Europe’s plans to more than double its use of biofuels by 2020 is ‘significantly’ adding to worldwide carbon emissions, according to a new report. Europe is committed to source 10 per cent of its transport fuel from renewable sources, such as biofuels, within 10 years. But the British government says the policy is proving counterproductive and the greenhouse emissions associated with biofuels a...

Although there are very few biomass-derived fuels which are competitive to fossil fuels, the scientific research community has never ceased to search for renewable biofuel alternatives. For use in the transportation sector, a practical biofuel must: • be produced economically and efficiently; • have a relatively high energy density, in both volume and weight, in order to achieve competitive mil...

Forest residue has been proposed as a feasible candidate for cellulosic biofuels. However, the number of studies assessing its water use remains limited. This work aims to analyze the impacts of forest-based biofuel on water resources and quality by using a water footprint approach. A method established here is tailored to the production system, which includes softwood, hardwood, and short-rota...

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a broadly adapted warm-season grass species native to most of the central and eastern United States. Switchgrass has been identified as a potential biofuel species because it is a native species that requires minimal management, and has a large potential to sequester carbon underground. Since the 1990’s, switchgrass has been bred to produce cultivars with in...

biofuels present promising opportunities for Latin-American countries, since most countries in the region have a strong potential regarding biofuel production. However, the technology is not without costs. Biofuel production has faced criticisms regarding its environmental and social impacts. Most of them are related to indirect land use changes due to biofuel expansion. This paper aims at pres...

Many developed nations depend on oil for the production of gasoline, diesel, and natural gas. Meanwhile, oil shortages progress and bottlenecks in oil productions continue to materialize. These and other factors result in an energy crisis, which cause detrimental social and economic effects. Because of the impending energy crisis, various potential energy sources have developed including solar,...

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp. hybrids) has great potential as a major feedstock for biofuel production worldwide. It is considered among the best options for producing biofuels today due to an exceptional biomass production capacity, high carbohydrate (sugar + fiber) content, and a favorable energy input/output ratio. To maximize the conversion of sugarcane biomass into biofuels, it is imperative t...

[1] Open fire biomass burning and domestic biofuel burning (e.g., cooking, heating, and charcoal making) algorithms have been incorporated into a terrestrial ecosystem model to estimate CO2 and key reactive GHGs (CO, NOx, and NMHCs) emissions for the year 2000. The emissions are calculated over the globe at a 0.5 0.5 spatial resolution using tree density imagery, and two separate sets of data e...

In 2010, concerns regarding Japan’s excessive dependence on imports for food and energy caused the Japanese government to introduce subsidies to stimulate biofuel crop production. In this paper, we study the viability of price subsidies and certain other policies with respect to increasing the production of biofuel crops. First, we estimate the elasticity of the supply of Japanese agriculture w...

We estimate the contributions from biomass burning (summer wildfires, other fires, residential biofuel, and industrial biofuel) to seasonal and annual aerosol concentrations in the United States. Our approach is to use total carbonaceous (TC) and non-soil potassium (ns-K) aerosol mass concentrations for 2001–2004 from the nationwide IMPROVE network of surface sites, together with satellite fire...