UK biofuel 'misunderstood'
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INVESTMENT IN biofuels in the UK has dried up since a major Parliamentary committee questioned whether or not producing it did more harm than good, says the trade association for environmental technology.
The Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) is highly critical of the committee because, the EIC says, it fails to distinguish between biofuel produced in sustainable and unsustainable ways.
An EIC spokeswoman says: They have created a level of uncertainty which means that nobody is now investing in biofuels."
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee said this month that "policies that encourage demand for first-generation biofuels are damaging".
One of the fears is that the crops grown to make biofuels should be used to make food instead, particularly in Third World countries, where food supply is a critical issue.
The EIC spokeswoman says: "They haven't made any distinction between good biofuel and bad biofuel. Some biofuel is produced from waste, for example, and all the wheat grown for biofuel in the UK is produced in a sustainable fashion."