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ENERGY

Minister: ban biofuel, it boosts famine

Biofuel containing corn should be banned from German petrol pumps, a minister has demanded, as droughts and a dramatic rise in food prices mean more of the world population is going hungry.

Minister: ban biofuel, it boosts famine
Photo: DPA

“Rising food prices mean that biofuel can contribute to increased world hunger. That’s why we need to suspend E10,” Development Minister Dirk Niebel told the ntv television station on Wednesday.

Niebel’s demand for an immediate stop to the sale of E10 biofuel at German petrol stations has been welcomed by German aid organisations.

E10 – which was introduced last year and has in any case proved unpopular among German drivers – contains 10 percent bioethanol produced from corn crops which could otherwise be used to make foodstuffs.

It was promoted as contributing to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, as well as the 10 percent being renewable rather than fossil fuel.

“It’s unjust and irresponsible that people have to starve so that we can fill up our cars with an apparently clean conscience,” Rainer Lang, spokesman for the “Brot für die Welt” protestant aid organisation told the Westdeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday.

The German World Hunger Association also welcomed Niebel’s suggestion that food production should be the priority in times of drought and famine and agreed that growing corn for biofuel was inappropriate given the dramatic rise in food prices.

“We need to consider in the cabinet how we can solve the conflict between the pump and the plate,” said Niebel.

The price of corn is currently rocketing as the worst drought for more than 50 years hits the USA. According to the UN, one in seven people on the planet – or 925 million – do not get enough to eat.

Meanwhile, the German biofuel industry has denied it exacerbates world hunger, wrote Die Zeit newspaper on Thursday.

“Only 4 percent of the German corn harvest went on bioethanol production last year,” managing director of the German Biofuel Industry Association (VDB) Elmar Baumann told the paper. A ban on E10 would do nothing to help the hungry in developing countries, he added.

DAPD/The Local/jlb

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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