An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland, has raised serious fears over the European Union's 'unsustainable' biofuels policy.

The National Trust says that under the current EU policy, 70 million hectares of land will be needed to grow a sufficient amount of materials to reach the targets set.

Ireland is also reliant on imported used cooking oil (UCO) as a source of biofuel, which currently makes up 50% of all fuel in the Irish market. Approximately 13% of the total amount  of UCO used, 9.5 million litres, is produced in Ireland at present, while 39% is imported from Spain and 20% from the US.

In 'a far cry from self-sufficiency', An Taisce imports 84% of its biofuel, taking into account other sources of biofuels such as sugar beet and tallow.

The organization calls this a 'failure of EU biofuels policy to meet one of its key aims, namely, to boost self-sufficiency in terms of transport fuels'.

Sources: http://www.biofuels-news.com