Driving home the wrong message? Biofuels bonanza or biofuels bombshell? Experts gathered at the Royal Show to consider the issues. Charles Abel reports.(PERSPECTIVE)

Biofuel interest is booming, but its future will be far from smooth, warned BBC rural affairs correspondent Tom Heap at a Royal Show biofuels conference.

"British biofuel is proving to be a monstrous challenge to get off the ground, not only as an industry, but as something that is actually being used on the roads. I think there will be huge trouble ahead.

"Being climate-friendly is not their unique selling point, it is their only selling point, and the claims need to be 100% true," he stressed.

Environmentalists and the media were eager to test claims on energy saving and greenhouse gas production. "It's on a knife-edge. Biofuels have to be climate neutral not just as a fuel, but also as the infrastructure involved. There is nothing journalists like better than false claims.

"There's also biodiversity to dwell on, and the fuel-versus-food issue. If you are driving your biofuel car at the expense of someone else's hunger there isn't going to be much of a feelgood factor."

Claims that biofuel production pushed prices up elsewhere were wrong, said Graham Meeks, head of fuels and heat at the Renewable Energy Association.

"Livestock grain users, brewers--and almost anyone using grain--are turning to biofuels as a scapegoat for high prices, whereas global trade issues are the cause."