Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?: Ambuj D. Sagar and Sivan Kartha

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.
org
by PALCI on 07/28/08. For personal use only.
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Bioenergy and Sustainable

Development?
Ambuj D. Sagar1 and Sivan Kartha2
1
Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, John F. Kennedy School of

Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139;
email: asagar@seas.harvard.edu
Stockholm Environment Institute, Somerville, Massachusetts 02144;

email: skartha@sei-us.org
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2007. 32:13167
Key Words
First published online as a Review in Advance on

August 23, 2007
biodiesel, bioethanol, biofuels, biomass, clean energy, cookstoves
The Annual Review of Environment and Resources

is online at http://environ.annualreviews.org
This articles doi:
10.1146/annurev.energy.32.062706.132042
c 2007 by Annual Reviews.
Copyright
All rights reserved
1543-5938/07/1121-0131$20.00
Abstract
Traditional biomass remains the dominant contributor to the energy
supply of a large number of developing countries, where it serves the
household energy needs of over a third of humanity in traditional
cookstoves or open res. Efforts to reduce the enormous human
health, socioeconomic, and environmental impacts by shifting to
cleaner cookstoves and cleaner biomass-derived fuels have had some
success, but much more needs to be done, possibly including the expanded use of fossil-derived fuels. Concurrently, biomass is rapidly
expanding as a commercial energy source, especially for transport
fuels. Bioenergy can positively contribute to climate goals and rural
livelihoods; however, if not implemented carefully, it could exacerbate degradation of land, water bodies, and ecosystems; reduce food
security; and increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For largescale commercial biofuels to contribute to sustainable development
will require agriculturally sustainable methods and markets that provide enhanced livelihood opportunities and equitable terms of trade.
The challenge lies in translating the opportunity into reality.
131
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Contents
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. ENERGY FOR POOR
HOUSEHOLDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1. Biomass Use in Households
and (Un)sustainable
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2. Alternatives to Traditional Use
of Biomass in Households . . . . . .
2.3. Prospects for Sustainable and
Clean Energy for the Poor . . . . .
3. LARGE-SCALE, COMMERCIAL
BIOENERGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1. Technological Options for
Biofuels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2. Energy and Environmental
Aspects of Biofuels Production
and Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3. Biotechnology Controversies
Redux? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4. Land Requirements and Land
Availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5. Socioeconomic Issues . . . . . . . . .
4. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
132
133
134
135
137
139
140
143
150
150
152
155
1. INTRODUCTION
Bioenergy has two faces. It is the dominant source of energy for more than a third
of the worlds population (1), taking the
form of dung, agricultural wastes, and wood
fuel burned in generally inefcient and polluting cookstoves. At the same time, it is
the most rapidly growing modern renewable energy source, yielding transport fuels and power at industrial scales to deliver
modern energy services. These two faces of
bioenergythe traditional and the modern
present daunting sustainable development
challenges.
Traditional bioenergy is a challenge in that
it is deeply imbedded in the day-to-day lives
of developing country poor and provides vital energy services, but it does so at great human, social, and environmental cost. The shift
132
Sagar
Kartha
away from traditional biomass and its replacement with cleaner and more benign energy
sources higher up the energy ladder are long
overdue. The UN Millennium Project1 has
drawn attention to the deep connection between access to clean household energy and
sustainable development, calling for the number of households using biomass as a cooking fuel to be halved by 2015. The shift away
from traditional biomass will require an evolution in technologies, fuel supply infrastructure, energy and social policies, and even cultural practices.
Modern bioenergy, in contrast, is a challenge insofar as it is poised to grow into a
major contributor to global energy supply,
but whether it will do so in a manner that
is environmentally sound and socially benecial is by no means guaranteed. Although
it is true that bioenergy has many potential
virtues, it has equally striking hazards, and
the wry aphorism todays solutions are tomorrows problems must not be allowed to
hold true for bioenergy. Indeed, one can easily imagine biomass production systems that
are ideally suited to their environment and
that even contribute to improving the environment by revegetating barren land, stabilizing and replenishing topsoil, protecting
watersheds, reclaiming waterlogged and salinated soils, providing habitat for local species,
and sequestering carbonall the while contributing to livelihoods of rural communities.
However, an equally plausible vision is that
of biomass production systems that are fossilfuel intensive, exhaust the soil of nutrients,
exacerbate erosion, deplete or degrade water resources, reduce biodiversity by displacing habitat, increase greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, compete with food production for
The recommendation of the UN Millennium Project is

to Enable the use of modern fuels for 50% of those who
at present use traditional biomass for cooking. In addition,
support (a) efforts to develop and adopt the use of improved
cookstoves, (b) measures to reduce the adverse health impacts from cooking with biomass, and (c) measures to increase sustainable biomass production (2).
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6

arable land and water resources, and undermine the livelihoods of rural communities.
The sustainable development challenge is to
foster the growth of a modern biomass system
that fulls the promise and avoids the pitfalls.
This chapter reviews the major elements of
the sustainable development challenges central to traditional and modern biomass energy.
2. ENERGY FOR POOR

HOUSEHOLDS
Worldwide, biomass has held nearly steady as
a fraction of total primary energy demand,
edging down only slightly from 12% to 11%
over the period from 1971 to 2004, even
while the absolute quantity consumed rose by
about 80% (3). In many parts of the developing world, biomass continues to constitute
a signicant fraction of the primary energy
supplynearly half in the case of Africa and
more than 80% for many countries (such as
Nigeria, Tanzania, and Mozambique in Africa
and Nepal in Asia), with the number of households relying on traditional biomass projected
in a business-as-usual world to continue to
increase.
Although biomass has historically played a
key role in the provision of energy services for
humankind, the last few decades have seen a
range of efforts intended at expanding and improving energy services for the poor in developing countries. This has been part of a larger
trend in these countries to expand their energy sectors more generally. While the global
primary energy supply doubled between 1971
and 2004, the rise in the energy supply in most
developing countries has been faster. Africa,
for example, almost tripled its energy supply
over this period, and non-Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) Asia almost quadrupled its total
primary energy supply (3).
The overall expansion of energy sectors
and their modernization have had some positive impact on their poorer populations, but
in many cases, much still needs to be done.
Biomass continues to play a signicant, even
Table 1
People relying on biomass as their primary cooking fuel,
2004a
Total
population
Rural
Urban
Million
Million
Million
Sub-Saharan
Africa
575
76
413
93
162
58
India
740
69
663
87
77
25
China
480
37
428
55
52
10
Indonesia
156
72
110
95
46
45
Rest of Asia
489
65
455
93
92
35
83
19
75
60
33
2528
52
2147
83
461
23
Latin America
Global
a
Adapted from Reference 1.
central, role in the human and economic fabric of developing countries, particularly in
their rural and periurban areas where a signicant portion of their populations still reside. In fact, even as developing countries have
expanded their energy sectors over the past
few decades, in many countries, energy supply from biomass has grown almost as fast or,
in some cases, even faster.
Almost 50% of the worlds population continues to depend on biomass for its cooking needs (see Table 1). Furthermore, about
40% of the global residential energy consumption comes from biomass, but the fraction in many developing countries is much
higher. In Africa, biomass accounts for about
85% of the residential energy use; in Latin
America, 40%; and in Asia, 75% (3). In many
countries, a majority of the rural and urban
households use solid fuels (primarily biomass)
for their energy needs (4, 5).
Generally poorer countries and those with
a greater fraction of poor populations tend to
rely more on biomass for the energy needs,
as Figure 1 shows. The International Energy
Agency reference scenario indicates that the
number of people dependent on biomass for
cooking and heating will increase to 2.55 billion by 2015 (1).
In the past few decades, there has been
an enormous amount of work on the development and dissemination of household
www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?
133
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
or small-scale bioenergy technologies. Over

time, there have been renements of these
technologies and numerous projects to
demonstrate and/or disseminate these technologies. At the same time, there has emerged
a greater understanding of the ways in which
these bioenergy technologies interact with the
human, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. This section reviews some of the main developments
in these areas.

ANRV325-EG32-05
2.1. Biomass Use in Households and

(Un)sustainable Development
The traditional use of biomass in households
entails its combustion in open res or simple
three-stone or mud stoves for cooking, space
heating, and lighting. Although some of the
earlier concerns about this inefcient mode
of biomass use centered around deforestation
and energy security, over time, the wider and
signicant human, social, and environmental
costs of this dependence on biomass became
more apparent (7, 8):
134
Sagar
The burden of fuel collection falls

mainly upon women and children, who
can spend up to 34 hours gathering
fuel resources every day (9, 10). In many
cases, people may have to travel 510 km
per day gathering fuelwood and end up
carrying heavy loads (1, 9). The involvement of children in this activity can also
have an adverse effect on their schooling
(7).
The use of biomass for cooking and
other energy services such as space heating is a major contributor to indoor air
pollution. The smoke from the combustion of wood and other biomass
such as dung is a veritable cocktail
of harmful pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, aldehydes, benzene, other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and particulate
matter, with adverse health impacts that
slowly have become better understood
Kartha
[for examples of early discussions of this

topic, see (1113)]. There is strong evidence of correlations between such indoor air pollution and acute lower respiratory infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; there is also
some evidence for a host of other health
outcomes, including lung cancer, tuberculosis, asthma, and cataracts (4, 14).
Despite the importance of this health
issue, it remains under studied (15, 16).
Women and children are at highest risk
because they have the highest exposure,
given womens proximity to the stove
and their childrens proximity to them.
It has been estimated that indoor air
pollution leads to annual excess mortality of 400,000550,000 in India (17),
420,000 in China (18),2 390,000 in
Africa (14), and about 1.6 million worldwide (14, 19). The World Health Organization (19) estimates that indoor
air pollution from these fuels is the
sixth largest health risk factor in developing countries, responsible for about
38 million disability-adjusted lost years
(DALYs) in developing countries with
the attendant and signicant social and
economic costs.
Fuelwood in rural areas comes from a
variety of sources and therefore often
puts only limited pressure on forests
(20). It now has become apparent that
the use of fuelwood is not leading
to large-scale deforestation, primarily
because rural households use biomass
from a variety of sources rather than just
from forests; furthermore, most users
also have a range of responses that allow
them to adjust to local changes in fuelwood availability (20). However, urban
demand for charcoal does have a deleterious effect on surrounding forests,
leading to local deforestation (1). In
In the case of China, the widespread use of coal as a household fuel is also a major contributor to the adverse health
effects.
ANRV325-EG32-05

ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
some locales, shortages of fuelwood for

subsistence users are becoming more
pronounced particularly for the landless
and those with little land.
The products of incomplete combustion (PICs) that result from the way
biomass is burned in traditional stoves
(and even in some improved stoves)
have recently been shown to have significant global warming implications (21,
22). In fact, the global warming commitment of these PICs can be high
enough to exceed the global warming
contribution of fossil-based [kerosene
or liqueed petroleum gas (LPG)]
stoves (on a per-meal-equivalent basis)
(21). On a cumulative basis, the greenhouse implications of biomass combustion can be substantial; it is estimated
that the greenhouse impact (on a 20year time-frame) of PICs from biofuels in 1990 was almost a quarter of that
from energy use in Asia, even if the
biomass was harvested sustainably (23).
Biomass combustion also results in the
emissions of carbonaceous aerosols (24),
with residential biofuels accounting for
a signicant fraction of the emissions in
India and Asia (25). These aerosols can
have signicant regional and global climate impacts (2628).
Poorer people generally spend a greater
fraction of their income on household
fuels than their richer counterparts (1,
8, 29). Furthermore, they often end up
paying a greater amount for the same
amount of useful energy services, given
their inefcient energy-conversion appliances and the higher transaction costs
of their energy purchases (because they
often buy wood fuel or other energy
sources in smaller quantities, which
makes it more expensive) (29). The
poorest generally get most (or all) of
their energy services from biomass; as
peoples incomes grow, they move up
the energy ladder toward more modern and cleaner fuels (but even as they
do that, they may continue to use some

biomass) (29, 30).
Thus, it is increasingly clear that alternative and better ways of satisfying the energy
needs of this large fraction of humanity are an
essential part of the sustainable development
agenda. This has been further re-emphasized
recently through the connections between the
household-level solid biomass use and the
Millennium Development Goals (2, 5).
2.2. Alternatives to Traditional Use

of Biomass in Households
There is a range of alternative approaches to
reducing the adverse impacts resulting from
the use of biomass in households, which include (31)
Emission-reducing cooking options,

such as improved cookstoves (using traditional or processed biomass including
briquettes and charcoal), as well as better maintenance and operation of cooking equipment, other biomass-based
energy services (such as biogas), other
renewables-based energy services (such
as solar cookers and water heaters), fossil fuels (such as kerosene and LPG), and
electricity
Living environment options, such as
improved ventilation in households or
redesign of kitchen and cooking spaces
to reduce exposure from cooking for
other members of the households
Behavior-modication options, such as
avoiding smoke.
Ideally, approaches that intend to make

a serious contribution to the sustainable development of this large fraction of humanity
should try to make headway on the whole host
of issues that are highlighted in the previous
section. That is to say, desirable approaches
would be those that offer as many of the following benets as possible (31):
Reduced levels of indoor (as well as local and global) pollution and human
exposure
135
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007

13:6
Increased fuel efciency

Reduced time for fuel collection and
cooking
Reduced stress on the local environment
Contribute positively to the overall
home and working environment, especially for women

Historically, much of the attention in the

exploration for alternatives to traditional use
of biomass for residential energy has been
on improved cookstoves. Some of the earliest programs to develop and disseminate improved cookstoves were motivated by a perceived fuelwood crisis [for example, (3234)]
anticipated from a widespread and traditionally inefcient use of biomass for cooking (33).
Thus, increasing energy efciency was the
primary initial motive of most of the early improved cookstove programs (33, 35, 36), including the Chinese and the Indian programs
(12, 37), which are the largest in the world. It
was hoped that the development and dissemination of advanced designs that had a greatly
increased efciency would avoid deforestation
and wood fuel shortages, while also reducing
the drudgery of women who had to spend
hours collecting rewood or other biomass
for their households cooking and other energy needs.
Most of the early efforts to develop and disseminate improved cookstoves had only limited success. Many of the improved designs
did not lead to the hoped for gains in actual
use. Although initial predictions had been that
design changes could lead to a three- to sixfold
improvement in efciency, realization set in
that a 25% to 50% reduction in fuel consumption was a more realistic expectation, partly
because of the traditional stoves were not as
inefcient as initially believed and because the
new designs did not function as effectively
in the eld as in controlled/laboratory conditions (33, 35). Traditional cookstoves also
had a variety of other benets to households,
such as space heating, protection from insects,
and exibility (35). In many cases, fuelwood
was easy to gather and therefore reduced fuel
136
Sagar
Kartha
consumption was not a priority, and the relatively high costs of the stoves acted as a barrier to dissemination. There were also material and reliability problems with many of
the earlier stoves. Such gaps between assumptions/expectations and reality, coupled with
poorly designed dissemination programs, initially led to the limited success with improved
stove programs (33, 35, 36).3
Over time, though, there has been some
learning from these early efforts. In the past
two decades, a great deal of effort has been
devoted worldwide to improving cookstove
designs, with an enormous number of organizations in various countries involved in
the development and dissemination of various designs (some are based on clay, metal,
or concrete/masonry and also use other fuels such as charcoal) intended to meet local
needs. There are an estimated 220 million improved stoves in use worldwide (including 180
million in China that cover 95% of the relevant households and 34 million in India that
represent about 25% of the relevant households) (39). Although there are some doubts
on the accuracy of these estimates and about
the longevity and performance of the disseminated stoves (38, 4042), there is no doubt that
enormous numbers of these stoves have been
diffused. Furthermore, these cookstove (and
related fuel) interventions have shown success
in that they have led to the reduction in indoor
3
One notable exception was the Chinese stove program

which has had remarkable success, in large part due to the
design of the dissemination program. In the rst phase, the
strategy engendered competition among counties and then
focused on counties that were ready for intensive efforts
(the main criteria being fuel deciency, sound managerial
setup, availability of appropriate nancial resources, and a
guaranteed supply of raw materials). Rather than provide
subsidies (other than for the poorest households), a range
of incentives and disincentives were provided to users and
village leaders, local materials suppliers, and stove manufacturers. Other key steps included the promotion of local
rural energy manufacturing and service companies, training of local workers, and independent review of countylevel program performance. At the same time, the research
and design (R&D) program explicitly took into account
the local conditions of fuel and cooking/heating needs and
innovative activities, such as national competitions, led to
publicity and incentive for new designs (12, 38).

