by Andy Reid (Sun Sentinel) A biofuel plant offering renewable energy could become a never-ending headache for neighborhoods west of Delray Beach, worried residents argued Thursday. Pressure from residents helped persuade the county Zoning Commission Thursday to vote against a proposal that
land use
Back TO HOMEAfrica: Up for Grabs
(Friends of the Earth International) The African continent is increasingly being seen as a source of agricultural land and natural resources for the rest of the world. National governments and private companies are obtaining access to land across the continent
August 30, 2010 Read Full Article
African Case Study: Palm Oil and Economic Development in Nigeria and Ghana; Recommendations for the World Bank's 2010 Palm Oil Strategy
by Thompson Ayodele (Initiative for Public Policy Analysis) Forward by Dr. Matthew O. Eshalomi: Growth and prosperity of an economy are central to the longterm reduction in poverty for both economic and environmental sustainability. Palm oil and palm oil manufacturing represents
August 24, 2010 Read Full Article
Brazilian Biofuels Run into EU Obstacles
by Yans Felippe Geckler (IPS News) Brazil has begun a counterattack on the European Union's measures for certifying crop-based fuels, which could lead to import barriers for this energy source coming from the South American giant. ...The EU's certification requirements for
August 24, 2010 Read Full Article
The Land Rush Doesn't Have to End in a Poor Deal for Africans
by Katie Allen (The Guardian) It is not too late for equitable partnerships to flourish between foreign investors and local communities ...Sadly for anyone who happens to live on that farmland there are countless examples of governments handing it over at
August 17, 2010 Read Full Article
Farmers & Ranchers Don’t Deserve Blame For World Hunger
by Richard Keller (Cattle Network) As renewable fuels continues to be something that people of the world support in general, there also continues to be those complaints that crop production and land use for fuels is inappropriate when so much
August 10, 2010 Read Full Article
World Bank Says Foreign Investors Are Crowding Out African Producers
by Katie Allen (The Guardian) Leaked report says wealthy investors are threatening local resources as they buy up farmland to gain on commodity prices A leaked World Bank report into investors from rich nations buying up African farmland has intensified campaigners'
July 30, 2010 Read Full Article
25 Million Acres of Corn with Nowhere to Go, by 2030? A Digest Special Report
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...(D)oomsayers who have been predicting an inevitable conflict between food and fuel appear to have been completely off the mark. Rather than a shortage of food, the increased pace of biotechnology innovation associated with bioenergy is
July 07, 2010 Read Full Article
Considerations for Factoring Biomass into Clean Energy
(Washington Post) Editorial ...Many lawmakers want the government to require utilities to derive a certain percentage of their electricity from clean sources. And one of the sources that would probably qualify is so-called renewable biomass -- everything from forest debris
July 06, 2010 Read Full Article
USDA Report Punches Another Hole in Land Use Change Theory
(Renewable Fuels Association) The amount of land dedicated to crops in the United States has dropped for the second straight year in 2010, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The report, which shows total cropland
July 01, 2010 Read Full Article
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation by Agricultural Intensification
by Jennifer A. Burney, Steven J. Davis, and David B. Lobell (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) As efforts to mitigate climate change increase, there is a need to identify cost-effective ways to avoid emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Agriculture is
June 26, 2010 Read Full Article
Biomass Better than Coal? War over Carbon Accounting Erupts
by Jim Lane (Biomass Digest) In Washington, the Environment Working Group has released a study that claims the impacts of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA)—which has already passed the House of Representatives—would require the equivalent of cutting
June 24, 2010 Read Full Article
China Corn Purchases Could Exceed 1 Million Tonnes
(Farm Chemicals International) The US Grains Council (USGC) says China could increase its corn purchases from the US to more than 1 million tonnes during the next 18 months, according to Bloomberg. Thomas Dorr, USGC president, stated that he "wouldn’t be
