Ecofiscal commission report says its time to drop costly biofuels subsidies
OTTAWA — A blue-chip group of economists says federal and provincial government biofuel subsidies are an expensive experiment and it’s time to let them expire.
A study released Tuesday by Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission finds that ethanol and biodiesel policies cost consumers and governments about $640 million a year — while cutting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by about three million tonnes annually.
Put another way, the report says that every tonne of carbon dioxide reduced by using ethanol costs at least $180 while biodiesel reductions cost at least $128.
And even those high price tags, states the report, may severely under-represent the true cost per tonne of CO2 reductions when the full life-cycle emissions of biofuels are taken into account.