Abstract
Technoscientific innovation has played a central role in UK biofuel policy. When the government was proposing mandatory targets in 2007–08, public controversy over ‘unsustainable biofuels’ was channelled into prospects for future biofuels to avoid environmental harm and land-use conflicts. This vision serves as an imaginary—a feasible, desirable future. Societal benefits have been envisaged according to specific models of economic competitiveness, valuable knowledge, and environmental sustainability— together comprising a prevalent imaginary of future ‘sustainable biofuels’. This has informed institutional change along two lines. First, targets are envisaged as a temporary transition until future ‘advanced biofuels’ make liquid fuel more sustainable. Second, UK research institutes realign their priorities towards seeking investment from foreign counterparts and global energy companies, in the name of making UK science and industry more competitive. Together these measures have been justified as necessary for a transition to advanced biofuels which would better contribute to a low-carbon economy. Although this imaginary may eventually be transformed into reality, initially realised has been institutional change that reinforces infrastructural dependence on liquid fuel for the internal combustion engine. As an imaginary, then, ‘sustainable biofuels’ can help explain how a policy agenda promotes one future, while marginalising alternatives.
Highlights
Like many EU member states, the UK had a high-profile controversy over biofuels in 2007–09
By 2009 the UK government had somewhat accommodated such criticisms through a new policy vision of future biofuels: targets would be linked with sustainability criteria to ensure environmental benefits and to incentivise efforts towards next-generation biofuels from nonfood biomass
From actors’ statements, the analysis identifies underlying imaginaries—as a community of economic interest and/or the public good through future technoscientific advance—corresponding to our analytical frameworks
Summary
Like many EU member states, the UK had a high-profile controversy over biofuels in 2007–09. Under a 2008 proposal from the European Commission, member states would have mandatory targets: 5.75% of transport fuel by 2010, and 10% by 2020, must come from renewable sources—in practice, mainly meaning biofuels. Critics attacked biofuels as ‘unsustainable’ in several respects—eg, doubtful GHG savings, ‘food versus fuel’ conflicts over land use, harm to habitats and livelihoods in the Global South, and dispossession of rural communities there. By 2009 the UK government had somewhat accommodated such criticisms through a new policy vision of future biofuels: targets would be linked with sustainability criteria to ensure environmental benefits and to incentivise efforts towards next-generation (or ‘advanced’) biofuels from nonfood biomass. The government expanded R&D funds for future biofuels, as a further contribution to a low-carbon economy
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