wheat is also playing a growing role in German’s bioenergy vision. In fact, as a binding objective for EU member states, biodiesel and biofuel production had to meet 2 percent of each states’ fuel needs from 2003 until 2010. Currently, only Germany has been able to fulfill the objective from 2003 until 2005, while most states met the needs by 1 percent.

According to Virks, this objective was developed following a series of low prices for vegetable oil, and high costs for foreign fossil fuel from 1999-2002. Specifically, Germany hopes to fulfill 6.25 percent of its fuel needs with biofuels by 2010.

Presently, fuel consumption in Germany is 52 million tons a year, with 30 million tons in the biodiesel market.

“We’ve seen a huge interest in biofuel/biodiesel production in the last 10 years,” he added. “From 2005-2006, we recorded more demand than our production needs could meet, so we became a big importer of soy from other countries. Then from 2006-2007, we saw another big increase, so we began to import biofuels from Brazil and Argentina.”

While in the United States, all vehicles are capable of running on E-10, or 10 percent ethanol; in Germany, currently, there is a law that limits the blending rate to 5 percent.

“German automakers claim that there cars have a lot of problems with E-10,” Virks said, confirming a great deal of publicity surrounding the issue with claims that German cars would explode if the fuel included more than five percent ethanol.

As a step toward the future of biofuels, the German government is highly funding the development of second generation biofuels from cellulosic ethanol.

“We hope cellulosic ethanol production will come online soon due to its high potential to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Virks. “This also will provide further opportunities for our automotive industry.

In fact, nearly 50 million Euros or $74.5 million has been set aside for bioenergy research in Germany. Research institutions receiving funding from the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection include: the Agency for Renewable Resources, German Biomass Research Center and the Biomass to Liquid project, just to name a few.