June 21, 2010 Read Full Article
High-Yield Agriculture Slows Pace of Global Warming, Say Stanford Researchers
by Louis Bergeron (Stanford University) Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere – the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide – according
June 21, 2010 Read Full Article
Life Cycle Assessment Comparing the Use of Jatropha Biodiesel in the Indian Road and Rail Sectors
by Michael Whitaker and Garvin Heath (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) This life cycle assessment of Jatropha biodiesel production and use evaluates the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emission (not considering land-use change), net energy value (NEV), and net petroleum consumption impacts of substituting Jatropha
June 08, 2010 Read Full Article
Palm Oil’s Promotion as Diesel Alternative Draws Fire
by Beth Gardiner (New York Times) Ubiquitous in products from cookies to cosmetics, and increasingly in European fuel tanks, too, palm oil is driving the destruction of some of Southeast Asia’s last tracts of untouched rainforest and leading to huge
June 04, 2010 Read Full Article
RFA: Carbon Accounting Should Be Equitable, Based on Science
(Renewable Fuels Association) The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) today continued to call into question accounting gimmicks and unproven theories used by environmental activists seeking to undermine the growth of biofuels as a way to displace fossil fuels. The latest iteration is a
June 04, 2010 Read Full Article
Biofuels: Putting Pressure on Petrol
by Mark Bünger (RenewableEnergyWorld.com) ...To date, most biofuels and biomaterials developers have focused on lab- and demo-scale studies to improve performance and reduce cost so they can compete with petroleum products, and those goals are coming within sight. But in order
June 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Food, Feed and Fuel Combine for a Modicum of Grain Price Stability
by Treena Hein (Australian Farm Journal/June 2010) Despite all the debate about negative climate change impacts on agriculture and rising world population increasing demand for food, the stark reality is that world grain stocks are finely balanced. Treena Hein discovers
June 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Figuring Land Use into Renewable-Energy Equation
by Martin LaMonica (CNET, ZDNet) Imagine if your country had an unlimited budget but a limited amount of land: what renewable energy has the most potential? Rutgers University professor Clinton Andrews and colleagues ran the numbers on this thought experiment and came
June 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Hanford Land Has Potential after Cleanup, Leaders Say
by Annette Cary (TriCityHerald.com) The Hanford nuclear reservation is getting cleaned up, and some of its land will be available for new uses in 2015, just when Hanford employment is dropping, said Gary Petersen, Tri-City Development Council vice president of Hanford
May 25, 2010 Read Full Article
Indirect Land Use: One Consideration Too Many in Biofuel Regulation
by David Zilberman, Gal Hochman, and Deepak Rajagopal (Agricultural and Resource Economics Update -- University of California) ...While including Indirect Land Use Effects in assessing the impact of biofuel seems appealing, we will argue here against an indirect land use in biofuel
May 21, 2010 Read Full Article
EPA's 'Tailoring Rule' and the Biomass Industry
(RenewableEnergyWorld.com) ...Including biomass power plants under the EPA’s tailoring rule is a clear policy shift and may imply a change in position for future policy. The lack of distinction between renewable biomass as an alternative fuel to traditional fossil fuels like
May 21, 2010 Read Full Article
What If There Is No Climate/Energy Bill? Civil Society Institute Report from Synapse Shows Clean Energy Future Still Possible for US
(The Clean) With Uncertainty Mounting About Climate/Energy Bill, Major New Study for CSI Details Path for Breaking Away From "Business As Usual" in the Electric Power Sector. What happens if Congress fails to pass a climate or energy bill in 2010? Even
May 13, 2010 Read Full Article
“You Have a Friend in Bioenergy”: Sustainability, Advanced Biofuels, Rural Incomes and the Developing World
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...With respect to energy security, consider this: it is estimated that ten percent of all US military casualties come from the delivery of fuel. Even if it were true that none of the deployments of
