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Canada, which approved $2 billion in subsidies for the biofuels industry three years ago, will spend between $50,001 to $100,000 to assess the environmental impacts of biofuels.  The move comes in response to recent studies in the US suggesting biofuels are not quite all that they’re cracked up to be.

Briefing notes prepared by Environment Canada, the environmental watchdog for Canada’s government, warned in 2006 that:

Based on global Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of biofuel production, impacts on acidification, land degradation, waste generation, water use and human and environmental impacts were found more often to be unfavourable than favourable.

Despite the warnings, the government approved subsidies for ethanol from wheat and corn, and to a lesser extent, “next generation” biofuels for the next decade.

More information is available here.

Image: Flickr/AP&F