Press Release – Al Gore to Address the Biofuels Industry

Former Vice President Al Gore confirmed today his participation at the World Biofuels Markets Congress at the Brussels Expo Centre, Belgium 6-9 March 2007. World Biofuels Markets is widely regarded as the premier business networking congress and exhibition for the global renewable fuels industry.

[ClickPress, Thu Oct 05 2006] Former Vice President Al Gore confirmed today his participation at the World Biofuels Markets Congress at the Brussels Expo Centre, Belgium 6-9 March 2007. Well known for his understanding and support of a wide range of solutions to climate change Mr. Gore in a speech at New York University, recently described the potentially large role biofuels can and will play, as the industry develops beyond these first generation fuels. Currently, it is moving rapidly towards it's 2nd/3rd generation cycles and into a true bio-economy.

World Biofuels Markets is widely regarded as the premier business networking congress and exhibition for the global renewable fuels industry and is organised in conjunction with the European Biodiesel Board and the European Bioethanol Fuels Association.

The inaugural event demonstrated the incredible boom that the global bioenergy industry is experiencing and was a complete sell out, attracting over 450+ participants from 45 countries. For 2007 the event has moved to the much larger state of the art Brussels Expo facility and the event organisers, Green Power Conferences reported that well over 650 high level executives are expected. Event Director, Nadim Chaudhry explained “the industry is rapidly building out its 1st generation infrastructure, this may only have a small impact on GHG (greenhouse gases) from road transport but it is a prelude to the rapidly evolving 2nd/3rd generation technology paths. The 2nd generation technologies such as cellulosic ethanol and woody biomass to liquids are receiving a large sum of venture capital funding, as they seek the “holy grail” of supplying low cost renewable fuels”.

When asked about what sort of timescales we could expect to see the benefits of these investments Chaudhry confirmed “I believe there are various pilot projects running at the moment and we would expect to see commercial scale 2nd generation plants launching around 2011-2012 and then the so called “3rd generation” molecular or consolidated bioprocessing happening around 2020”.

When questioned further about the key challenges the industry faced in the next few years, Chaudhry commented “Firstly stabilising the policy framework to support the industry through this crucial growth phase is important. We are expecting Alfonso Finat Gonzalez to shed some light on possible amendments to EC Commission’s 2003 Biofuels Directive in his Keynote Speech. Stability is key to ensuring the full participation of banks and the investment community”. Secondly biofuels are environmental products and it is crucial that all environmental impacts are accurately assessed, full Well to Wheel Life Cycle Assessments are required for the full range of feedstocks and an effective Certification System used to ensure the sustainable origins such as that being developed by the Low CV Partnership”.

Pioneering companies Bioverda NTR and Rabobank have already been confirmed as Congress Sponsors. Bioverda is the recently launched Bioenergy Division of Ireland's leading infrastructure company, NTR and Rabobank is the Dutch bank that is a leader in alternative energy and agri-industry financing.

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