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
air pollution (38) as well as health benets

(18).
Even though designs aimed at higher overall fuel stove efciency can result in increased
PIC emissions (43), there now are emerging designs such as gasier cookstoves that
may in the future yield high-efciency use of
biomass as well as clean combustion (through
thermo-chemical gasication to yield a cleancombusting gas).
The other large-scale use of biomass to
provide household energy services in a more
sustainable manner has involved the diffusion of biogas digesters. Biogas, a combustible
gas composed primarily of methane and carbon dioxide, derives from the anaerobic digestion of biomass (generally manure, agricultural waste, or other biomass feedstock). The
combustion of biogas is very clean, allowing
for delivery of energy services with almost no
emissions of PICs (and no net emission of carbon dioxide because the feedstock generally
will be renewably harvested, although there
may be leakage of methane). Biogas digesters
have been used in developing countries for
over a century as a way of providing energy, especially in rural areas. In China, for example,
there was an effort to promote biogas plants
in the 1930s to reduce the consumption of
kerosene (44). In recent years, there have been
programs in a number of developing countries
to disseminate biogas digesters. As of 2005,
there were an estimated 21 million households
worldwide that used biogas for their cooking and lighting needs, including 17 million
in China and 3.8 million in India (45).
The Millennium Gelfuel Initiative (MGI)4
takes another approach to providing a modern energy carrierone that is based on
ethanolto rural households. Ethanol gel can
be cost competitive with other modern (and
4
The Millennium Gelfuel Initiative (MGI) was launched

as a public-private partnership between the Regional
Program for the Traditional Energy Sector and the
Development Marketplace Program of the World Bank
and Greenheat South Africa, with the aim of developing and disseminating an ethanol-based gel for African
households.
clean-burning) energy sources such as LPG

and kerosene, and can in principle be derived
from biomass, offering climate benets (46).
Furthermore, the ethanol route offers the possibility of local production of the fuel, which in
turn can lead to generation of local economic
opportunities (46). The MGI has developed
technically suitable cookstoves, demonstrated
the commercial feasibility of using ethanol gel
(and direct ethanol), and has helped set up a
few ethanol production plants in Africa (46).
Others have proposed the use of dimethyl
ether (DME), another clean-burning fuel,
that also may be derived from biomass (even
though current efforts focus on DME production from coal) as another to route to ameliorating the problems associated with traditional biomass use (47) while also contributing
to the sustainable development goals of local
income and employment generation.
In many cases, countries have put in place
programs to bring clean fossil fuels to their
poor. Brazil has had signicant success with its
Auxilio-Gas program that gave subsidized
access to LPG for users with a monthly income below half that of minimum wage (48).
The subsidy program in India designed to enhance access to kerosene for the poor, in contrast, has been problematic (49), indicating
subsidy regimes must be designed carefully.
Globally, although the percentage of people depending on solid fuels declined from
58% to 52% between 1990 and 2003, in absolute terms, the number of people using solid
fuels (mainly biomass) actually went up over
this period (10).
2.3. Prospects for Sustainable and

Clean Energy for the Poor
It is clear that provision of modern and clean
energy services is an essential part of the overall sustainable development agenda for the
poor in developing countries, which would
include access to clean fuels for household
needs. LPG has ideal characteristics in terms
of ease of use and clean combustion, yet options such as biogas, ethanol, and DME also
137
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
work quite well. In fact, Goldemberg et al. (50)

have suggested a Global Clean Cooking Fuel
Initiative to promote the provision of clean
energy for the 2.5 billion people who still depend on biofuels for their household energy
needs as a way to meet the Millennium Development Goals as well as the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Biomass certainly could
play a major role through its conversion into
clean energy carriers with near zero net GHG
emissions, although relying instead on LPG
(or coal-derived DME) would not greatly increase global GHG emissions (5052).
What are the chances of moving to such a
future in the near term? The costs of providing clean energy to the worlds poor are not
low, even though moving people to cleaner
alternatives (improved cookstoves or cleaner
fuels such as kerosene or LPG) has a very favorable cost-benet ratio. It is estimated that
halving the number of people cooking with
solid fuels by moving them to LPG will cost
about US$13 billion per year, and the gains
would be US$31$91 billion/year (depending on the value attributed to time savings
from reduced illness, avoided deaths, shorter
fuel collection and cooking times) (10). At the
same time, an improvement in health will also
lead to gains in economic productivity. Largescale deployment of liquid-fuel-based options
such as ethanol (or ethanol gel) and DME will
depend on the scale-up of production technologies for these fuels. (In the case of ethanol,
the most promising option is biomass-derived
ethanol, and in the case of DME, it would be
through biomass- or coal-to-liquid production routes.) This adds complexity and cost to
the large-scale deployment of these options.
Targeted programs such as the MGI and the
UN Development Programmes LP Gas Rural Energy Challenge5 should help make some
headway in moving selected groups, wherever

ANRV325-EG32-05
The LP Gas Rural Energy Challenge is a public-private

partnership between the World Liquid Petroleum Gas Association and the UN that aims to create viable and sustainable markets for LPG delivery and consumption in selected
developing countries.
138
Sagar
Kartha
possible, further up the energy ladder, but

the progress toward raising the level of funding needed to make a rapid and major global
shift toward these modern fuels seems slow at
this point, despite all the sustainable development gains that might be realized from such a
transition.
In the meanwhile, the reality remains that
traditional biomass fuel is going to maintain
its role as a primary energy supplier for a signicant portion of humanity. In such a case,
continued and concerted efforts will be required to build on the progress of recent years
to reduce the unsustainable aspects of biomass
use through the continued development of
improved devices, programs, and policies that
reduce (though do not eliminate) the adverse
impacts of biomass use. The economics of
such activities are actually very favorable. It
has been estimated, for example, that the costs
of introducing improved cookstoves to the
half the number of people cooking with solid
fuels worldwide would lead to negative costs
of $34 billion owing to fuel savings from the
use of more efcient stoves (10). As a health intervention, a move toward improved stoves or
cleaner fuels is also very cost-effective. A program introducing improved cookstoves to half
the biomass-dependent population in South
Asia would lead to a gain of one healthy year
for a mere $15 and for $20 in sub-Saharan
Africa. A similar program for kerosene would
be more expensive$63 and $84, respectively
(31).
Improved cookstove programs have also
built on the lessons from the early programs
and experiences (38, 53), which have included
An understanding of the need to engage

with users in the initial stages of the process so as to help program implementers
better understand the conditions of use
(for example, the mix of biomass used
and the characteristics of the cooking
process) and to make users aware of the
adverse effects of solid biomass use as
well as the benets of switching to improved designs

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Technical training for stove manufacturers with an emphasis on quality control (especially of key components) so
that stoves maintain their combustion
characteristics
Designs that are amenable to mass production (54)
Movement toward certication and

standardization
Well-designed monitoring systems
The promotion of entrepreneurshipbased dissemination approaches (37, 55)
There are also a range of efforts to

advance information sharing about existing
programs, technologies, and approaches.
These include a number of excellent Webaccessible resources, including the Household
Energy Network (http://www.hedon.info),
BioenergyLists (http://www.bioenergylists.
org), the International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy (http://www.
energia.org), Practical Actions Boiling
Point journal (http://practicalaction.org/
?id=boiling point), the Shell Foundations
Breathing Space program (http://www.
shellfoundation.org/index.php?menuID=
3&smenuID=10&bmenuID=5 and http://
www.pciaonline.org/assets/SF-HEHStrategy.pdf ) and the Partnership for Clean
Indoor Air (http://pciaonline.org), which
was launched at the World Summit for
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in
September 2002. The latter two specically
focus on scaling up deployment by improving processes for technology design, pilot
projects for product deployment, training
and capacity building, as well as evaluation
of interventions and their impacts. The
recognition of the GHG impacts of biomass
combustion may provide further impetus to
the shift toward improved cookstoves because
these could offer a reduction in indoor, as
well as global, air pollution. Notably, as
a complement to such programs that are
focused on the provision and dissemination
of improved cookstoves, it is also critical to
focus on forest and biomass management
policies to make sure that the landless have

access to wood fuel (20).
In the end, it must be emphasized that, although improved cookstoves certainly ameliorate many of the aspects of unsustainability
associated with the use of biomass for household energy needs, they must be recognized
as being only the next step in the move toward the transition to a clean and sustainable
energy future for the worlds poor, relying on
LPG and other energy carriers such as DME
or ethanol (50). Whether these energy carriers
are derived from petroleum (as in the case of
LPG), coal (as in the case of DME), or biomass
(as in the case of DME or ethanol), their provision to the worlds poor will require significant resources (even if these offer favorable
cost-benet ratios). It has been suggested that
another way to view the relationship between
this segment of humanity and the climate issue is not to focus on the GHG emission from
their use of biomass but on the GHGs not being emitted by them as a consequence of their
low-energy use in relation to the global averages (52, 56). Such a perspective suggests
that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change must consider ways to provide
resources to transition this group to a sustainable energy future as a way of compensating
them for their (involuntary) contribution to
the goals of the climate conventionnot only
does such an idea make sense from an equity
perspective, but it also is very much in line
with the notion of paying people for environmental services (57).
3. LARGE-SCALE, COMMERCIAL
BIOENERGY
The growing interest in industrial-scale commercial biofuels arises for four reasons. First,
there are rising concerns about the niteness
of the worlds conventional petroleum supply amid continuing growth in demand. Reference forecasts project global demand for
petroleum to increase by roughly 50% by
2030 to 118 million barrels per day to fuel
a growing global transport sector, with the
139
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
United States, Europe, and China projected

to lead global consumption [at 28 million barrels per day (mbd), 16 mbd, and 15 mbd, respectively] (58). Although there is no consensus about whether the peak in production of
conventional oil will occur in the next decade
or several decades hence, the topic has been
the focus of increasing attention (59), as has
been the lack of slack in the global petroleum
production and rening system and the resultant increases in prices and price volatility.
These concerns are driving a shift to explore
alternative sources of energy.
Second, many nations are increasingly
concerned about energy security. As remaining petroleum reserves grow increasingly concentrated, the import dependence of importing regions is expected to steadily rise and
the non-Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries share of global crude oil
supply is expected to steadily decline (60).
Various nations have taken steps explicitly
aimed at increasing energy security by investing in domestic resources or diversifying international sources (61, 62). Potential availability of biomass resources is more evenly
distributed geographically than is the distribution of petroleum resources (63, 64).
Third, addressing the climate problem will
require a shift to nonpetroleum fuels, which
presently account for one fth of the worlds
fossil carbon dioxide emissions and are rising
at a rate of roughly 2.5%/yr (60). Several analyses conclude that bioenergy could play a major role in low-carbon energy futures (1, 65
67). This is especially true in scenarios aimed
at stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of
GHGs at very low levels, which may rely on
deploying bioenergy with carbon capture and
sequestration as a negative-carbon energy option capable of extracting carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere (6870).
The fourth motivation for promoting
bioenergy derives from its potential to support
development in rural areas of both industrialized nations (71, 72), where governments are
under increasing pressure to eliminate subsidies to the agricultural sector, and developing

ANRV325-EG32-05
140
Sagar
Kartha
nations (73, 74), where creating viable livelihood alternatives for rural communities is an
abiding challenge.
3.1. Technological Options for

Biofuels
Technological options for using biomass energy on a large scale can be divided into two
categories: biofuels and biopower. Biofuels
refer to uid fuels produced from biomass,
primarily for transport. Biopower refers to
electricity produced from biomass, either for
grid or nongrid use. This section focuses
on biofuels, because of the high present
level of interest in rapidly expanding the use
of biomass-based fuels as an alternative to
petroleum-based fuels for transport.6
Indeed, biofuels are a small but rapidly
growing contributor to the transport fuels
market. In 2005, global fuel ethanol production was approximately 36,000 million
liters (75), and biodiesel was approximately
4000 million liters (76, 77). This is sufcient
to displace roughly 2% of global gasoline consumption and 0.3% of global diesel consumption. These amounts are modest but growing rapidly; ethanol grew at more than 10%
per year and biodiesel at more than 25% per
year over the period 2000 to 2004 (39). In
In addition to biofuels, two other alternatives to

petroleum-based transport fuels that can potentially help
to address the above problems are electricity and hydrogen.
As these are not energy sources, but rather energy carriers, the degree to which they would be sensible solutions
depends on the energy sources from which they would be
derived. If renewable sources or coal (coupled with carbon capture and sequestration) were the source of energy,
then electricity or hydrogen could potentially be a longterm secure option with low life cycle carbon emissions
that contributes to rural development. Biofuels are somewhat advantaged in this three-way contest for the future
transport fuel market in that they do not require any major advances in vehicle technologies, whereas both electric
vehicles and hydrogen vehicles (specically, hydrogen fuel
cell vehicles) are in precommercial stages and need further
technological development. Hydrogen vehicles also would
require a new fueling infrastructure, ultimately requiring
a dedicated hydrogen pipeline network, whereas the fueling infrastructure for biofuel vehicles (or electric vehicles)
could largely evolve from existing infrastructures.
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6

the United States between 2005 and 2006,

for example, biodiesel production tripled, and
ethanol production increased by 25% (76, 78).
This review focuses on ethanol and
biodiesel, but there are also various emerging biofuel options including synthetic middle distillates, DME, methanol, and hydrogen, which may ultimately be competitive
economically and in terms of environmental
benets.
Emerging Biofuel Options
Aside from ethanol and biodiesel, thermochemical gasication of biomass provides an
alternate route to produce fuels from biomass.
Thermochemical gasication entails partial
combustion of a feedstock, which decomposes
into a gas consisting primarily of hydrogen
and carbon monoxidethe building blocks
for synthesis of many chemicalsalong with
carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrogen (unless
gasied in oxygen rather than air), and small
quantities of methane and higher hydrocarbons. This synthesis gas (or syngas) can then
be cleaned and used as a chemical feedstock
in a manner very similar to the use of petrochemical feedstocks. Recent research has focused on gasication methods that can tolerate heterogeneous biomass feedstocks and
cleanup technologies that produce a syngas
clean enough for the downstream chemical
processing stages. Particular challenges have
included avoiding the production of tars and
removing particulates and alkalis, which can
foul catalysts.
Thermochemical gasication is an attractive route to producing biofuels because it
greatly broadens the range of potential biofuel feedstocks well beyond food crops, i.e.,
the starch, sugar, or oil crops that are the basis of ethanol and biodiesel today. It can make
use of the cellulosic fraction of biomass, as
well as the lignin fraction (unlike cellulosic
ethanol approaches), which typically comprises 20% to 30% woody biomass feedstocks.
Thermochemical gasication makes potential
energy sources of waste streams, agricultural
residues, and dedicated energy crops that can

