Forest products play an important role in supporting rural livelihoods and food security in many developing countries. Pimentel et al. (1997) found that the integrity of forests is vital to world food security, mostly because of the dependence of the poor on forest resources. Studies of the role...

This paper compares environmental and profitability outcomes for a centralized biorefinery for cellulosic ethanol that does all processing versus a biorefinery linked to a decentralized array of local depots that pretreat biomass into concentrated briquettes. The analysis uses a spatial...

Rising prices on vegetable oils and animal fats have enabled dry mill ethanol plants to profitably extract corn oil from distillers’ dried grain. While the mandates under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 for grain based ethanol will level off at 15 billion gallons in 2015, the...

Forests and timber are important natural resources in the state of Michigan. Forestlands make of 53% of the total land area and the forest related industry and manufacturing sector in Michigan generate approximately $12 billion to the state’s economy. Though forestry related industry and...

Biomass is being researched as a possible alternative to fossil sources of energy, in order to avoid externalities from fossil fuel use that affect the environment and the economy. Some biomass-based energy production systems may produce unwanted externalities in their own right, such as...

Many governments, firms, institutions and individuals have become increasingly cognizant of their impact on the environment, most notably with respect to global climate change. This coupled with a threat of future regulation and a desire for a ‘green’ image, among other reasons, has led...

This paper introduces a spatial bioeconomic model for study of potential cellulosic biomass supply at regional scale. By modeling the profitability of alternative crop production practices, it captures the opportunity cost of replacing current crops by cellulosic biomass crops. The model draws...

Most of the increase in ethanol production in the 2008-2012 period can be attributed to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) and earlier federal energy legislation. The expansion in U.S. biofuel production, particularly ethanol, was the predominant cause of the elevated...

Forests support rural livelihoods and food security in many developing countries by providing critical sources of food, medicine, shelter, building materials, fuels, and cash income. The increasing demand for forest products has enhanced rural livelihoods and enabled the expansion of domestic...