The environmental impacts of biomass utilisation for energy and industrial products are quite significant, and are arguably greater in scale and scope than any other class of energy resources—renewable or non renewable—due to the intensive use of land, water and other resources. Unlike fossil resources, however, the impacts can be positive or negative, depending on the effect on soils, local ecology, and nutrients. The long term sustainability of biomass utilisation, industrial biotechnology, and bioenergy production can be assessed along several dimensions, including soils, nutrients, fossil fuels, and water use (Reijnders, 2006). Other categories of environmental impacts include biodiversity as discussed below. .