be grown on less valuable land than annual
food crops.
Four biofuel options undergoing development that are produced via the thermochemical gasication route are methanol, hydrogen,
Fischer-Tropsch liquids, and DME (60, 64,
79, 80).
Methanol. Methanol is a familiar fuel. It has
been amply demonstrated to function satisfactorily as a high-octane fuel in gasoline
(spark-ignition) engines, although interest in
wide-scale use has been somewhat muted by
concerns about its safety and possible adverse health effects. It can be produced from
biomass via a chemical process analogous to
the process by which methanol is currently
produced from coal in commercial, industrialscale facilities at a volume greater than three
million tonnes per year. It can be reformed
into a hydrogen-rich gas and has been demonstrated as a suitable liquid fuel for fuel cell vehicles with onboard reforming (8184).
Fischer-Tropsch
fuels. The
FischerTropsch process has been in use since the
1920s, primarily for converting natural gas
and gasied coal into synthetic gasoline,
diesel, and other fuels that resemble crude
oilderived products. Production of FischerTropsch fuels from coal is well established in
South Africa and still being employed today
(85).
Hydrogen. Hydrogen has received attention
lately more so for its potential as a fuel for fuel
cells than as a fuel for internal combustion engine vehicles. Fuel cell vehicles offer a large
potential for improved vehicle efciencies and
improved pollutant emissions; however, vehicle technology, hydrogen storage technology,
and distribution infrastructure are still in need
of signicant advancement before commercialization will be feasible. The processes for
producing hydrogen from biomass and coal
are similar (81, 86, 87).
141
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Dimethyl ether. DME is used today primarily as a propellant but is well suited as a fuel in
diesel (compression ignition) engines owing
to its high cetane rating. It is also clean burning because of its high oxygen content and
lack of carbon-carbon bonds. Like methanol,
it can also be reformed into a hydrogen-rich
gas and thus may be a suitable liquid fuel for
fuel cell vehicles. Because DME is gaseous
at atmospheric pressure, it would need to be
stored in slightly pressurized (5 bar) containers (somewhat like LPG). There are no
biomass-to-DME facilities operating, but two
large-scale plants, conceptually analogous to
coal-to-DME in design, will be built in China
for operation in 2009 (82, 83).
Ethanol can be produced from a variety
of biomass crops, including sugar-laden crops
(e.g., sugarcane and sugar beet), starch-laden
crops (e.g., corn and cassava), or cellulosic
feedstocks (e.g., wood, grasses, and agricultural residues). Production of ethanol from
sugar-laden crops is the simplest route; the
main steps are milling, pressing, fermentation,
and distillation. Production from starch-laden
crops requires the additional steps of liquefaction and saccharication (conversion to sugar)
of the starch. Production from cellulosic crops
is similar, although it is signicantly more difcult and costly to convert cellulose and hemicellulose into their component sugars (glucose
and xylose, respectively) than is the case for
starches.
The key to improving the efciency of
ethanol production depends on advanced science and engineering.7 Much of the progress
in recent years in cellulosic ethanol technology was related to the development of more

ANRV325-EG32-05
The Brazilian success in ethanol, for example, drew

upon a substantial scientic and technological effort. At
the Centro de Tecnologia Canavieira (Cane Technology
Center), an R&D facility funded largely by the sugarcane industry, the genome of sugarcane has been decoded
and was used to select varieties that are more resistant to
drought and pests and that yield higher sugar content. The
Center has developed some 140 varieties of sugar, which
has helped to drive costs down by 1% a year and has allowed the country to avoid the pests and diseases that can
ravage a monoculture (88).
142
Sagar
Kartha
efcient and less costly enzymes for breaking down cellulose and hemicellulose into fermentable sugars and to the optimization of
yeast and bacteria for fermentation. The key
efciency-increasing advances are expected
to involve (a) advanced biological and genetic engineering techniques to understand
the basis for, and reduce, the recalcitrance
of biomass to its breakdown by enzymes and
microbes (89), (b) the identication (or engineering) of enzymes and microbes to increase
the efciency of these breakdown processes
(90), and (c) improvements in the distillation
process (90).8
Presently, roughly 60% of ethanol production is sugar based and 40% starch based
(primarily produced from corn in the United
States) (92). Production from cellulosic feedstocks is not yet practiced at a commercial
scale, although there are dozens of test-scale
plants in operation; at least 15 large-scale
cellulosic ethanol plants are planned for operation by the end of 2008 to produce approximately 800 million liters of ethanol in
total from a variety of feedstocks including
bagasse, straw, wood residues, and municipal
waste (93). Like the emerging biofuels options discussed above, cellulosic ethanol derives its appeal from the fact that it broadens the scope of potential feedstocks beyond
starch- and sugar-based food crops.
Ethanol can be marketed as either hydrous
(containing approximately 5% water) or anhydrous (free of water). Hydrous ethanol can
be used as a neat unblended fuel in dedicated spark-ignition engines that have minor modications relative to gasoline engines.
As ethanol has a higher octane number than
gasoline, dedicated ethanol engines can operate at a higher compression ratio and achieve
slightly higher fuel economies. Anhydrous
ethanol can be blended with gasoline up to
at least 24% (by volume) without any engine
For example, a recent news report suggests that a redesign

of the distillation process by using a multicolumn system
together with a network for energy recovery could reduce
the costs of manufacturing ethanol from corn by 11% (91).

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
modications (94). In blends with gasoline,

ethanol acts as an octane enhancer (an antiknock agent) and an oxygenate (to reduce
emissions of carbon monoxide and unburned
hydrocarbons). Blended with diesel, ethanol
requires an emulsier or cosolvent to prevent
separation at low temperatures and, because
ethanol has a lower cetane number than diesel,
requires the addition of an ignition improver
that would enable compression ignition of the
mixture (95).
The worlds top producers of ethanol are
Brazil and the United States, each producing approximately 16 billion liters per year in
2005 (Figure 2). In the United States, this volume corresponds to less than 2% of transport
fuel, whereas in Brazil this amounts to more
than one third of transport fuel. Brazil allocates roughly three million hectares to sugarcane for ethanol, a bit more than half of its
sugarcane crop. Brazils program was started
in the late 1970s for the purpose of reducing oil imports and can be credited with major advances in sugarcane ethanol technology
(9698).
In the United States, approximately 95%
of the ethanol is produced from corn. The
United States ethanol initiative, like the
Brazilian one, is a subsidized program, driven
by the objectives of providing support to the
agricultural sector and reducing demand for
imported oil. The elimination of tetraethyl
lead, and then MTBE, as an octane enhancer
and oxygenate, respectively, has contributed
to boosting the market for ethanol (93).
Biodiesel is the common term for a cleanburning diesel fuel and heating oil substitute
that can be produced from vegetable oils or
animal fat. Chemically, it is a mono alkyl ester
(C19 H36 O2 ) derived via the catalyzed transesterication of lipid sources. It is also known
as soydiesel, methyl soyate, rapeseed methyl
ester, or methyl tallowate (99, 100). The most
common feedstocks for biodiesel are soy oil
and rapeseed oil, although it has also been
produced from sunower seed, cottonseed, jatropha, used frying oil, and, increasingly, palm
oil. Its chemical properties and performance
characteristics are very similar to petroleumbased diesel fuel. It can readily replace or be
blended with diesel fuel or heating oil in standard diesel engines and boilers, requiring very
few, if any, equipment modications. It can
be produced fairly inexpensively from a variety of biomass feedstocks in large oil renerysized plants or at the village level using simple
technology.
Biofuels are positioned to continue their
rapid expansion. Several countries have put
in place policies to that provide a long-term
impetus for biofuels. In the European Union
(EU), the 2003/30/EC Directive dated May
8, 2003, stipulates that fuels sold in member
states should contain 2% of biofuels in 2005,
stepping up to 5.75% in 2010, and EU
leaders further resolved to increase targets to
8% in 2015, corresponding to an estimated
17 million tons of biodiesel and 12 million
tons of bioethanol (101). In the United States,
the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (http://www.
doi.gov/iepa/EnergyPolicyActof2005.pdf )
created a national Renewable Fuels Standard
(RFS) that will increase national biofuel consumption from 15 billion liters per year (gasoline equivalent) in 2006 to 28 billion liters by
2012, plus a requirement that after 2013 the
RFS is to be met in part with 0.95 billion liters
of cellulosic ethanol (93). In part prompted
by this policy, investment in ethanol production facilities has rapidly accelerated, and
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
reports that fuel volumes already exceed the
RFS requirements and that 2012 volumes are
projected to exceed 40 billion liters. India also
has an ambitious ethanol policy, requiring
10% blending across the country by the end
of 2007, which will be met primarily from
domestic sugarcane production.
3.2. Energy and Environmental

Aspects of Biofuels Production
and Use
Although biomass is frequently labeled a
renewable source of energy, this term is
used loosely, as biomass production requires
143
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
nonrenewable inputs, including fossil fuels,

and ties up other nite resources such as land
and water.

3.2.1. Energy. The degree to which a biofuel is in fact a renewable energy source depends on the amount of nonrenewable energy
inputs relative to the energy outputs of the
biofuel cycle. Analysts have presented various
methods for making this comparison: Some
have used the net energy balance (the energy
outputs of the biofuel cycle minus the energy
inputs); some have used the energy ratio (energy outputs of the biofuel cycle divided by
the energy inputs; and some have used the inverse). Some have added the energy embodied
in the coproducts to the biofuel energy; others
have subtracted it from the energy inputs. [See
the Supporting Material section in Farrell
et al. (102) for a useful discussion of energy
metrics.]
Energy inputs vary considerably among
biomass options owing to the different agricultural production systems and biofuel conversion processes. Life cycle inputs include,
for example, fuels consumed by farm machinery in land preparation, planting, tending, irrigation, harvesting, storage, and transport;
fossil feedstocks used to produce chemical inputs such as herbicides, pesticides, and especially fertilizers (which tend to be energy intensive); and energy required for processing
of the biomass feedstock into a biofuel.
Energy characteristics are generally better for perennial crops than for annual crops,
which involve greater use of farm machinery and a higher level of chemical inputs.
For example, some perennial crops (poplar,
sorghum, and switchgrass) grown in a temperate climate have energy ratios (energy from
biomass divided by energy inputs) of 12 to
16. In tropical climates with good rainfall,
these ratios could be considerably higher, owing to both higher yields and less energyintensive (i.e., more labor-intensive) agricultural practices. Energy characteristics can be
much poorer for annual row crops that require
both a high level of inputs and a high level of
144
Sagar
Kartha
mechanization but yield a relatively small proportion of usable bioenergy feedstock per unit
of plant matter produced. Some annual food
crops in industrialized countries, for example,
have energy ratios of less than one. Many agricultural or forestry residues can be considered
essentially renewable because negligible fossil fuel is consumed to obtain the residues in
addition to what is required to produce the
primary crop (103, 104).
The net energy balance and carbon dioxide
impacts of biofuels are issues of great interest,
given the growing scale of their use as a GHG
mitigation option, and have been reported extensively (102, 105110; and, for a comprehensive review of reviews, see Reference 111).
Here, we report results of studies for ve fuels that have been extensively studied: corn
ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, sugarcane ethanol,
soy biodiesel, and rape biodiesel. The energy
ratio is dened as energy outputs in biofuel
and coproducts divided by energy inputs.
Figure 3 provides the results of reviews
of some recent life cycle energy studies for
biofuels. The studies considered the life cycle fossil-fuel inputs and compared them to
the energy contained in the biofuel output
as well as coproduct (including, for example,
distillers dry grain and corn oil for ethanol,
or soybean meal and glycerine for biodiesel).
For corn ethanol, the estimates in the literature range from roughly 0.75 to 1.35 (102,
106, 108). The lower end of the range implies a corn ethanol process for which the fossil energy inputs exceed the energy content
of the biofuel plus coproduct outputs. At the
higher end of the range, the energy output is
modestly (up to 35%) greater than the energy inputs. In contrast, estimates of cellulosic (102) and sugarcane ethanol (112) energy ratios range from 4 to 11. For biodiesel,
estimates range from 1.2 to 3.0 (102, 106,
108). The variation for a given fuel reects the
range of assumptions regarding factors such
as the mix of fossil fuels use for process energy inputs, the energy value of the coproducts, and the amount and nature of fertilizer
required.

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
The biofuel pathways with energy ratios

at the high end of the range (cellulosic, sugarcane, with energy ratios >6) correspond
to pathways for which photosynthesis serves
unequivocally as the primary energy source.
The biofuel pathways at the low end of the
range (corn ethanol, certain biodiesel pathways, with energy ratios <2) are pathways in
which photosynthesis modestly augments fossil energy, which is the primary input. Biofuels
with energy ratios this low do not obviously
merit the term renewable.
3.2.2. GHG emissions. Biofuels are regularly invoked as an important GHG reduction
option owing to the claim that they are zerocarbon energy sources because the amount of
carbon dioxide emitted during combustion is
no greater than was absorbed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis during growth.
Obviously, this is a facile claim. Given the
various fossil energy inputs required to produce biofuels, a thorough analysis of life cycle GHG emissions is needed to determine
a given biofuels net climate benets. In addition to the GHG emissions corresponding
to upstream fossil-fuel consumption, several
other elements of the life cycle have been
found to have signicant positive or negative GHG impacts: land-use change [e.g.,
from conversion from peatlands to palm
oil plantation (116)], methane leakage [e.g.,
emissions from biogas systems and removals
from diverted waste streams (117)], belowground biomass [e.g., from high-diversity
grasslands (118)], fertilizer use [e.g., for soybeans (107)], biomass handling [e.g., from
emissions arising from chipping of forest
residues (119)], coproduction of energy [e.g.,
from use of lignin as an energy source in cellulosic ethanol production (120)], storage [e.g.,
from wood chip storage (121)], and displacement of coproduct energy [e.g., animal feed
(102)].
Several factors lead to important differences in estimates of net GHG reductions
from biofuels. [Larson (111) provides a useful discussion of the major uncertain factors
that lead to variation in life cycle conclusions

for a given biofuel path.]
Emissions from land use: Assumptions

regarding the prior use of the land
are critical because the loss of existing stocks of carbon (in the soil and
aboveground plants) can give rise to
huge emissions. Delucchi (107) reports
a high net GHG emissions gure in
part because of his assumption that
undisturbed native vegetation is cleared
for soy production. Delucchi argues
that the latter assumption is appropriate
once the rising soy demand for biodiesel
leads to a net increase in soy acreage.
The same applies to palm oil biodiesel,
which generates GHG emissions many
times greater than petroleum diesel it
displaces if it is obtained from plantations that are established on cleared and
drained peatlands (116).
Yields: Especially for the not-yetcommercial biofuels pathways, such as
those using cellulosic biomass for which
little effort has yet gone into optimizing biomass crop production, yields
are uncertain. Yields affect both the
upstream fossil energy requirements
(higher yields might require less use of
farm machinery that scales with area,
but higher rates of chemical inputs)
as well as the per hectare output of
biofuels.
Emissions of nitrous oxide9 (N2 O):
Emissions of N2 O, which derive largely
from use of nitrogen fertilizers, can contribute signicantly to net GHG emissions yet are highly uncertain for many
crops. For example, Delucchi (107) reports a much higher gure for life cycle GHG emissions from soy biodiesel
(leading to a net 50% increase in emissions compared to petroleum diesel),
Nitrous oxide is a potent GHG with a global warming

potential relative to carbon dioxide of 296 for a 100-year
time horizon (122).
145
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Chile) to a one-third improvement (e.g.,

China). This is due primarily to differences in land use and cultivation practices as well as fertilizer application and
production methods. The vast majority
of life cycle analyses have been done in
industrialized countries, leaving a considerable knowledge gap in energy and
GHG impacts in the case of various
feedstocks, such as jatropha, palm, and
cassava.
driven in large part by higher assumptions about N2 O emissions from fertilizer use.
Coproducts energy can be signicant
and poorly specied: There are several ways of allocating energy associated with coproducts. Hill (108, Table 9
in the Supplementary Material) demonstrates the signicant impact of different
allocation methods for corn ethanol and
soy biodiesel. Even for a given allocation method, the contribution from coproducts can also be expected to change
over time. Because biofuels are among
the commodities with the largest potential demand, the market for biofuel coproducts may become quickly saturated.
For example, as conventional glycerin markets become saturated, glycerin
might instead be used as an energy input in the soy biodiesel production process. Then, the lower-value secondary
markets that emerge could be associated
with either a higher or lower displaced
energy demand, and the net impact on
the biofuel energy ratio could go either
way.

