U.N. Panel Finds Environmental Assessments of Biofuels Lacking

The New York Times
By BEN GEMAN of Greenwire
Published: October 16, 2009

A U.N. panel said today that biofuels' effects on air and water have not been sufficiently explored despite growing global production.

The U.N. Environment Programme's report (pdf) concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affect the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways.

"The available knowledge from life-cycle-assessments ... seems limited, despite the fact that for those issues many biofuels cause higher environmental pressures than fossil fuels," the report says.

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