May 06, 2010 Read Full Article
Purdue Report Refutes Indirect Land Use Numbers
(Farm Futures) A recently completed analysis from Purdue University concluded that the California Air Resources Board overestimated the indirect land use change impact of grain-based ethanol by a factor of two in developing its Low Carbon Fuels Standard one year
May 04, 2010 Read Full Article
Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana
by George C. Schoneveld, Laura A. German, and Eric Nutakor (World Bank) This paper assesses the effectiveness of the Ghanaian legal and institutional framework in managing the trade-offs of large-scale land acquisition, particularly for biofuel feedstock expansion. The research focuses
May 03, 2010 Read Full Article
America Has Lost More Than Twenty-three Million Acres of Agricultural Land
(American Farmland Trust) —“The findings from the 2007 National Resources Inventory (NRI) serve as a stark reminder that our nation’s agricultural land base—and the benefits it supplies—is threatened by poorly planned development,” says Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust
May 03, 2010 Read Full Article
NY Study Shows Biofuel Could Decrease Pollution, Create Jobs, and Increase Energy Security
(News Channel 34) New York sources of biofuel made from wood, grass and other forms of biomass could reduce New York’s gasoline consumption by as much as 16 percent of projected use in 2020 and play a significant role in
May 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Attention Whole Foods Shoppers: Your "Sustainable" Mantra -- Organic, Local, and Slow -- Is No Recipe for Saving the World's Hungry Millions
by Robert Paarlberg (Foreign Policy) ... Food has become an elite preoccupation in the West, ironically, just as the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have fallen out of fashion. Helping the world's poor feed themselves is no longer
April 30, 2010 Read Full Article
Scientists Say Growing Grain for Food Is More Energy Efficient
(Michigan State University) Using productive farmland to grow crops for food instead of fuel is more energy efficient, Michigan State University scientists concluded, after poring over 17 years’ worth of data to help settle the food versus fuel debate. "It's 36
April 20, 2010 Read Full Article
Jatropha: Mozambique's New Biofuel Hope
by Jeffrey Barbee (Global Post) ...Sun Biofuels, a British company, has been planting thousands of acres of jatropha at a former tobacco farm here and in other sites in Africa. The company hopes the jatropha oil will help it cash
April 19, 2010 Read Full Article
Biofuels Digest Special Report on Biofuels, Genomics, and Feedstock Development
by Mackinnon Lawrence (Biofuels Digest) ...Genomics research can be applied to energy crops to select for sequencing based on relevance to the DOE missions. Projects focus on one of three key aspects: the development of biofuel feedstocks; the identification of
April 02, 2010 Read Full Article
Liquid Biofuels:Background Brief for the World Bank Group Energy Sector Strategy
(Masami Kojima of the Oil, Gas, and Mining PolicyDivision of the World Bank/Scribd.com) Liquid biofuels are being increasingly used to substitute fuels derived from oil. A number of governments have provided incentives for the liquid biofuel industry, prompted by a desire
March 30, 2010 Read Full Article
Angolan Parliament Approves New Biofuels Law
by Henrique Almeida (Reuters) Angola's parliament on Wednesday approved a new law to regulate the production of biofuels, opening the way for multi-billion dollar investments in the sector. The African nation, which rivals Nigeria as the continent's top oil producer, hopes
March 25, 2010 Read Full Article
Shapoorji, Ethiopia Ink 50,000ha Land Deal
by Shutapa Paul (liveMint.com, Wall Street Journal) The 140-year old construction firm, Shapoorji Pallonji and Co. Ltd, signed an agreement with the government of Ethiopia to take on lease up to 50,000ha of land to cultivate pongamia pinnata—a feedstock for
March 23, 2010 Read Full Article
Farm Economy Follows Lead of U.S. Recovery, Says Annual FAPRI Baseline Report to Congress
The livestock sector can lead the agricultural economy to higher net farm income, assuming the farm economy benefits from a recovering general U.S. economy. That analysis tops a 2010 baseline report prepared by the University of Missouri Food and Agricultural Policy
March 23, 2010 Read Full Article
International Energy Forum's Assessment of Biofuels Potential and Limitiations
