By 2050, the population of the world will surpass 9.6 billion people [1]. Such increase in the global population will be accompanied by increase in income and changes in diet. Global need for crop is expected to increase by 100 to 110% and the demand for food by 60% [2,3]. One of the challenges with a growing population is environmental pressures especially habitat change, climate change, water...

Global warming is a deteriorating international issue linked to the continuous rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) due to an increase in worldwide energy consumption with the burning of fossil fuels[1]. A new alternative and sustainable fuel source must be found to replace fossil fuel uses, and to prevent global energy crisis. Microalgae, a promising biofuel feedstock, with a much greater ...

This study develops a theoretical general equilibrium model to examine optimal externality tax policy in the presence of externalities linked to one another through markets rather than technical production relationships. Analytical results reveal that the second-best externality tax rate may be greater or less than the first-best rate, depending largely on the elasticity of substitution between...

In the last decades the increasing energy requirements along with the need to face the consequences of climate change have driven the search for renewable energy sources, in order to replace as much as possible the use of fossil fuels. In this context biomass has generated great interest as it can be converted into energy via several routes, including fermentation and anaerobic digestion. The f...

We give a selective survey of oligopoly models for energy production which capture to varying degrees issues such as exhaustibility of fossil fuels, development of renewable sources, exploration and new technologies, and changing costs of production. Our main focus is on dynamic Cournot competition with exhaustible resources. We trace the resulting theory of competitive equilibria and discuss s...

Practical applications of phytoremediation are essential for the clean-up of moderately and severely contaminated sites in an economical and environmentally responsible way. The usage of plants to do a job that would otherwise be done by chemicals or energy intensive soil removal is a natural choice on several levels. First, by using plants for clean-up, pollutants are being absorbed by nature ...

Crop residues have been considered during the past decade as alternate energy sources to supplement dwindling fossil fuel sources and enhance energy independence in the United States. Agricultural scientists have demonstrated the importance of crop residues in reducing soil erosion, enhancing the soil physical environment for plant growth, and as a reserve for major crop nutrients. In eastern N...

Planning for electricity generation systems is a very important task and should take environmental and economic factors into account. This paper reviews the existing metrics and methods in evaluating energy sustainability, and we propose a sustainability assessment index system. The input indexes include generation capacity, generation cost, and land use. The output indexes include desirable an...

Coal is an important fossil fuel and will also be for the next decades [1]. The only way to achieve the challenges faced by the coal industry is to reduce production costs by improving productivity. Improvement of productivity has become an important goal for today’s coal industry in the race to increase price competitiveness. In recent years, underground mining method is becoming popular becau...