Browsing by Subject "biofuels"
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(2017)NGO presence is an important factor driving the policy discussion in the field of EU environmental policy, where key legislation on climate is on its way and expected up until 2030 in order to materialise the EU:s climate ambitions. Renewable energy is of the cornerstones of EU climate and energy policy in the transport sector, and the EU biofuel policy has been of topical concern for some time now. A large share of the renewable energy in the transport sector is still expected to come from biofuels, which have raised questions about the sustainability and climate benefits of EU biofuels policy. The sustainability issues of biofuel production are kept topical not least because of active pressure from media and NGOs. Internationally, in the aftermath of the worldwide food price rise of 2007-2008, environmental NGOs were successful in turning political pressure on the topic of biofuels and land grabbing. Similarly, in the EU, environmental NGOs are vocal in this policy field and pressure from them probably played an important role in pushing the European Commission to bring forward the legislative proposal of the ILUC Directive in 2012, which aimed at limiting the negative effects of EU biofuel production and to raise the climate benefits of EU biofuels - a case of high importance for the environmental NGOs. J.L. Austin’s speech act theory outlines that to say something in the right circumstances is not always merely saying or describing, but doing something. Austin’s theory of speech acts provides both the theoretical and methodological frameworks for this thesis, where the aim is to analyse how policy is constructed through language and how environmental NGOs participate in the construction of EU biofuel policy. Rather than asking about the reasonings or possibilities behind the NGOs intentions or possibilities to participate in the shaping of policy, the aim is to show that policy is constructed by certain norms through certain speech acts. The thesis analyses NGO utterances in a set of publications and compares these utterances to the final legislative act in order to see how successful the NGO speech acts were and to what extent they were directly or indirectly reflected in final legislation. The thesis finds that saying something in the right circumstances and in the right way is indeed not only saying or describing something, but doing something. Language and words are used to do things, and the NGOs analysed here are successful in participating in the construction of EU biofuel policy through the use of language and speech acts.
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(2009)Political incentives often have a central role in bioenergy production. Influence of these incentives is expected to increase, because conventional fossil fuels are draining and the climate change forces policy makers to react. Hence, the demand for biofuels is also expected to grow. Woodbased fuels are the most important biofuel and renewable energy source in Finland. Woodbased fuels are almost equally divided into liquid byproducts of the pulp industry and solid woodbased fuels. This study focuses on solid woodbased fuels, because these solid fuels have markets unlike e.g. black liquor and because these shares increase. In this study, the solid woodbased fuels include forest chips, bark, sawdust, industrial chips, recycled wood and pellets. One aim of the study is to formulate a general view of the Finnish woodbased fuel markets. The demand is analysed by using the statistics of The Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) and the supply by using existing literature. Metla compiles statistics about the utilization of woodbased fuels from over 700 energy facilities, comparing several categories of woodbased fuels. This study overwiews the period from 2003 to 2007. Energy facilities are divided into four different so that the specifics of the demand can be identified. Another aim of the thesis is to study the impact of emissions trading on woodbased fuel utilization. Emissions trading is the most important instrument for improving the competitive advantage of renewable energy production for energy facilities that belong to the scheme, producing heat or electricity with over 20 MW nominal effect. The growth in the credit price of 2 co emissions increases the demand for biofuels and reduces the demand for fossil fuel in energy facilities of over 20 MW. Empirical analysis are carried out for different energy facility categories. Large community facilities are more sensitive to the changes of credit price than the forest industry`s plants. Energy facilities with 520 MW nominal capacities reduce the woodbased fuel utilization, when the credit price rises. This flux diminishes the effect of the emissions trading. On the other hand, it seems that changes in credit price do not affect the woodbased fuel consumption in energy facilities of less than 5 MW. The utilization of woodbased fuels will change due to the stuctural changes in the forest industry. The production of byproducts, such as bark, decreases with diminishing quantaties of traditional forest industry products. If the increasing demand was met, forest chip utilization should be added. However, especially the restriction of production in the sawmill industry decreases the supply of harvesting residues chip and forest chip production shifts more towards energy wood thinning. Also, the use of woodbased fuels among different energy facilities is changing. The utilization of woodbased fuels has traditionally been centralized in the forest industry units using industrial byproducts. Nowadays, it is also an important energy source for the energy production facilities of the communities due to different policy instruments. This has affected that the trade of woodbased fuels has increased.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2