Critics of biofuels under no obligation to be accurate

This week sees the start of another of those green initiatives that set out to meet the environmentalists’ demands to “do something about climate change”. As from today, under something called the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), transport fuels sold in the UK have to contain 2.5 per cent biofuel.

Just two weeks before it was due to come into effect, and after companies had committed themselves to spending billions to meet the RTFO, Greenpeace, aroused by reports of shippers wanting to grab at US subsidies by shipping biofuels to and fro across the Atlantic, suddenly decided that it didn’t like the idea.

Don’t worry, we aren’t going to dive into the green debate. There really is a business story in here and one that concerns high-tech startups. Well high-ish tech.

Sustainable energy is a hot area for investors these days. The Carlyle Group, for example, has invested in a bunch of businesses including Ensus. This startup company, with both a chairman and CEO who spent years developing their engineering skills in ICI, before that bastion of the chemical sector evaporated, is spending