Biofuels could provide as much as 10% of the world's fuel mix over the next couple of decades according to Rob Routs, Executive Director Oil Sands, Oil Products & Chemicals, Royal Dutch Shell. Routs's message was delivered in a major speech covering the potential of conventional and alternative fuels, presented at the Fifth Magdeburg Environmental Forum, Magdeburg, Germany, yesterday (4th July).

"I think biofuels could grow from a mere one percent of the world fuels mix today to as much as 7 or 10 percent over the next couple of decades", said Routs.  "I want us [Shell] to lead in that space; and to that end we decided in 2007 to increase our rate of investment in them – quadruple it, in fact."

He continued, "To hear some tell it, all of today’s, or ‘first-generation’, biofuels are a disaster and should be written off.  But let’s be clear: when it comes to truly sustainable, low carbon biofuels, we can’t open the taps overnight.

"We still need more innovations to lower the costs and raise the yields. We still need to learn more about sustainable production.  We still need to develop markets and use them to scale up capacity.  We still need first generation biofuels, both to meet mandates and to build capacity for the next generation."

Routs was, however, clear that this was no quick fix. "All that means starting with the best of what we have now – the best technology, feedstocks and regulations – to develop even better solutions for tomorrow", he said. "Governments can do their part by regulating the sustainability of supply chains and creating market-based incentives that reward biofuels with low CO2.

"Then it’s down to companies like ours [Shell] to develop and deploy better and better products.

"The argument that we should not touch biofuels until they are perfect is really an argument to abandon them altogether", he concluded.  "That to me is self-defeating in a world of hard truths."

text of the full speech is available here