National differences: There can be nontrivial difference in life cycle emissions

of biofuels across countries. For example, Delucchi (107) found that the GHG
benets of cellulosic ethanol varies from
a roughly one-half improvement relative to gasoline fuel cycle emissions
(e.g., United States, India, South Africa,
Table 2
Table 2 presents some recent studies calculating or reviewing net GHG impacts of
various biofuels. These are fairly typical estimates, although, as with the energy ratio studies, various studies have presented results in a
range around these gures. The main conclusions are robust: Cellulosic ethanol and sugarcane ethanol are more effective at displacing
GHG emissions (90% reduction) than soy
or rape biodiesel (50% reduction), which
are in turn more effective at displacing GHG
emissions than corn ethanol, which is itself
only marginally lower in GHG emissions than
gasoline (<20% reduction).
It is important to note that an alternative
to displacing petroleum-based fuels with
biofuels is to displace fossil-based electricity
with biopower. As Larson (111) has noted, a
few studies have explicitly compared biofuel
to biopower options on comparable basis.
Tilman et al. (118) nd that using switchgrass
to displace coal-based electricity would produce 2.8 times greater GHG reductions than
converting it to ethanol and using it to displace
Estimates of net GHG reductions and land requirements for various biofuel options
Source (for GHG
reductions and yields)
GHG reductions
relative to gasoline/
diesel vehicle
Yield per
hectare
(liters fuel/ha)
Hectares required
to fuel one car
(ha/car)
Ethanol (corn)
Farrell et al., 2006 (102)
14%
3463
1.1
Ethanol (cellulosic)
88%
5135
0.7
Ethanol (sugarcane)
Macedo et al., 2004 (112)
91%
6307
0.6
Biodiesel (soya)
Hill et al., 2006 (113)
40%
544
4.3
Biodiesel (rape)
IEA, 2005 (106)
50%
1200
2.0
146
Sagar
Kartha

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
gasoline. [Tilman et al. (118, Table S3 in

online Supporting Material at http://www.
sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5805/
1598/DC1) also calculate the sequestered
carbon in soil and switchgrass roots. Taking
credit for this sequestration adds considerably
to the GHG reductions of both options and
changes the ratio between them to 1.6.] Green
(123) also found that displacing coal-based
electricity would produce greater GHG
reductions than converting it to ethanol and
displacing gasoline. The displacement of
coal provides greater GHG benets than the
displacement of gasoline because (a) there is
no need to incur the inefciencies associated
with converting biomass feedstock into a
high-quality uid transportation fuel, and
(b) coal has higher carbon intensity per unit
of energy than gasoline. This suggests that if
GHG mitigation is a major objective, then a
more effective strategy may be to prioritize
the use of biomass to displace coal-based
power over the use of biomass to displace
transport fuels.
3.2.3. Pollutant emission from biofuels. In
addition to the GHG impacts of displacing
fossil fuels with biofuels, there are signicant
changes in other pollutants. The main pollutants of interest are particulate matter, carbon
monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and
nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides.
Ethanol in blends with gasoline reduce carbon monoxide (by acting as an oxygenate).
In a 10% blend, ethanol can reduce carbon
monoxide emissions by 25% (106). Owing to
the relatively high vapor pressure of ethanol,
it tends to increase the emission of volatile
organic compounds in blends with gasoline. This effect can be offset by blending
with gasoline formulated to have lower vapor pressure (106). Nitrogen oxide emissions are not signicantly changed by blending ethanol with gasoline; however, upstream
emissions from fertilizer usage can signicantly raise life cycle nitrogen oxide emissions
(106).
Pure biodiesel and biodiesel in blends with

diesel have better overall emissions characteristics than pure diesel. A recent review study
found that in heavy-duty highway vehicles,
pure biodiesel decreased carbon monoxide
and particulate matter by about 45%, hydrocarbons by about 65%, and sulfur oxides by
100% while increasing nitrogen oxide emissions relative to diesel by about 10%. [More
recent analyses have suggested that nitrogen
oxide emissions may be lower than previously
reported (124).] The emissions impacts scale
approximately linearly with the proportion of
biodiesel blended into diesel (125).
3.2.4. Agro-environmental concerns.
Agriculture is a land-intensive, environmentally high-impact undertaking. Whether the
expansion of biomass energy will exacerbate
the deleterious effects of the agriculture
sector or mitigate those impacts is of central concern. Currently, the predominant
biomass cropssugarcane, maize, rape, and
soybeansare grown using the intensive
methods of modern agriculture. Thus, an
understanding of the potential environmental
impacts of scaling up the production of such
biomass for energy feedstock requires an assessment of the environmental performance
of current agriculture methods and of the opportunities for improving that performance.
The main features of modern intensive
agriculture are the control of crops (through
genetics), of soil fertility via chemical fertilization and irrigation, and of pests (weeds, insects, and pathogens) via chemical pesticides
(126). At the same time, cropping practices
have moved toward monocultures, intensive
tillage, and irrigation.
Agricultural food production doubled between 1961 and 1996 with only a 10% increase in the land under cultivation [although
irrigated cropland has gone up by about
70% in the past four decades (127)], and the
move toward resource-intensive agricultural
production models led to 6.9-fold and 3.5fold increases in nitrogen and phosphorus
147
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
fertilization, respectively, during this period

(126). Total global fertilizer consumption in
2002 was 142 million tons (of which nitrogen
fertilizers were about 84 million tons) (128).
In fact, the use of nitrogen fertilizers and
nitrogen-xing legumes in agriculture contributes as much to the terrestrial nitrogen
cycle as the natural (preindustrial) rate of addition (129). Annually, about 2 million tons of
pesticides are used in agriculture worldwide
(130); in the United States, insecticide use increased 10-fold between 1945 and 1989 (131).
As a result, modern agriculture is already
having enormous impacts on ecosystems and
their properties. Agriculture is the largest
source of excess nitrogen and phosphorus to
waterways and coastal areas, leading to eutrophication and nitrication of many water
bodies (127). The loss of nitrogen (as nitrous
oxide) from croplands also contributes signicantly to GHG emissions (129, 132). In
addition, over 40 million hectares worldwide
were estimated in 1990 to be suffering from
moderate or strong salinization (133), which
represented about one sixth of the worldwide
irrigated cropland at that time (128). It is
estimated that about 1.5 million hectares of
arable land and $11 billion in production are
lost to salinization every year, representing
about 1% of the global irrigated area and annual value of production, respectively (134).
Up to 40% of global croplands may also be
experiencing some degree of soil erosion or
reduced fertility (127); agricultural mismanagement was estimated to be responsible for
soil degradation on 552 million hectares in
1990 (133), which is nearly a third of the
global cropland. Monocultures also lead to
impacts on biological components of ecosystems such as the pest complex (which may become less diverse but more abundant) and soil
biota (135); at the same time, agricultural systems may have impacts on nearby or even distant ecosystems (135). Cropping and tillage
practices also have an effect on soil organic
matterconversion of native vegetation to
cropland under intensive tilling practices, for
example, contributes to reduction in soil or-

ANRV325-EG32-05
148
Sagar
Kartha
ganic matter through disruption of soil aggregates, increased microbial activity, and erosion
(136).10 It is estimated that about 1 million
poisonings and 20,000 deaths occur from pesticides each year through occupational exposure among agricultural works, with pesticide
safety being a particular problem in developing countries (139). The long-term effects of
pesticides are still not fully understood but are
now believed to include elevated cancer risks
and disruption of the bodys reproductive, immune, endocrine, and nervous systems (140).
Agriculture accounts for an estimated 70% to
80% of the global use of water (128, 141),
although for many countries the number is
even higher. The water requirements associated with large-scale bioenergy crops may
increase the water stress in many countries
(142).
Even though it is not possible to assess
the overall costs in economic terms of current
unsustainable agriculture, analyses suggest
that these costs are substantial. In the case
of the United States, annual environmental
and health costs associated with agriculture
are estimated to be $5.716.9 billion (143).
[Pimentel (144) concludes that the environmental and social costs of pesticide use alone
in the United States exceed $8 billion.] A more
comprehensive estimate for the United Kingdom suggested that the total annual external
costs and subsidies are 8.95 billion, which
works out to an 11% addition to the food
prices paid by consumers (145).
It is, of course, possible to modify agricultural practices so as to reduce the ecological
impacts of biomass production by increasing
nutrient- and water-use efciency, maintaining and restoring soil fertility, and using
10
As the demand for ethanol increases, crop choices of
farmers will change. For example, the recent policy initiatives that aim to increase the use of ethanol in vehicles are
already leading farmers to move to corn from soybean
it was expected that the area under corn will go up 15%
and that under soybean will decline 11% from 2006 to
2007 (137). However, moving from the dominant maize
and soybean rotation in the northern corn/soybean belt to
continuous maize may reduce soil quality and yield (138).

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
improved methods of disease and pest control

(146). Such a move toward sustainable agriculture should be broadly based on the agroecological principles of balanced environments,
sustained yields, biologically-mediated soil
fertility and natural pest regulation through
the design of diversied agroecosystems and
the use of low-input technologies (147). It
would entail complementary and interrelated
practices such as integrated pest management,
which allows for pest control through a judicious application of pesticides in combination
with other pest-management approaches such
as more diverse cropping systems and targeted
cropping practices (148); precision farming,
which is based on applying nutrients in the
right amount at the right place at the right
time (146); and improved cropping practices,
such as polycultures, crop rotation, reduced
(or no) tillage, cover crops, and fallow periods,
which can help maintain and restore soil fertility (146, 149).11 To be successful, sustainable
agriculture must be tailored to local needs, resources, and ecologies. It will be most effective if it combines traditional knowledge and
cropping practices with modern techniques.
In fact, sustainable agriculture is knowledge
intensive rather than input intensive (147).
Despite interest in sustainable agriculture
for some decades now,12 progress has been
woefully slow [as it has also been in sustainable forestry (151)]. Current incentives, in
fact, favor increases in agricultural production
without paying sufcient attention to preserving ecosystems services (146). A review of the
OECDs experience in the 1990s shows mixed
results in protecting the environment, partly
because of conicting policies (152); furthermore, it is not easy to measure agricultures
11
There is some controversy, however, about the amount
of soil carbon sequestered by no-till practices, especially
when the whole soil prole is considered (136).
12
According to (150), the term sustainable agriculture
rst appeared in the literature in 1978 but was formally
introduced into policy in 1985 through the Food Security
Act, with a Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture program
aimed to help farmers use resources more efciently, protect the environment, and preserve rural communities.
environmental performance (152). Similarly,

there has been progress in integrated pest
management worldwide, but it would be fair
to say that the rate of adoption has been disappointingly slow (150).
One cannot assume that the expansion of
bioenergy would be environmentally benign.
As recently seen in the case of palm oil (a
biodiesel feedstock), an increase in biodiesel
demand was a major contributor to deforestation and drainage of peatlands in Southeast Asiaan estimated 40% of the clearing
of peatlands is attributable to palm oil plantations. The total annual emissions (through
peat oxidation as well as res) from Southeast Asian peatlands are estimated to be about
2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, which is about
8% of the global carbon dioxide emissions
from fossil-fuel burning (116). New palm oil
plantations are estimated to be responsible for
87% of the deforestation in Malaysia between
1985 to 2000 (153).
Thus, the large-scale use of biofuels derived from corn, soybeans, or sugarcane will
be convergent with sustainable development
only if there are coherent policies and incentives to move away from intensive agriculture
and toward sustainable agriculture. The recent introduction of the concept of multifunctionality into agricultural policy discussions
should help advance the cause of sustainable
agriculture by explicitly recognizing that agriculture may further several social objectives
simultaneously.13
The cellulosic ethanol route offers the potential to use a greater variety of feedstocks
(including woody and herbaceous biomass)
and a larger portion of the crop. Recent work
with prairie grasses in particular suggest that
these might be an attractive source of biomass
in temperate areas; these could be grown on
degraded lands, need little or no fertilizer,
13
Multifunctionality recognizes that agriculture has multiple commodity and noncommodity outputs (such as such as
environmental and rural amenities, food security and contribution to rural viability) and that some of the noncommodity outputs exhibit the characteristics of externalities
or public goods (154).
149
ARI
2 October 2007

ANRV325-EG32-05
13:6
need no pesticides, and may actually offer a

net GHG reduction through the sequestration of carbon below the ground (118). Ultimately, realizing the sustainability gains of
bioenergy will depend on the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol or thermochemical
gasication technologies that could convert
biomass grown in an ecologically sustainable
manner to useful energy (118, 155).
However, even though certain feedstocks
and fuel cycles may provide the option of
lower environmental impact through lowinput farming, intensive agriculture may still
end up being employed (108). Whether or
not long-term options for the sustainable production of biofuels are taken up will depend on the policy and market context in
which biofuels are emerging. Explicit, concerted policy efforts would be needed to guide
emerging biofuels markets toward sustainable
solutions.
genetic engineering of woody biomass crops

has been expressed (in that lignin modication may have unanticipated ecological applications such as impacts on soil structure and
fertility) (159). Uncertainties in the environmental risks of the widespread introduction of
genetically modied organisms warrant improved understanding and cautious regulatory approaches (160). But the gap between
advocates and critics remains on this issue
(161), partly because it feeds into a wider debate about biotechnology and a range of public concerns spanning economic development,
ethics, equity, and power (162) that are an integral part of sustainable development. Thus,
it is very likely that there will continue to
be widely differing viewpoints on the role of
biotechnology in sustainable biofuels [see, for
example, (156, 163)] with the potential for
controversy.
3.3. Biotechnology Controversies

Redux?
3.4. Land Requirements and Land

Availability
Another issue that is likely to take on

some prominence is the role of biotechnology. Biotechnology is being considered
to advance the production of biofuels from
biomass through the development of plants
(with increased yield and reduced biomass
recalcitrance) and biological organisms to facilitate the conversion processes (89, 156).
Already soybeans that are genetically modied for glyphosate resistance are widely
planted (with signicant environmental gains
from reduced tillage and reduced herbicide
use) (108). This is likely to set up a tension
between concerns about the possible (and still
not fully understood) consequences of the use
of genetically engineered crops (157) and the
concerns over climate change and energy security.14 For example, some concerns about
As pointed out by Larson (111), it is useful to

compare biofuel options on a per hectare basis
(as opposed to per unit of fuel basis) because
land is the basic primary resource for biofuel
production. Table 2 and Figure 4 present
the land intensity of various biofuel cycles
in terms of the amount of land that would
be required to displace the GHG emissions
from one light-duty passenger vehicle.15 It is
a useful metric of the land intensity of biofuel production because it combines the three
critical component factors: (a) biomass yield
in terms of quantity of feedstock generated
per hectare, (b) the biofuel conversion efciency in terms of quantity of biofuel generated per unit of biomass feedstock, and (c) the
life cycle GHG reductions achieved relative
to a conventional vehicle using gasoline or
14
In some sense, this would be an extension of the ongoing debate on genetically engineered food crops that often
reects a tension between environmental protection and
meeting the needs of developing countries [see, for example, (158)].
150
Sagar
Kartha
15
The vehicle characteristics assumed for this calculation are those corresponding to a typical North American
gasoline-fueled passenger vehicle: an annual mileage of
24,000 km and a fuel economy of approximately 10 km/liter
or 23 miles per gallon.

