Ministers have no choice but to introduce new 'green' petrol in the UK in order to hit the EU's renewable energy targets, MPs have heard. The Government has so far resisted rolling out so-called 'E10' petrol - blended with 10pc bioethanol - onto UK forecourts amid concerns it will push up prices at the pump and may not work on almost 2m older cars. But MPs on the energy select committee heard evidence that introducing the controversial fuel represented the only viable route to meeting the EU Renewable Energy Directive requirement for 10pc of transport energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. Jonathan Murray, policy and operations director of the Low Carbon Vehicles Partnership, who participated in the Government-backed Transport Energy Task Force to look at options last year, told MPs it had concluded that deploying E10 and also using more waste-derived biodiesel would give the UK "a fighting chance of getting to the target". "There really isn’t anything else you could deploy in the timescale that would get anywhere near that target," he said. Experts have estimated that the proposals could add £40 a year to the cost of filling up a family car, due to a 1p a litre increase in pump prices and a reduction in efficiency.
Introducing E10 petrol, the controversial fuel blended with 10% bioethanol, and using more waste-derived biodiesel are the only viable ways of meeting the EU's targets that require Britain to get 10% of its transport energy from renewable sources by 2020, the energy select committee has heard. The committee's chairman, John Whittingdale, said he was "disappointed" at the government's failure to commit itself to a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions over this parliament.