by Claude Mandil and Adnan Shihab-Eldin (International Energy Forum) Biofuels production, driven by the potential to contribute to energy security, climate change mitigation and rural development, has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Several countries have initiated policies to support
March 22, 2010 Read Full Article
Europe Kicks Off the Global Bioenergy Project
At least 20% of the energy needs in Europe can be met by bioenergy from sustainable agriculture without compromising food safety and security. Key sustainability issues such as the use of water and maintenance of biodiversity can be respected. In
March 16, 2010 Read Full Article
How Food And Water Are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab
by John Vidal (The Guardian; The Observer) ...The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two
March 16, 2010 Read Full Article
University of Minnesota Speaker Says Global Land Use Must Be Considered in Biofuel Debate
by Heather Thorstensen (AgriNews.com) John Sheehan of the University of Minnesota says the debate on biofuels should shift from food versus fuel to how land is used globally for biofuel production and other purposes. "We need to not look at land
March 16, 2010 Read Full Article
Claims in ActionAid Publication against Biofuels Largely Questionable
(European Bioethanol Fuel Association) “Meals per Gallons”, a publication against biofuels recently produced by ActionAid, is based largely on unfounded claims, disputed data and one-sided arguments says eBio, the European Bioehtanol Industry Association. “In particular, the report paints biofuels as the villain
March 01, 2010 Read Full Article
UC Merced Scientist Honored for Biofuels Research
(Central Valley Business Times) The mass production of biofuels could be a major step toward eliminating dependence on fossil fuels, but a number of factors have stood in the way, including the argument against using productive agricultural land for fuel
February 15, 2010 Read Full Article
Getting a True Measure on Biofuels: Effects of 'Indirect' Land Use Figure in Energy Future
by C. Boyden Gray (Washington Times) Little noticed outside a small policy community, an issue has quietly arisen in recent years that, while seemingly technical, has the potential to derail the nation's attempts to address the issues of energy security
February 15, 2010 Read Full Article
Weizmann Institute scientists show that in one kind of forest, its ‘energy budget’ includes significant reserves of heat
The simple formula we’ve learned in recent years – forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming – may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat,
January 29, 2010 Read Full Article
International Technology Action Plan on Bioenergy Released
Bioenergy includes any kind of chemical energy accumulated through photosynthetic processes in organic plant matter (i.e., biomass). Example sources of bioenergy include dedicated energy crops (short rotation wood, perennial grasses), agricultural and forestry products and wastes, biogas resulting from the
December 15, 2009 Read Full Article
Deforestation and Exploitation in Papua's Plantations Boom
(Environmental Investigation Agency) Field investigations by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telapak reveal that ill-prepared indigenous Papuan communities are being enticed, tricked and sometimes coerced into releasing large swathes of forested land to powerful conglomerates, backed by overseas investors
November 11, 2009 Read Full Article
The 7% Solution: Sustainable US Biofuels without International Indirect Land Use Effects
by Robert E. Kozak (Advanced Biofuels USA) Looking at some real-world numbers, it becomes clear that the fear raised in Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error, Science, October 23, 2009, misses the point. Growing energy crops, including perennial grasses or
October 23, 2009 Read Full Article
Africa: Land-Grabbing - the Why and the How
by Nikolaj Nielsen (All Africa.com; Pambazuka News) … Biofuels were then and continue to be in many respects hyped as an environmentally friendly alternative to oil-based transport fuels. The United States, the EU and other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation
October 12, 2009 Read Full Article
Biofuels in Asia: An Analysis of Sustanability Options
(Clean Energy Asia) The purpose of this report is to provide an objective and comprehensive regional analysis summarizing the benefits and risks of biofuels development in Asia, and examining the istribution and use of biofuels through the lens of global