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
diesel.16 As can be seen from Table 2, the relevant parameters vary considerably across biofuels. The biofuel yield per hectare varies from
the low end for soy biodiesel, which requires
more than four hectares to fuel one vehicle,
to the high end for sugarcane ethanol, which
requires somewhat more than half a hectare to
fuel one vehicle.17 This biofuel yield is combined with the effectiveness with which a fuel
displaces life cycle GHG emissions, which
ranges from a low of 14% for corn ethanol
to a high of 90% for sugarcane and cellulosic ethanol. [For cellulosic ethanol, this gure could exceed 100% if the feedstock were
native grassland perennials capable of sequestering carbon in soils and generating a net
carbon-negative biofuel cycle (118).]
The result is that displacing one passenger vehicles worth of GHG emissions would
require between 0.7 hectares (if fuelled with
sugarcane ethanol) to more than 10 hectares
(if fuelled with soy biodiesel). For comparison, Figure 4 shows the current global cropland of 0.24 hectares per person (or 1.5 billion hectares total). Although it is a technical
and agronomic matter to calculate how landintensive biofuel production is, it is a matter of
policy and societal choice to choose whether
this is an appropriate use of land resources,
and if so, how much land to thus use.
There are various measures that can be
taken to reduce the land intensity of biofuel
requirements. First, considerable increases in
fuel economy can be made on the basis of
vehicle technologies such as hybrid engines,
light-weight materials, and smaller vehicles.
Second, annual vehicle mileage can be reduced through greater access to public transit along with transit-oriented urban design.
16
This comparison does not, however, account for any differences in the quality of land used. Cellulosic crops, for example, can in principle be produced on lower-quality land
than annual food crops.
17
For cellulosic ethanol derived from biomass feedstocks
consisting of forestry or agricultural residues or other municipal waste streams, there would be no incremental demand for land.
Third, yields of biomass crops can possibly be

increased beyond the assumptions contained
in the studies cited in Table 2. Fourth, increases in efciencies of conversion from feedstock to biofuel may be obtained beyond the
assumptions in the cited studies.
The land intensity of biofuels production
(corn ethanol and soy biodiesel in particular)
is reected in the scale of the current biofuels program in the United States. After Hill
(108), one can calculate that the 14.3% of
the U.S. corn harvest that was converted to
ethanol in 2005 was able to displace about
0.25% of GHG emissions arising from U.S.
gasoline consumption. Devoting the entire
U.S. corn harvest to ethanol and soy harvest to
soy biodiesel would allow the United States to
displace roughly 1.7% of the emissions arising from its gasoline consumption and about
2.4% of the GHG emissions arising from its
diesel consumption.
Given the land intensity of biofuel pathways, it is useful to look at some of the estimates that have been made of the supply of
biomass feedstocks for energy that might be
technically available in the future. As it happens, there is a staggering range of estimates
in the literature, some of which are summarized in Table 3.
There are also various analysts who question whether there will be sufcient land
resources for biomass energy at all, after
satisfying both food demand and the requirements for land for natural ecosystem functioning (166168). The uncertainty in the above
estimates and the major difference in opinions
relate to the following issues:
There are some fundamental demographic and socioeconomic uncertainties relating to the future demand for
food, including uncertainty in future
population and especially in future dietary preferences. A shift to more animal products that often accompanies
rising afuence will signicantly increase total land requirements for livestock feed (169, 170).
151
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
Table 3
Estimates of bioenergy potential

Bioenergy
Reference
Potential (EJ/yr)
Berndes et al. (164)
206
De Vries et al. (165)
80300
Moomaw et al. (65)
441
Hall et al. (103)

Hoogwijk et al. (63)
31 + 266
240850 + 35265

Sims et al. (104)
225
There are uncertainties about the future potential for yield increases both
for food and energy crops. On the
one hand, there are prospects for
biotechnology-driven improvements in
crop characteristics and, on the other
hand, the possibility of yield declines
due to the long-term impacts of intensive agriculture.
Related to the above, there are uncertainties about the availability of excess,
abandoned agricultural lands, which
many biomass projections nd to be the
main source of land for energy crops.
There are also uncertainties about the
availability and suitability of marginal
and degraded lands, which are unlikely
to be completely free of other claims.
3.5. Socioeconomic Issues

Although there have been suggestions that
growing bioenergy markets could contribute
to socioeconomic development in developing
countries (7274, 171), capturing these benets will not happen by default (172, 173).
There are two major ways in which bioenergy
intersects with socioeconomic welfare.
The rst relates to the potential for bioenergy markets to inuence food markets and
affect food security. Todays major biofuels
are based on food crops (corn, cane, soy,
rape, palm oil), which leads to direct competition between biofuel processing facilities and
food processing facilities for the same food
152
Sagar
Kartha
Feedstocks
Year
Residues and energy crops
2050
End use biofuels
2050
2050
Residues + energy crops
None specied
From excess cropland +

from savannah/grasslands
2100
Energy crops
2025
commodities. The normal market response

to such a situation is a rise in prices. Even
if biofuels were derived from nonfood crops
(e.g., cellulosic feedstocks or inedible oils),
they could still place an additional demand
on agricultural resources, specically land and
water, and lead to a rise in food prices.
Human beings can only consume a certain maximum amount of food, which puts
an upper bound on the demand for agricultural products. But the demand for energy
services is essentially unlimited. As captured
in Figure 4, an individuals demand for food
translates into a demand for land that is limited to a fraction of a hectare of cropland,
whereas an individuals demand for transportation can translate into a demand for several hectares. The emergence of a biofuel
market thus introduces a fundamentally new
dynamic to agricultural markets. All else being equal, this dynamic will lead to a rise in
food prices.
With the recent boom in biofuel production, such a rise in food prices is indeed being seen. The increasing demand for corn
for ethanol production in the United States
has escalated the price of corn in Mexico
(more than doubling and even almost tripling
in some parts between 2006 and 2007) and
has led to a tortilla crisis in that country.
This is an issue beyond just culinary or cultural overtones because poor Mexicans get
more than 40% of their protein from tortillas
(174). At the same time, chicken feed costs in
the United States increased 40% between the

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
summer of 2006 and early 2007 because of

rising corn prices (137). Rises have also been
noted in other major biofuel feedstock markets, including sugar, rapeseed oil, palm oil,
and soybean (175). The prospect that this is
more than a transient effect is supported by
a recent projections comparing the price of
certain staples in an aggressive biofuels scenarios (in which 20% of transportation fuels are displaced by biofuels by 2020, including cellulosic ethanol starting in 2015) to a
reference scenario (176). The prices of sugar
beets, wheat, maize, sugarcane, oilseeds, and
cassava were 10%, 16%, 23%, 43%, and 54%
higher, respectively, than their baseline 2020
prices. In a scenario where cellulosic ethanol
does not become commercial, and food crop
yields stay constant at todays levels, the prices
rises for these crops are on the order of twice
as great. A recent study of the U.S. agricultural sector came to similar conclusions
(177).
A rise in food prices is a double-edged
sword. It can benet countries and households
that are net producers of food, including the
rural poor whose livelihoods are closely tied
to the agricultural economy. But, at the same
time, it can hurt those who are net consumers,
including the urban poorthe caloric consumption among the poor is estimated to decline by 0.5% for every 1% rise in the price
of major food staples (178).
Biofuels do not need to adversely affect
food security. In principle, biofuels could rely
on lower-quality land and not compete for
prime cropland. To the degree that it increases
rural incomes, it can in principle enable investment in productivity enhancements. And
biofuels can help provide energy services that
enhance food security, such as transportation
of food commodities from farms to markets.
However, these measures cannot be assumed
to be inevitable outcomes of the expansion
of bioenergy markets. Concerted steps would
be needed to ensure that the policy context
and market environment in which bioenergy
was expanding are structured so as to prevent food security from being compromised.
It cannot be assumed that this is the default

scenario.
The second way in which bioenergy intersects with socioeconomic welfare relates to
its potential contribution to sustainable livelihoods. To make a substantive contribution to
sustainable development, bioenergy markets
would need to benet small farmers in developing countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that there were
815 million chronically undernourished people in developing countries in 20002002,
with attendant enormous human, social, and
economic costs (179). About three quarters
of these are extremely poor rural inhabitants, mainly practically landless small farmers living in difcult regions, underemployed
agricultural laborers, and other artisans and
traders who rely on these groups for a living
(180). The situation of these groups has become worse in many instances as the prices
of agricultural commodities have shown not
only a decline over the long term but also
short-term volatility (181); the decline in food
prices often does not help this group since
they are not purchasers of food (180). With
the continuing decline in prices of their products (and often increases in input prices), even
increased output may still lead to reduced surpluses, leading to what has been termed as
distress-inducing growth (182) and a need for
nonagricultural income for making ends meet
(183). Small farmers already have low capital stock in primary agriculture (184), and
by not being able to stay above the economic renewal threshold, they are unable to
renew farm tools and inputs needed, leading
to declining agricultural stock in real terms
(180). Thus, it is imperative that any effort to
use bioenergy markets to promote sustainable
development must nd ways to include this
group.
The trend toward large-scale, vertically
integrated corporations that have greater
control over agricultural commodity chains
makes it difcult for small-scale producers to
benet from the market for agricultural products (181, 185), and bioenergy markets may
153
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
well follow the same trend.18 It is possible that

certication systems to promote sustainability (186) may help ensure that benets accrue
to small-scale producers, although some have
pointed out the onerous burden certication
can impose on small farmers (181, 187).
Agricultural subsidies in developed countries can greatly distort the global agriculture markets and depress commodity prices
(181)producer support in OECD countries
was estimated to be 280 billion dollars in 2005
(188). Some have argued that the U.S. corn
ethanol program is following the same path,
driven by political economy and corporate interests rather than sound science (189, 190).
There is increasing agreement that, in order for trade in agricultural commodities to
help poor countries, OECD countries will
be required to end the modes of support for
their agriculture sectors that harm developing
countries. It will also require more effective
management of risks caused by negative commodity price shocks, better market access for
developing countries, and enhanced SouthSouth cooperation in the eld of trade and
investment (184, 191194). These measures
apply to bioenergy markets just as they apply
to conventional agricultural markets.
Analogous to many agricultural commodities,19 most of the value addition in biofuels
will come from the processing of the biomass
feedstock to the nal biofuel (with the price
of the biofuels unlikely to decline much owing to limits in production coupled with increasing demand and some linkage to the
price of petroleum-based fuels). In this case,
the prices of biomass may remain relatively
low. Given the increasing sophistication of

ANRV325-EG32-05
18
In Kenya, for example, even as its horticultural exports have grown, the share of smallholders has been reduced. Smallholders produced 70% of vegetables and fruits
shipped from Kenya before the horticultural export boom.
But by the end of the 1990s, 40% of the produce was grown
on farms owned or leased directly by importers in the developed countries and 42% on large commercial farms, while
smallholders produced just 18% (179).
19
Growers generally get only a small fraction of the price
of nished agricultural products, ranging from as low as
4% for raw cotton to 28% for cocoa (181).
154
Sagar
Kartha
the biochemical conversion technologies for

cellulosic ethanol, many developing countries
may not yet have the technological capacity
to build or operate these plants indigenously,
making it difcult to move up the value chain
in the biofuels market [paralleling the traditional agricultural world, where the lack of
agroprocessing capabilities severely hobbles
the returns farmers receive from their produce (195)]. Tariff escalation, i.e., the imposition of higher tariffs for goods that have
undergone greater processing, by developed
countries also hinders developing countries in
their attempts to establish processing industries for exports at origin (181, 184, 185).20
Still, at least some developing countries might
be able to develop a biofuels industry, which
could then serve as a foundation for broader
industrial development (88).
Yet, the integration of small farmers into
a bioenergy strategy does in principle offer
a worthwhile opportunity to advance the
sustainable development agenda. It must
begin by focusing on the multifunctional
nature of small farms, which are already
often quite efcient and productive (even if
yields are low by the metric of single crops),
can contribute to economic development
where it is most needed, and can help sustain
rural communities (196). They may also
become model implementers of sustainable
agriculturerecent work has shown that
12.6 million small farmers across 57 poor
countries cropping 37 million hectares (representing 3% of the cropland in developing
countries) have successfully adopted a variety
of resource-conserving technologies and
practices that led to a 79% average increase in
yield while improving critical environmental
services (including carbon sequestration
of 0.35 t C ha1 year1 ) (197). But such
increases in yield while conserving resources
and maintaining environmental services
20
The share of developing countries in global exports of
processed agricultural products decreased from 27% for
the period from 1981 to 1990 to 25% in the period from
1991 to 2000, and the share of less-developed countries fell
from a 0.7% to 0.3% during the same 20 years (181).

