Does biofuel harm the environment?

If you’re looking to power your car with biofuels — be it ethanol or biodiesel — the future has never looked more promising. Farmers from the Corn Belt to the Brazilian heartland are planting more crops for biofuels each year, and with the push to reduce dependence on oil, domestic demand is only going to increase. Yet, two basic consumer problems remain: it’s still hard to find stations that carry renewable fuels, and there’s no system for differentiating between biofuels that reduce climate change and those that fan its fires.
Some scientists have talked of creating a certification for biofuels — similar to the EnergyStar rating for appliances or LEED for buildings — but the system for measuring the full lifecycles of biofuels isn’t advanced enough at this time, according to Nathanael Greene, a senior analyst and expert on fuel technology at the Natural Resource Defense Council.

“The short answer is there probably won’t be a certification any time soon,” says Greene. “There’s certainly no way for a consumer today to know the environmental quality they’re getting for any type of fuel — biofuel or petro fuel.”

MNN