Household air pollution is the second leading cause of disease in Madagascar, where more than 99 percent of households rely on solid biomass, such as charcoal, wood, and crop waste, as the main cooking fuel. Only a limited number of studies have looked at the emissions and health consequences of...

The lack of growth in the Brazilian sugarcane-ethanol complex since the 2008 financial crisis has been blamed on policies: lower mandate, holding gasoline prices below world levels, high fuel taxes, and inadequate fuel tax exemptions for ethanol. This paper develops an empirical model of the...

Facing a huge fiscal burden due to imports of entire petroleum despite the availability of a surplus of agricultural land to produce biofuels, Zambia, a country in Sub-Saharan Africa, has recently introduced a biofuel mandate. But, a number of questions, particularly those related to the...

Solar energy has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years due to both technological improvements resulting in cost reductions and government policies supportive of renewable energy development and utilization. This study analyzes the technical, economic and policy aspects of solar energy...

The Government of Bangladesh, with help from the World Bank and other donors, has provided aid to a local agency called Infrastructure Development Company Limited and its partner organizations to devise a credit scheme for marketing solar home system units and making these an affordable...

Mali, a landlocked West African nation at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, has introduced a program to produce biodiesel using jatropha curcas, a non-edible shrub widely available throughout the country by farmers for generations as a living fence for their gardens. The aim of the program...

Improving access to affordable and reliable energy services for cooking is essential for developing countries in reducing adverse human health and environmental impacts hitherto caused by burning of traditional biomass. This paper reviews empirical studies that analyze choices of fuel and...

With increased global interest in biofuels, Zambia, a Sub-Saharan African country that entirely depends on imports for its petroleum supply, is planning to implement blending mandates for biofuels. But, a large number of issues -- including production costs of biofuels, land requirements to meet...

In declaring 2012 the international year of sustainable energy for all, the United Nations (UN) general assembly (2011) established at the personal initiative of the UN secretary general- three global objectives to be accomplished by 2030. Those goals are to ensure universal access to modern...

China promulgated the Medium and Long-Term Development Plan for Renewable Energy in 2007, which included targets of 2010 and 2020 for various renewable energy technologies including biofuels. The 2010 biofuel targets were met and even surpassed except for non-grain fuel ethanol; however, there...