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
depend not just on technological approaches

but also social processes that value community involvement and empowerment (147);
social and human capital can help agricultural
productivity and natural capital grow (197,
198). The development of cooperatives
and other efforts by producers to organize
commercially can counteract the market
dominance of transnational corporations in
agricultural markets and improve their market
access and returns (179, 181).
Lastly, it should be mentioned that a move
toward biofuels can help reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, but biofuels must be seen
as part of a larger portfolio of approaches toward this end. The technical x of biofuels
is a supply-side solution and must not displace efforts to enhance efciency (through
fuel-efciency standards for automobiles, for
example) and reduce vehicle travel (through
changes in settlement patterns and consumer
behavior as well as modal shifts), which must
be regarded as cornerstones of a sustainable
transportation policy.
Clearly, biomass energy is now of a large
enough scale to consume a signicant amount
of arable land and affect markets for agricultural products. In addition, it is being enlisted
to play a major role in combating climate
change and meet countries energy security
needs. And it is a rapidly expanding agroindustrial venture that affects the lives of increasing numbers of rural laborers. But, as this
chapter has hopefully shown, biomass energy
can no longer be treated as an idealized renewable energy solution that will by default
contribute positively to sustainable development. The potential to do so still exists, but
the experience demonstrates that this cannot
be taken for granted.
4. CONCLUSION
There is little doubt that biomass is going
to remain an important part of the noncommercial energy arena for some years to come
and to evolve into a major contributor to the
commercial energy arena. As with other po-
tentially attractive renewable energy sources,

biomass energy has a denite contribution to
make to sustainable development. The ability
of this energy source to further the sustainable development agenda, though, depends on
how it is produced, converted, and used. This,
in turn, requires a broad view that encompasses the many dimensions of environmental
sustainabilitycarbon balances (comprehensively dened), air pollution, water and soil
resources, and biodiversityand also recognizes the human and socioeconomic dimensions of sustainability: health, gender equity,
food and energy security, and livelihoods.
Exploiting bioenergy while taking this
comprehensive, sustainability-centered view
at modest scales is easy. But the real challenge
comes in scaling up implementation so that it
makes a signicant contribution toward satisfying a signicant portion of the unmet need
for clean energy services. It is at these larger
scales that the various challenges and conicts
discussed in this chapter become more problematic. We emphasize some specic conclusions in this regard.
In the case of household bioenergy, the
magnitude of the problem remains absolutely
enormous. Although an ideal world might
be one in which there are adequate, clean,
and affordable energy services that are based
on sustainably harvested biomass (or other
renewables) for poor households, the environmentally sustainable nature of the energy
source is not necessarily the most important factor. The most urgent concerns arise
from the welfare and health impacts of the
labor-intensive and highly polluting nature of
traditional biomass use. Thus, certain cleanburning fossil fuels such as LPG must also
be considered as part of the overall effort to
expand clean energy supplies rather than focus only on biomass-derived supplies. Regardless of the approach (improved cookstoves,
biomass-derived or fossil-based clean fuels),
providing cleaner energy to poor households
will certainly require concerted efforts and
greater resources. One way to generate more
resources is by acknowledging this groups
155
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
relatively minor contributions to the climate

problem and exploring policies to compensate them for providing atmospheric space to
other GHG emitters.
On the commercial biofuels front, there
has been a recent explosion in interest in industrialized and developing countries. The resulting policy developments have been driven
by climate concerns, energy security concerns, as well as opportunities to benet agricultural enterprises and contribute to rural
development. As commercial biomass energy
expands at this rapid rate, a number of issues
arise that were not particularly relevant at a
smaller scale but must be considered in detail
for the future.

ANRV325-EG32-05
The energy and GHG implications

of biofuels cannot be properly assessed without a whole-system view
of their production, conversion, and
use, which greatly inuence these energy and GHG balances. Corn-based
ethanol offers only marginal benets
on both fronts, calling into question its
role as a suitable clean energy source.
Soy and rapeseed biodiesel offer modest gains, but sugarcane and cellulosic
ethanol are better. In fact, some biofuels that look reasonable at rst blush can
have unequivocally negative climate impacts, as demonstrated by the ongoing
production of biodiesel from palm oil on
cleared forest lands in Southeast Asia.
As a GHG mitigation option, biofuels should be seen in the context of
the wider range of mitigation opportunities. In particular, as long as there
are opportunities to signicantly reduce emissions from coal-based power,
this may well be a more effective use
of biomass resources than displacing
petroleum-based transport fuels. And
reducing transportation-related GHG
emissions from increased fuel economy
or reduced use of vehicles should not
be neglected in favor of fuel substitution. These latter measures are just as
156
Sagar
Kartha
effective with regard to enhancing energy security, which for most countries
refers to reducing dependence on imported petroleum.
The potential for conict between food

and biofuels has long been raised because biofuel production is an intrinsically land-intensive undertaking. The
recent empirical observations of rising
food prices owing to the ongoing biofuels boom have heightened considerably these concerns for the future. They
have also brought into sharper focus
the polarization on this issue. Some
analysts have concluded that there is
enough land to meet food needs as well
as provide a large amounts of bioenergy feedstocks and that these bioenergy markets can contribute to farmers
livelihood opportunities and food security. Others maintain that large-scale
bioenergy will necessarily shift land, labor, and capital resources away from
food production in a manner that undermines food security and degrades the
environment. The resolution of this debate hinges in part on technical arguments relating to food and fuel production systems (such as land resource
estimates, yield projections, conversion
efciency assumptions). More importantly, though, it will depend on the
shape and nature of the food and fuel
markets, how they interact, and the policy regimes under which they operate.
Insofar as the biofuel markets are underpinned by relatively wealthy consumers of transportation fuels, a purely
market-driven allocation of global or
even national land resources could have
adverse consequences for the environment and for food availability and access for poor consumers. Thus, the extent to which commercial biofuels can
help further the sustainable development agenda ultimately depends on the
policies we put in place as safeguards to
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6

ensure that biomass feedstocks are produced in an environmentally sustainable

manner and that bioenergy markets enhance rather than undercut food security and livelihoods for the poor.
Thus, in both cases discussed here, the feasibility of employing bioenergy as an instrument of sustainable development depends not
just on the technical potential of the options,
but also as much (if not more) on policies to
ensure that potential is exploited in a fashion
that gives due consideration to all dimensions
of the sustainable development agenda. History has shown that this can only be done if
the views of all stakeholders are given consideration. It also requires a willingness to learn
from our experiences and to move forward in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Most of all,
it means putting the needs of the poor and disadvantaged front and center and making sure
that they are sharing in the broad gains that
may result from the continued or expanded
use of biomass.
To sum up, there is no doubt that biomass
does offer the opportunity to further the
broad sustainable development agenda. The
challenge lies in translating that opportunity
into reality. Whether we can rise adequately
to this challenge remains to be seen.
SUMMARY POINTS
1. Traditional bioenergy is the dominant contributor to household energy supplies for
much of the worlds population but comes at high cost in terms of health and welfare.
Expanding access to clean energy services is a critical development issue, yet progress
has been slow.
2. Modern bioenergy has rapidly expanded over the past decade and is poised to become
a major contributor to global commercial energy supplies. This is largely in response
to policy mandates driven by concerns about energy (oil) security and climate change.
3. Bioenergy has the potential to contribute to sustainable development both at the
household and commercial levels in the future. It can serve as a renewable source
of energy that provides environmental and agronomic benets while enhancing food
security and supporting rural livelihoods.
4. The fulllment of this potential cannot be presumed. Equally plausible futures feature bioenergy as a land-intensive undertaking that is environmentally burdensome,
adversely affects food security, and undermines rural livelihoods. Recent experience
with the rapid expansion of biofuels markets has elevated anxieties about such futures.
5. The difference between these futures hinges primarily on the policy and market
environments in which bioenergy emerges. If sustainable development is an objective
of a bioenergy economy, then it will need to be deliberately pursued via proactive
policies.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of
this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for useful comments that helped improve
the paper.
157
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
LITERATURE CITED

1. Int. Energy Agency (IEA). 2006. World Energy Outlook 2006. Paris: OECD/IEA
2. Modi V, McDade S, Lallement D, Saghir J. 2005. Energy Services for the Millennium Development Goals. New York: Energy Sect. Manag. Assist. Program./UN Dev. Program./UN
Millenn. Proj./World Bank
3. Int. Energy Agency (IEA). 2006. Energy Balances of Non-OECD Countries, 200304. Paris:
OECD/IEA
4. Smith KR, Mehta S, Maeusezahl-Feuz M. 2004. Indoor smoke from household solid
fuels. In Comparative Quantication of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease
due to Selected Major Risk Factors, ed. M Ezzati, AD Rodgers, AD Lopez, CJL Murray,
pp. 143593. Geneva: World Health Organ.
5. Rehfuess E, Mehta S, Pruss-Ustun A. 2006. Assessing household solid fuel use: multiple
implications for the Millennium Development Goals. Environ. Health Perspect. 114:373
78
6. World Bank. 2007. World Development Indicators Database. Washington, DC: World Bank
7. Reddy AKN, Annecke W, Blok K, Bloom D, Boardman B, et al. 2000. Energy and
social issues. In World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability, ed. J
Goldemberg, pp. 3960. New York: UNDP/CSD/WEC
8. Reddy AKN, Williams RH, Johansson TB. 1997. Energy After Rio: Prospects and Challenges.
New York: UNDP
10. World Health Organ. (WHO). 2006. Fuel for Life: Household Energy and Health. Geneva:
WHO
11. Dekoning HW, Smith KR, Last JM. 1985. Biomass fuel combustion and health. Bull.
World Health Organ. 63:1126
12. Smith KR. 1993. Fuel combustion, air-pollution exposure, and health: the situation in
developing countries. Annu. Rev. Energy Environ. 18:52966
13. Smith KR. 1987. Biofuels, Air Pollution, and Health. New York: Plenum
14. Ezzati M, Lopez AD, Rodgers A, Vander Hoorn S, Murray CJL. 2002. Selected major
risk factors and global and regional burden of disease. Lancet 360:134760
15. Bruce N, Perez-Padilla R, Albalak R. 2000. Indoor air pollution in developing countries:
a major environmental and public health challenge. Bull. World Health Organ. 78:107892
16. Ezzati M, Kammen DM. 2002. The health impacts of exposure to indoor air pollution
from solid fuels in developing countries: knowledge, gaps, and data needs. Environ. Health
Perspect. 110:105768
17. Smith KR. 2000. National burden of disease in India from indoor air pollution. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. USA 97:1328693
18. Zhang J, Smith KR. 2005. Indoor air pollution from household fuel combustion in China: A
review. Presented at 10th Int. Conf. Indoor Air Qual. Climate, Beijing, China
19. World Health Organ. (WHO). 2002. World Health Report 2002. Geneva: WHO
20. Arnold M, Kohlin

G, Persson R, Shepherd G. 2003. Fuelwood revisited: What has changed
in the last decade? CIFOR Occas. Pap. 39, Cent. Int. For. Res., Jakarta
21. Smith KR, Uma R, Kishore VVN, Zhang J, Joshi V, Khalil MAK. 2000. Greenhouse
implications of household stoves: an analysis for India. Annu. Rev. Energy Environ. 25:741
63
22. Bailis R, Ezzati M, Kammen DM. 2003. Greenhouse gas implications of household energy
technology in Kenya. Environ. Sci. Technol. 37:205159
158
Sagar
Kartha

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
23. Streets DG, Waldhoff ST. 1999. Greenhouse-gas emissions from biofuel combustion in
Asia. Energy 24:84155
24. Lelieveld J, Crutzen PJ, Ramanathan V, Andreae MO, Brenninkmeijer CAM, et al. 2001.
The Indian Ocean Experiment: widespread air pollution from South and Southeast Asia.
Science 291:103136
25. Venkataraman C, Habib G, Eiguren-Fernandez A, Miguel AH, Friedlander SK. 2005.
Residential biofuels in south Asia: carbonaceous aerosol emissions and climate impacts.
Science 307:145456
26. Ramanathan V, Chung C, Kim D, Bettge T, Buja L, et al. 2005. Atmospheric brown
clouds: impacts on South Asian climate and hydrological cycle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
102:532633
27. Ramanathan V, Crutzen PJ, Lelieveld J, Mitra AP, Althausen D, et al. 2001. Indian
Ocean Experiment: an integrated analysis of the climate forcing and effects of the great
Indo-Asian haze. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 106:2837198
28. Auffhammer M, Ramanathan V, Vincent JR. 2006. Integrated model shows that atmospheric brown clouds and greenhouse gases have reduced rice harvests in India. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. USA 103:1966872
29. Barnes DF, Krutilla K, Hyde WF. 2005. The Urban Household Energy Transition: Social and
Environmental Impacts in the Developing World. Washington, DC: Resour. Future (RFF)
30. Masera OR, Saatkamp BD, Kammen DM. 2000. From linear fuel switching to multiple
cooking strategies: a critique and alternative to the energy ladder model. World Dev.
28:2083103
31. Bruce N, Rehfuess E, Mehta S, Hutton G, Smith K. 2006. Indoor air pollution. In Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, ed. DT Jamison, JG Breman, AR Measham,
G Alleyne, M Claeson, et al., pp. 793815. New York: World Bank/Oxford Univ.
Press
32. Eckholm E. 1975. The other energy crisis: rewood. Worldwatch pap. 1, Worldwatch Inst.,
Washington, DC
33. Manibog FR. 1984. Improved cooking stoves in developing countries: problems and
opportunities. Annu. Rev. Energy 9:199227
34. Leach G, Gowen M. 1987. Household energy handbook. World Bank Tech. Pap. 67, World
Bank, Washington, DC
35. Barnes DF, Openshaw K, Smith KR, Van Der Plas R. 1993. The design and diffusion of
improved cooking stoves. World Bank Res. Obs. 8:11941
36. Barnes DF, Openshaw K, Smith KR, Van Der Plas R. 1994. What makes people cook with
improved biomass stoves? A comparative international review of cookstove programs.
World Bank Tech. Pap. 242, World Bank, Washington, DC
37. Hanbar RD, Karve P. 2002. National Programme on Improved Chulha (NPIC) of the
Government of India: an overview. Energy Sustain. Dev. VI:4955
38. Sinton JE, Smith KR, Peabody JW, Yaping L. 2004. An assessment of programs to promote improved household stoves in China. Energy Sustain. Dev. VIII:3352
39. Renew. Energy Policy Netw. 21st Century. 2005. Renewables 2005 Global Status Report.
Washington, DC: Worldwatch Inst.
40. Kishore VVN, Ramana PV. 2002. Improved cookstoves in rural India: How improved
are they? A critique of the perceived benets from the National Programme on Improved
Chulhas (NPIC). Energy 27:4763
41. Aggarwal RK, Chandel SS. 2004. Review of improved cookstoves programme in western
Himalayan state of India. Biomass Bioenergy 27:13144
159
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
42. Ezzati M, Kammen DM. 2001. Indoor air pollution from biomass combustion and acute
respiratory infections in Kenya: an exposure-response study. Lancet 358:61924
43. Zhang J, Smith KR, Ma Y, Ye S, Jiang F, et al. 2000. Greenhouse gases and other airborne
pollutants from household stoves in China: a database for emission factors. Atmos. Environ.
34:453749
44. Qiu DX, Gu SH, Liange BF, Wang GH. 1990. Diffusion and innovation in the Chinese
biogas program. World Dev. 18:55563
45. Renew. Energy Policy Netw. 21st Century (REN21). 2006. Renewables Global Status Report
2006 Update. Paris/Washington, DC: REN21 Secr./Worldwatch Inst.
46. Utria BE. 2004. Ethanol and gelfuel: clean renewable cooking fuels for poverty alleviation
in Africa. Energy Sustain. Dev. VIII:10714
47. Larson ED, Yang H. 2004. Dimethyl ether (DME) from coal as a household cooking fuel
in China. Energy Sustain. Dev. VIII:11526
48. Lucon O, Coelho ST, Goldemberg J. 2004. LPG in Brazil: lessons and challenges. Energy
Sustain. Dev. VIII:8290
49. Rehman IH, Malhotra P, Pal RC, Singh PB. 2005. Availability of kerosene to rural
households: a case study from India. Energy Policy 33:216574
50. Goldemberg J, Johansson TB, Reddy AKN, Williams RH. 2004. A global clean cooking
fuel initiative. Energy Sustain. Dev. VIII:512
51. Smith KR. 2002. In praise of petroleum? Science 298:1847
52. Sagar AD. 2005. Alleviating energy poverty for the worlds poor. Energy Policy 33:136772
53. Smith KR, Gu SH, Huang K, Qiu DX. 1993. 100-Million improved cookstoves in China:
How was it done? World Dev. 21:94161
54. ONeal D. 2005. Designing stoves for mass production. Boil. Point 50:811
55. Shastri CM, Sangeetha G, Ravindranath NH. 2002. Dissemination of efcient ASTRA
stove: case study of a successful entrepreneur in Sirsi, India. Energy Sustain. Dev. VI:6367
56. Sagar AD. 1999. A polluters get paid principle? Environment 41:45
57. Organ. Econ. Co-op. Dev. (OECD). 2001. Improving the Environmental Performance of
Agriculture: Policy Options and Market Approaches. Paris: OECD
58. Energy Inf. Adm. (EIA). 2006. International Energy Outlook 2006. Washington, DC: US
Dep. Energy
59. Natl. Res. Counc. 2006. Trends in Oil Supply and Demand, Potential for Peaking of Conventional Oil Production, and Possible Mitigation Options: A Summary Report of the Workshop.
Washington, DC: Natl. Acad.
61. White House. 2007. President Bush discusses energy initiatives in Missouri. Off. Press Secr.
Mar. 20. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070320-7.html
62. MacInnis L. 2007. Sudan top target for Chinese investment in Africa. Reuters. Mar. 28
63. Hoogwijk M, Faaij A, Eickhout B, de Vries B, Turkenburg W. 2005. Potential of biomass
energy out to 2100, for four IPCC SRES land-use scenarios. Biomass Bioenergy 29:225
57
64. Girard P, Fallot A. 2006. Review of existing and emerging technologies for the production
of biofuels in developing countries. Energy Sustain. Dev. X:92108
65. Moomaw WR, Moreira JR, Blok K, Greene DL, Gregory K, et al. 2001. Technological
and economic potential of greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In Climate Change 2001:
Mitigation; Contribution of Working Group III to the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, ed.
B Metz, O Davidson, R Swart, J Pan, pp. 171299. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ.
Press

