15th October 2008

New Ensus website demonstrates the benefits of ‘good biofuels’.

Ensus, which is building Europe’s largest wheat refinery to produce both bioethanol and animal feed, has launched a new website. It explains how its wheat refining operations will produce sustainable bioethanol for the European transport fuels market, along with a protein-rich animal feed, without increasing pressure on Europe’s food supply or on global deforestation.

The new site, www.ensusgroup.com, looks at how biofuel companies can address concerns about the impact of biofuels on food supply and deforestation. Ensus believes that only biofuels that can address these concerns should be used to meet Europe’s rising need for sustainable transport energy.

Ensus proposes four criteria for ‘good biofuels’:

1. Food and Fuel – neutral or positive impact on food supply.
   
2. Indirect Effects – neutral or positive impact on major carbon stocks and sinks (such as rainforest or ‘Cerrado’ grassland).
   
3. Carbon footprint – significant contribution to greenhouse gas reduction.
   
4. Cost of carbon savings - value for money, offering significant greenhouse gas savings per unit cost.

Ensus’ wheat refinery, which is due to start operations on Teesside next year, will meet these requirements. It will use locally grown animal feed wheat to produce both bioethanol and high protein animal feed. The environmental benefit of Ensus’ bioethanol production will be approximately equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road, whilst its animal feed will reduce European demand for imports of soy meal – imports which today contribute to global deforestation.

Compared to petrol use, the bioethanol produced by Ensus will generate greenhouse gas savings of over 100 percent, once the beneficial impact of reducing in animal feed imports is properly accounted for.

The site includes evidence and research papers produced by the company to support these facts, as well as charts which illustrate changes in European Union emissions, the efficiency of wheat in using land to produce both food and fuel, and the comparative cost of greenhouse gas savings.