ANRV325-EG32-05
160
Sagar
Kartha

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
66. van Vuuren DP, den Elzen MGJ, Lucas PL, Eickhout B, Strengers BJ, et al. 2006. Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at low levels: an assessment of reduction strategies
and costs. Clim. Change 81:11959
67. Clarke L, Edmonds J, Jacoby H, Pitcher H, Reilly J, Richels R. 2006. CCSP synthesis and assessment product 2.1, part A: Scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrationsFinal Rep., US Climate Change Science Program. http://www.
climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-1/
68. Azar C, Lindgren K, Larson E, Mollersten K. 2006. Carbon capture and storage from
fossil fuels and biomasscosts and potential role in stabilizing the atmosphere. Clim.
Change 74:4779
69. Riahi K, Grubler

A. 2007. Scenarios of long-term socio-economic and environmental development under climate stabilization. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change. 74:887
935
70. Larson ED, Williams RH, Jin H. 2006. Fuels and electricity from biomass with CO2 capture and storage. Presented at 8th Int. Conf. Greenh. Gas Control Technol., Trondheim,
Nor.
71. Hanauer A. 2005. Generating Energy, Generating Jobs. Cleveland, OH: Policy Matters
72. Inst. Agric. Trade Policy (IATP). 2006. IATP and the Bioeconomy. Minneapolis, MN: IATP
73. Goldemberg J, Johansson TB. 1995. Energy as an Instrument for Socio-Economic Development. New York: UN Dev. Program.
74. Kammen DM, Bailis R, Herzog AV. 2002. Clean Energy for Development and Economic
Growth: Biomass and Other Renewable Energy Options to Meet Energy and Development Needs
in Poor Nations. New York: UN Dev. Program.
75. Wright L, Boundy B, Perlack B, Davis S, Saulsbury B. 2006. Biomass Energy Data Book.
Ed. 1: ORNL/TM-2006/571, Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Natl. Lab.
76. Natl. Biodiesel Board (NBB). 2007. Estimated US Biodiesel Sales. Jefferson City, MO: NBB
77. Eur. Biodiesel Board (EBD). 2007. 2005 Production by Country. Brussels: EBD
78. Renew. Fuel Assoc. (RFA). 2007. Industry statistics. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/
resource/facts/
79. Kavalov B, Peteves SD. 2005. Status and Perspectives of Biomass to Liquid Fuels in the European
Union. Luxembourg: Off. Off. Publ. Eur. Comm.
80. Hamelinck CN, Faaij APC. 2006. Outlook for advanced biofuels. Energy Policy 34:3268
83
81. Williams RH, Larson ED, Katofsky RE, Chen J. 1995. Methanol and hydrogen from
biomass for transportation. Energy Sustain. Dev. I:1834
82. Ekbom T, Lindblom M, Berglin N, Ahlvik P. 2003. Technical and commercial feasibility
study of black liquor gasication with Methanol/DME production as motor fuels for
automotive uses, ALTENER (EU Energy Framew. Program.), Rep. Contract 4.1030/Z/01087/2001, Eur. Comm. Dir.-Gen. Transp. Energy, Brussels
83. Larson ED, Tingjin R. 2003. Synthetic fuel production by indirect coal liquefaction.
Energy Sustain. Dev. VII:79102
84. Breakthr. Technol. Inst. (BTI). 2004. Fuel Cell Vehicle World Survey 2003. Washington,
DC: BTI
85. Boerrigter H, Zwart RWR. 2004. High efcient coproduction of Fischer-Tropsch (FT)
transportation fuels and substitute natural gas (SNG) from biomass. Rep. ECN-C04001,
Energy Res. Cent. Neth., Petten
86. Milne TA, Elam CC, Evans RJ. 2002. Hydrogen from biomass: state of the art and
research challenges. Rep. IEA/H2/TR-02/001, Int. Energy Agency, Paris
161
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
87. Hemmes K, de Groot A, den Uil H. 2003. Bio-H2: application potential of biomass related
hydrogen production technologies to the Dutch energy infrastructure of 202050. Energy
Res. Cent. Neth. Rep. ECN-C03-028, Energy Res. Cent. Neth., Petten
88. Mathews J. 2006. A biofuels manifesto: Why biofuels industry creation should be priority
number one for the World Bank and for developing countries. http://www.gsm.mq.edu.au/
facultyhome/john.mathews/a%20Biofuels%20manifesto 2 sep 06.pdf
89. Himmel ME, Ding SY, Johnson DK, Adney WS, Nimlos MR, et al. 2007. Biomass
recalcitrance: engineering plants and enzymes for biofuels production. Science 315:8047
90. Stephanopoulos G. 2007. Challenges in engineering microbes for biofuels production.
Science 315:8014
91. ScienceDaily. 2007. Engineers devise new process to improve energy efciency
of ethanol production. Jan. 27. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/
070126185045.htm
92. Berg C. 2004. World Fuel Ethanol Analysis and Outlook. Ratzeburg, Ger.: Licht
93. Solomon BD, Barnes JR, Halvorsen KE. 2007. Grain and cellulosic ethanol: history,
economics, and energy policy. Biomass Bioenergy 31(6):41625
94. Agarwal AK. 2007. Biofuels (alcohols and biodiesel) applications as fuels for internal
combustion engines. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 33:23371
95. Hansen AC, Zhang Q, Lyne PWL. 2005. Ethanol-diesel fuel blends; a review. Bioresour.
Technol. 96:27785
96. Goldemberg J. 2007. Ethanol for a sustainable energy future. Science 315:80810
97. FoodFirst Inf. Action Netw. (FIAN). 2002. Economic, social and ecological impacts
on Brazil of accelerated liberalisation of the European sugar market. Rep. to GTZ
(Deutsche Gesellschaft Tech. Zusammenarbeit GmbH), Heidelberg, Ger. http://petroleum.
berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Brazil/Ekonomische.pdf
98. Martines-Filho J, Burnquist HL, Vian CEF. 2006. Bioenergy and the rise of sugarcanebased ethanol in Brazil. Choices 21(2):9196
99. Gerpen JV. 2005. Biodiesel processing and production. Fuel Process. Technol. 86:1097107
100. Meher LC, Sagar DV, Naik SN. 2006. Technical aspects of biodiesel production by
transesterication: a review. Renew. Sust. Energy Rev. 10:24868
101. Bockey D. 2006. Potentials for raw materials for the production of biodieselan analysis.
Rep. UFOP (Union zur Forderung

von Oel-Proteinpanzen), Berlin
102. Farrell AE, Plevin RJ, Turner BT, Jones AD, OHare M, Kammen DM. 2006. Ethanol
can contribute to energy and environmental goals. Science 311:5068
103. Hall DO, Rosillo-Calle F, Williams RH, Woods J. 1993. Biomass for energy: supply
prospects. In Renewable Energy: Sources for Fuels and Electricity, ed. T Johansson, H Kelly,
AKN Reddy, RH Williams, pp. 593651. Washington, DC: Island
104. Sims RH, Hastings A, Schlamadinger B, Taylor G, Smith P. 2006. Energy crops: current
status and future prospects. Glob. Change Biol. 12:205476
105. Quirin M, Gartner O, Pehnt M, Reinhardt G. 2004. CO2 mitigation through biofuels
in the transport sector: status and perspectives. Main Rep., Inst. Energy Environ. Res.
(IFEU), Heidelberg, Ger.
106. Int. Energy Agency (IEA). 2005. Biofuels for Transport: An Inernational Perspective. Paris:
OECD/IEA
107. Delucchi MA. 2006. Lifecycle analysis of biofuels. Rep. UCD-ITS-RR-06-08, Inst. Transp.
Stud., Univ. Calif, Davis
108. Hill J. 2007. Environmental costs and benets of transportation biofuel production from
food- and lignocellulose-based energy crops: a review. Agron. Sust. Dev. 27:112

ANRV325-EG32-05
162
Sagar
Kartha

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
109. von Blottnitz H, Curran MA. 2007. A review of assessments conducted on bio-ethanol
as a transportation fuel from a net energy, greenhouse gas, and environmental life cycle
perspective. J. Clean. Prod. 15:60719
110. Wu M, Wang M, Huo H. 2006. Fuel-cycle assessment of selected bioethanol production
pathways in the United States. Rep. ANL/ESD/06-7, Argonne Natl. Lab., Argonne, IL
111. Larson ED. 2006. A review of life-cycle analysis studies on liquid biofuel systems for the
transport sector. Energy Sustain. Dev. X:10926
112. Macedo IdC, Leal MRLV, da Silva JEAR. 2004. Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in
the Production and Use of Fuel Ethanol in Brazil. Brazil: Gov. State Sao Paulo
113. Hill J, Nelson E, Tilman D, Polasky S, Tiffany D. 2006. Environmental, economic, and
energetic costs and benets of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
103:1120610
114. Delucchi MA. 2003. A lifecycle emissions model (LEM): lifecycle emissions from transportation fuels, motor vehicles, transportation modes, electricity use, heating and cooking fuels, and materials (with Appendix A: energy use and emissions from the lifecycle
of diesel-like fuels derived from biomass). Inst. Transp. Stud. Rep. UCD-ITS-RR-03-17,
Univ. Calif., Davis, CA
115. de Oliveira MED, Vaughan BE, Rykiel EJ. 2005. Ethanol as fuel: carbon dioxide balances
and ecological footprint. BioScience 55:593602
116. Hooijer A, Silvius M, Woosten H, Page S. 2006. PEAT-CO2 : assessment of CO2 emissions
from drained peatlands in SE Asia. Delft Hydraul. Rep. Q3943, Delft Hydraulics, Delft
117. Borjesson P, Berglund M. 2007. Environmental systems analysis of biogas systems. Part II:
The environmental impact of replacing various reference systems. Biomass Bioenergy
31(5):32644
118. Tilman D, Hill J, Lehman C. 2006. Carbon-negative biofuels from low-input highdiversity grassland biomass. Science 314:1598600
119. Van Belle J-F. 2006. A model to estimate fossil CO2 emissions during the harvesting of
forest residues for energywith an application on the case of chipping. Biomass Bioenergy
30:106775
120. Lynd L, Greene N, Dale B, Laser M, Lashof D, et al. 2006. Energy returns on ethanol
production. Science 312:174647
121. Wihersaari M. 2005. Evaluation of greenhouse gas emission risks from storage of wood
residue. Biomass Bioenergy 28:44453
122. Ramaswamy V, Haigh OBJ, Hauglustaine D, Haywood J, Myhre G, et al. 2001. Radiative
forcing of climate change. In Climate Change 2001: The Scientic Basis; Contribution of
Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, ed. J Houghton, Y Ding, D
Griggs, M Nouger, P van der Linden, et al., pp. 351416. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Univ. Press
123. Greene N, Celik FE, Dale B, Jackson M, Jayawardhana K, et al. 2004. Growing Energy:
How Biofuels Can Help End Americas Oil Dependence. Washington, DC: Natl. Resour. Def.
Counc.
124. McCormick RL, Williams A, Ireland J, Brimhall M, Hayes RR. 2006. Effect of biodiesel
bends on vehicle emissions. Milest. Rep. NREL/MP-540-40554, Natl. Renew. Energy
Lab., US Dep. Energy, Golden, CO
125. US Environ. Prot. Agency (EPA). 2002. A comprehensive analysis of biodiesel impacts
on exhaust emissions. Draft Tech. Rep. EPA420-P-02-001, Washington, DC
126. Tilman D. 1999. Global environmental impacts of agricultural expansion: the need for
sustainable and efcient practices. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96:59956000
163
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
127. Foley JA, DeFries R, Asner GP, Barford C, Bonan G, et al. 2005. Global consequences
of land use. Science 309:57074
128. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 2006. FAO Statistical Yearbook 20052006. Rome: FAO
129. Vitousek PM, Aber JD, Howarth RW, Likens GE, Matson PA, et al. 1997. Human
alteration of the global nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences. Ecol. Appl. 7:737
50
130. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 2003. Compendium of Agricultural-Environmental Indicators
198991 to 2000. Rome: FAO
131. Pimentel D, Greiner A, Bashore T. 1998. Economic and environmental costs of pesticide
use. In Environmental Toxicology: Current Developments, ed. J Rose, pp. 12150. Amsterdam: Gordon & Breach
132. Robertson GP, Paul EA, Harwood RR. 2000. Greenhouse gases in intensive agriculture: contributions of individual gases to the radiative forcing of the atmosphere. Science
289:192225
133. Oldeman LR, Hakkeling RTA, Sombroek WG. 1991. World Map of the Status of
Human-Induced Soil Degradation: An Explanatory Note. Wageningen: Int. Soil Ref. Inf.
Cent.
134. Wood S, Sebastian K, Scherr SJ. 2000. Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Agroecosystems.
Washington, DC: Int. Food Policy Res. Inst./World Resour. Inst.
135. Matson PA, Parton WJ, Power AG, Swift MJ. 1997. Agricultural intensication and
ecosystem properties. Science 277:5049
136. Cerri CEP, Sparovek G, Bernoux M, Easterling WE, Melillo JM, Cerri CC. 2007. Tropical agriculture and global warming: impacts and mitigation options. Sci. Agric. 64:83
99
137. Martin A. 2007. Farmers head to elds to plant corn, lots of it. New York Times, Mar.
31:A1
138. Karlen DL, Hurley EG, Andrews SS, Cambardella CA, Meek DW, et al. 2006. Crop
rotation effects on soil quality at three northern corn/soybean belt locations. Agron. J.
98:48495
139. World Health Organ. (WHO). 1990. Public Health Impact of Pesticides Used in Agriculture.
Geneva: WHO
140. Horrigan L, Lawrence RS, Walker P. 2002. How sustainable agriculture can address the
environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture. Environ. Health Perspect.
110:44556
141. Rosegrant MW, Cai X, Cline SA. 2002. World Water and Food to 2025: Dealing with Scarcity.
Washington, DC: Int. Food. Policy Res. Inst.
142. Berndes G. 2002. Bioenergy and waterthe implications of large-scale bioenergy production for water use and supply. Glob. Environ. Change 12:25371
143. Tegtmeier EM, Duffy MD. 2004. External costs of agricultural production in the United
States. Int. J. Agric. Sustain. 2:120
144. Pimentel D, Acquay H, Biltonen M, Rice P, Silva M, et al. 1992. Environmental and
economic costs of pesticide use. BioScience 42:75060
145. Pretty JN, Ball AS, Lang T, Morison JIL. 2005. Farm costs and food miles: an assessment
of the full cost of the UK weekly food basket. Food Policy 30:119
146. Tilman D, Cassman KG, Matson PA, Naylor R, Polasky S. 2002. Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices. Nature 418:67177
147. Altieri MA, Nichols CI. 2005. Agroecology and the Search for a Truly Sustainable Agriculture.
Mexico: UNEP Environ. Train. Netw. Lat. Am. & Caribb.

ANRV325-EG32-05
164
Sagar
Kartha

ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
148. Sagar AD. 1991. Pest control strategies: concerns, issues, and options. Environ. Impact
Assess. Rev. 11:25779
149. Tilman D. 1998. The greening of the green revolution. Nature 396:21112
150. Kogan M. 1998. Integrated pest management: historical perspectives and contemporary
developments. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 43:24370
151. Pearce D, Putz FE, Vanclay JK. 2003. Sustainable forestry in the tropics: panacea or folly?
For. Ecol. Manag. 172:22947
152. Organ. Econ. Co-op. Dev. (OECD). 2004. Agriculture and the Environment: Lessons Learned
From a Decade of OECD Work. Paris: OECD
153. Rosenthal E. 2007. Once a dream fuel, palm oil may be an eco-nightmare. New York
Times, Jan. 31:C1
154. Organ. Econ. Co-op. Dev. (OECD). 2001. Multifunctionality: Towards an Analytical Framework. Paris: OECD
155. Gruenewald H, Brandt BKV, Schneider BU, Bens O, Kendzia G, Huttl RF. 2007. Agroforestry systems for the production of woody biomass for energy transformation purposes.
Ecol. Eng. 29:31928
156. Lynd LR, Wyman CE, Gerngross TU. 1999. Biocommodity engineering. Biotechnol.
Prog. 15:77793
157. Andow DA, Zwahlen C. 2006. Assessing environmental risks of transgenic plants. Ecol.
Lett. 9:196214
158. Wambugu F. 1999. Why Africa needs agricultural biotech. Nature 400:1516
159. James RR, DiFazio SP, Brunner AM, Strauss SH. 1998. Environmental effects of genetically engineered woody biomass crops. Biomass Bioenergy 14:40314
160. Snow AA, Andow DA, Gepts P, Hallerman EM, Power A, et al. 2005. Genetically engineered organisms and the environment: current status and recommendations. Ecol. Appl.
15:377404
161. Herdt RW. 2006. Biotechnology in agriculture. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 31:265
95
162. Sagar A, Daemmrich A, Ashiya M. 2000. The tragedy of the commoners: biotechnology
and its publics. Nat. Biotechnol. 18:24
163. Johnson RB. 2006. Sustainable agriculture: competing visions and policy avenues. Int. J.
Sustain. Dev. World Ecol. 13:46980
164. Berndes G, Hoogwijk M, Van Den Broek R. 2003. The contribution of biomass in the
future global energy supply: a review of 17 studies. Biomass Bioenergy 25:128
165. de Vries BJM, van Vuuren DP, Hoogwijk MM. 2007. Renewable energy sources: their
global potential for the rst-half of the 21st century at a global level: an integrated
approach. Energy Policy 35:2590610
166. Brown LR. 2006. Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.
Washington, DC: Worldwatch Inst.
167. Pimentel D. 2002. Limits of biomass utilization. In Encyclopedia of Physical Science and
Technology, ed. R Meyers, pp. 15971. San Diego, CA: Academic. 3rd ed.
168. Smil V. 1983. Biomass Energies: Resources, Links, Constraint. New York: Plenum
169. Delgado C, Rosegrant M, Steinfeld H, Ehui S, Courbois C. 1999. Livestock to 2020: the
next food revolution. Int. Food Policy Res. Inst. 2020 Brief 61, Washington, DC
170. Steinfeld H, Gerber P, Wassenaar T, Castel V, Rosales M, Haan CD. 2006. Livestocks
Long Shadow: Enviromental Issues and Options. Rome: Food Agric. Organ.
171. Faaij APC, Domac J. 2006. Emerging international bio-energy markets and opportunities
for socio-economic development. Energy Sustain. Dev. X:719
165
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6
172. Kartha S, Larson ED. 1999. A Bioenergy Primer: Roles for Biomass Energy Systems in Promoting Sustainable Development. New York: UN Dev. Program.
173. Kartha S, Leach G, Rajan SC. 2005. Advancing bioenergy for sustainable development:
guidelines for policy makers and investors. Vol. IIII. Energy Sect. Manag. Assist. Program
Rep. 300/05, World Bank, Washington, DC
174. Roig-Franzia M. 2007. A culinary and cultural staple in crisis. Washington Post, Jan. 27:A1
175. UN Energy. 2007. Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers. New York: UN
Energy
176. Msangi S, Rosegrant TSM, Valmonte-Santos R. 2007. Global scenarios for biofuels: impacts
and implications for food security and water use. Presented at 10th Annu. Conf. Glob. Econ.
Anal., spec. sess. CGE Modeling of Climate, Land Use, and Water: Challenges and
Applications, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN
177. Johansson DJA, Azar C. 2007. A scenario based analysis of land competition between
food and bioenergy production in the US. Clim. Change 82:26791
178. Runge CF, Senauer B. 2007. How biofuels could starve the poor. Foreign Aff. 86:41
54
179. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 2004. The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2004. Rome:
FAO
180. Mazoyer M. 2001. Protecting Small Farmers and the Rural Poor in the Context of Globalization.
Rome: FAO
181. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 2004. The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets. Rome:
FAO
182. Vakulabharanam V. 2005. Growth and distress in a South Indian peasant economy during
the era of economic liberalisation. J. Dev. Stud. 41:97197
183. Bryceson DF. 2002. The scramble in Africa: reorienting rural livelihoods. World Dev.
30:72539
184. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 2005. The State of Food and Agriculture 2005. Rome: FAO
185. Hallam D, Liu P, Lavers G, Pilkauskas P, Rapsomanikis G, Claro J. 2004. The market for
nontraditional agricultural exports. FAO Commod. Trade Tech. Pap. 3 Rome: FAO
186. Lewandowski I, Faaij APC. 2006. Steps towards the development of a certication system
for sustainable bio-energy trade. Biomass Bioenergy 30:83104
187. Vogl CR, Kilcher L, Schmidt H. 2005. Are standards and regulations of organic farming
moving away from small farmers knowledge? J. Sustain. Agric. 26:526
188. Organ. Econ. Co-op. Dev. (OECD). 2006. Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: At a
Glance. Paris: OECD
189. Reitze AW. 2006. Should the Clean Air Act be used to turn petroleum addicts into
alcoholics? Environ. Law Rep. 36:1074570
190. Bovard J. 1995. Archer Daniels Midland: a case study in corporate welfare. Cato Policy
Anal. 241, Cato Inst., Washington, DC
191. UN Conf. Trade Dev. (UNCTAD). 2004. The Least Developed Countries Report 2004:
Linking International Trade With Poverty Reduction. New York/Geneva: UNCTAD
192. UN Dev. Program. (UNDP). 2003. Making Global Trade Work for People. New York:
UNDP
193. World Bank. 2003. Global Economic Prospects 2004: Realizing the Development Promise of the
Doha Agenda. Washington, DC: World Bank
194. World Trade Organ. (WTO). 2004. World Trade Report 2004: Exploring the Linkage Between
the Domestic Policy Environment and International Trade. Geneva: WTO
195. Food Agric. Organ. (FAO). 1997. The State of Food and Agriculture 1997. Rome: FAO

ANRV325-EG32-05
166
Sagar
Kartha
ANRV325-EG32-05
ARI
2 October 2007
13:6

196. Rosset PM. 1999. The multiple functions and benets of small farm agriculture. Policy Brief
4, FoodFirst/ Inst. Food Dev. Policy, Oakland, CA
197. Pretty JN, Noble AD, Bossio D, Dixon J, Hine RE, et al. 2006. Resource-conserving
agriculture increases yields in developing countries. Environ. Sci. Technol. 40:111419
198. Pretty J. 2003. Social capital and the collective management of resources. Science
302:191214
167
HI-RES-EG32-05-Sagar.qxd 9/15/07 17:42 Page C-1
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Nigeria
Percent of residential energy from biomas

100
Guatemala
Zambia
Nepal
90
India
80
Paraguay
70
Indonesia
Thailand
Chile
Bangladesh
China
60
Philippines
50
South Africa
Jamaica
40
Brazil
30
Ethiopia
Costa Rica
20
Albania
10
Egypt
Venezuela
Uzbekistan
0
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Percent of population living below PPP$2/day

Figure 1
Poverty and reliance on biomass for residential energy needs. The energy data are from 2004; the
poverty data are from 20002004 (from latest year available, if multiple years are available) (3, 6).
Abbreviation: PPP, purchasing-power parity.
www.annualreviews.org
Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?
C-1
Top biodiesel producers (2005)
Top ethanol producers (2005)

Million liters/year

5000
10,000
15,000
Million liters/year
20,000
United States
Germany
Brazil
France
China
Italy
India
United States
France
Czech Republic
Russia
Poland
South Africa
Austria
Spain
Slovakia
United Kingdom
Spain
Saudi Arabia
Denmark
Figure 2
Top producers of biofuels (2005) (7577).
C-2
Sagar
Kartha
500
1000
1500
2000
12
*** Corn ethanol

IEA, 2005 (106)
Hill et al., 2006 (113)
Energy out (biofuel and coproducts) / energy in

*** Soy biodiesel

9
Hill et al., 2006 (113)

Delucchi, 2003 (114)
*** Rape biodiesel
IEA, 2005 (106)
*** Sugarcane ethanol
Macedo et al., 2004 (112)

de Oliveira, 2006 (115)
*** Cellulosic ethanol
Wu et al., 2006 (110)
Corn
ethanol
Soy
biodiesel
Rape
biodiesel
Sugarcane
ethanol
Cellulosic
ethanol
Figure 3
Energy ratios of biofuel cycles (102, 106, 110, 112115).
www.annualreviews.org
C-3
Land requirements per vehicle

required to offset GHG emissions
Hectares
0
Ethanol (Corn)

10
12
0.8
0.7
Biodiesel (Soya)
10.7
Biodiesel (Rape)
Global cropland per capita
8
7.8
Ethanol (Cellulosic)
Ethanol (Sugarcane)
3.9
0.2
Figure 4
Estimated hectares per car required to displace vehicle GHG emissions (data from sources in Table 2).
C-4
Sagar
Kartha
AR325-FM
ARI
21 September 2007
16:39
Annual Review of
Environment
and Resources

Contents
Volume 32, 2007
I. Earths Life Support Systems

Feedbacks of Terrestrial Ecosystems to Climate Change
Christopher B. Field, David B. Lobell, Halton A. Peters, and Nona R. Chiariello p p p p p p1
Carbon and Climate System Coupling on Timescales from the
Precambrian to the Anthropocene
Scott C. Doney and David S. Schimel p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 31
The Nature and Value of Ecosystem Services: An Overview
Highlighting Hydrologic Services
Kate A. Brauman, Gretchen C. Daily, T. Kaeo Duarte, and Harold A. Mooney p p p p p 67
Soils: A Contemporary Perspective
Cheryl Palm, Pedro Sanchez, Sonya Ahamed, and Alex Awiti p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 99
II. Human Use of Environment and Resources
Ambuj D. Sagar and Sivan Kartha p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p131
Models of Decision Making and Residential Energy Use
Charlie Wilson and Hadi Dowlatabadi p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p169
Renewable Energy Futures: Targets, Scenarios, and Pathways
Eric Martinot, Carmen Dienst, Liu Weiliang, and Chai Qimin p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p205
Shared Waters: Conict and Cooperation
Aaron T. Wolf p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p241
The Role of Livestock Production in Carbon and Nitrogen Cycles
Henning Steinfeld and Tom Wassenaar p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p271
Global Environmental Standards for Industry
David P. Angel, Trina Hamilton, and Matthew T. Huber p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p295
Industry, Environmental Policy, and Environmental Outcomes
Daniel Press p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p317
vii
AR325-FM
ARI
21 September 2007
16:39
Population and Environment

Alex de Sherbinin, David Carr, Susan Cassels, and Leiwen Jiang p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p345
III. Management, Guidance, and Governance of Resources and Environment
Carbon Trading: A Review of the Kyoto Mechanisms
Cameron Hepburn p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p375

Adaptation to Environmental Change: Contributions

of a Resilience Framework
Donald R. Nelson, W. Neil Adger, and Katrina Brown p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p395
IV. Integrative Themes
Women, Water, and Development
Isha Ray p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p421
Indexes
Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 2332 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p451
Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 2332 p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p455
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Environment and Resources articles
may be found at http://environ.annualreviews.org
viii
Contents

Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?: Ambuj D. Sagar and Sivan Kartha

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?: Ambuj D. Sagar and Sivan Kartha

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.

Bioenergy and Sustainable

Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, John F. Kennedy School of

Stockholm Environment Institute, Somerville, Massachusetts 02144;

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2007. 32:13167

First published online as a Review in Advance on

biodiesel, bioethanol, biofuels, biomass, clean energy, cookstoves

The Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

The recommendation of the UN Millennium Project is

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

2. ENERGY FOR POOR

People relying on biomass as their primary cooking fuel,

Adapted from Reference 1.

www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?

or small-scale bioenergy technologies. Over

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

2.1. Biomass Use in Households and

The burden of fuel collection falls

[for examples of early discussions of this

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

some locales, shortages of fuelwood for

do that, they may continue to use some

2.2. Alternatives to Traditional Use

Emission-reducing cooking options,

Ideally, approaches that intend to make

www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?

Increased fuel efciency

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

Historically, much of the attention in the

One notable exception was the Chinese stove program

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

air pollution (38) as well as health benets

The Millennium Gelfuel Initiative (MGI) was launched

clean-burning) energy sources such as LPG

2.3. Prospects for Sustainable and

www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?

work quite well. In fact, Goldemberg et al. (50)

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

The LP Gas Rural Energy Challenge is a public-private

possible, further up the energy ladder, but

An understanding of the need to engage

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

Designs that are amenable to mass production (54)

Movement toward certication and

Well-designed monitoring systems

The promotion of entrepreneurshipbased dissemination approaches (37, 55)

There are also a range of efforts to

policies to make sure that the landless have

www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?

United States, Europe, and China projected

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

3.1. Technological Options for

In addition to biofuels, two other alternatives to

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

the United States between 2005 and 2006,

residues, and dedicated energy crops that can

www.annualreviews.org Bioenergy and Sustainable Development?

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org

The Brazilian success in ethanol, for example, drew

For example, a recent news report suggests that a redesign

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2007.32:131-167. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org