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The purpose of this paper is to present a review of strategy developed by University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore in Biofuel Park, Hassan (Government of Karnataka, initiative to develop biofuel programme in India) for promoting sustainable biodiesel production using oil extracted from tree borne oil species. The main aim of this study was to analyse the current strategy, identify the limitations and propose sustainable biodiesel production strategies for rural Karnataka.

The paper presents critical analysis of current Biofuel Park strategy using strength weakness opportunities and threat (SWOT) method. The data for SWOT analysis were collected from Biofuel Park log books, followed by interviews with around 50 associations of biofuel feed stock growers. Further, to evolve sustainable strategies, a case study was carried out at a local village assessing sustainability of biodiesel production and use from four local tree species oil namely; Pongamia pinnata, Azadiractha indica, Madhuca indica and Simarouba glauca. The evolved strategies were brainstormed with local farming community and the deliberations were used to lay a road map for implementing the evolved strategies.

The strategies proposed in the paper would help in sustainability of villages with respect to local energy needs and generate employment. The roadmap proposed would minimise green house gas (GHG) emission compared to Biofuel Park model/strategy and minimise biomass displacement.

This paper fulfils a need to study biofuel strategies adopted by government bodies, analyse the same for sustainability and propose alternatives to overcome the limitations of the practiced strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critique of government intervention in the production of biofuel in northern Sweden and Finland, highlighting some of the welfare consequences.

After a short review of government interventions, including laws, taxes and subsidies, Austrian economic principles are applied, which lead to universal statements about the impacts of government intervention.

Government intervention on behalf of the biofuel production industry leads to the emergence of an investment bubble, with consequential negative impacts on welfare.

The paper informs about the true costs of intervention in biofuel production, which suggests that policy makers may abstain from justifying interventions for the sake of increasing people's welfare.

The paper contributes to the research of the production impacts of a new energy technology in the form of biofuel in particular and of governmental intervention in production in general. The paper, furthermore, enhances the use of the method and theory of the Austrian school of economic science.

This study aims to focus on the design of a sustainable business model on the development of a biofuel industry in Indonesia.

The changed status from a net oil exporter to net importer in 2004, the highly subsidized price of fossil fuel, the depleting oil resources and a strong dependency on oil for domestic production are the driving forces for introducing biofuel in Indonesia. The Indonesian government enacted an energy policy in 2006 which aims to partially shift fossil fuel consumption to renewable energy sources including biofuel. The mandatory requirement to use biofuel and the given subsidies will help to make biofuel competitive. However, till now, biofuel still has not achieved the aimed target for several reasons, e.g. higher cost of production relative to fossil fuel, distribution barriers due to geographical constraints, reluctance from industry due to uncertain markets and relative low participation from local government. This paper develops strategic analysis based on the diffusion process of biofuel development.

The tools applied are a SWOT analysis, Porter 5 Force analysis, and Business Portfolio analysis to understand the position of the biofuel industry.

This study provides an innovative business model to accelerate the integration of biofuel into the Indonesian energy markets and create profitable and sustainable business.

Without proper treatment, waste cooking oil (WCO) will bring serious environmental and health hazards, which can be effectively alleviated by converting it into biofuel. Subsidies from the government usually play a significant role in encouraging recycling activities and supporting sustainable supply chain. This paper aims to quantitatively investigate the incentive effects of government subsidies under asymmetric information.

This paper applies the principal–agent contract to compare the incentive effects of the two widely used subsidy modes (raw material price subsidy [MS] and finished product sale subsidy [FS]) in a management system which consists of the government and a bio-firm where the bio-firm’s conversion rate of the WCO remains as private information.

Results indicate that the two subsidy modes have the same performance under symmetric information, while under asymmetric information, the government always prefers the MS mode which is more environment-friendly. Besides, if the average conversion rate is large or the uncertainty level of the asymmetric information is moderate, the MS mode is Pareto-improving compared with the FS mode for the government and the high-type bio-firm. Only when the average conversion rate is small or the uncertainty level is very small/very large, the high-type bio-firm welcomes the FS mode.

Different from the existing literature, this paper applies the principal–agent contract into the WCO management system and quantitatively compares the two subsidy modes taking the practical problem of asymmetric information into consideration.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the status of policy design and policy implementation in the biofuel sector in Ireland. The focus of the work addresses the overarching operational context of the biofuel sector in Ireland and the role of different actors in shaping and resolving inconsistencies in policy outlook and practice.

This study used a qualitative research approach involving a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the relevant sub-groups concerned. This study sought to address two questions – whether current or proposed policy is likely to affect consumption of indigenous biofuel feedstocks in the biofuel sector and what are the controlling factors in the demand for indigenous feedstocks for biofuel.

Outcomes suggest that while Irish government policy recognises the need to support the development of renewable energy, it also operates under a number of parallel and potentially inconsistent paradigms in relation to biofuels as a renewable energy commodity. It is contended that the outcome of this position is a lack of coherent and coordinated policy in the area of biofuel production, including second generation biofuel using indigenous feedstocks.

This paper provides a new cross sectoral perspective on the status of biofuel policy in Ireland with particular reference to second generation biofuel feedstocks. It focuses analysis on the nature of policy-operational inconsistencies and the need for a deeper ecological perspective in governance.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the biofuels debate in air transport.

The controversies about biofuels sustainability in general and research findings on biofuels are complemented by the specific circumstances the aviation industry encounters in its attempt to become more sustainable. The author's corporate affiliation allows for insights from an airline's perspective and experience with biojet fuel.

The paper highlights accountability and accounting advances required by the aviation industry as well as further stakeholders to safeguard sustainability of biofuels.

The paper provides a viewpoint taking account of research findings but written from a corporate perspective. The intention is not to provide a complete review of the growing academic literature in the biofuels field, nor to elaborate on the entire array of challenges in practice.

The paper integrates macro‐level societal limitations for sustainable biofuel feedstock production with micro and meso‐level corporate and industry perspectives on sustainable biofuels.

Purpose – This chapter compares bioenergy policy developments in Germany and Denmark to better understand the responses of EU country policy regimes to global shocks; to examine potentially emerging new trends of productivist policy models; and to explore potential land use conflicts in the context of a multifunctional EU agricultural policy.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter reviews the bioenergy policy development pathways taken by Germany and Denmark, highlighting key consequences for agricultural land use and rural development. Findings from both case studies are then compared in summary tables, followed by a discussion of the possible emergence of productivist policy approaches in the bioenergy sector in these countries.

Findings – The bioenergy policies pursued by both countries differ in key respects and yet have had the same result-an increase in the productivist orientation of agriculture, legitimised by the environmental concerns of bioenergy policy. The Danish and German case studies also demonstrate that the particular pathways taken to establish bioenergy policies in each country have been strongly influenced by local political, farming and technological dynamics.

Originality/value – This chapter presents a telling case of what Burton and Wilson (this volume) call “repositioned productivism”, where productivist approaches benefit from environmental or multifunctional policy rationale to continue at the farm level.

This research investigated the economic feasibility of using maize as feedstock to produce bioethanol in South Africa. The purpose of the study was to generate economic data from a maize-fed bioethanol plant and use it to perform a comparative analysis between the profitability that is generated by the maize exports to Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and the profitability generated by the bioethanol plant in South Africa.

This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to gather data. The mixed method approach was chosen owing to the nature of the study which required an analysis of qualitative and quantitative data in order to achieve its objectives.

The findings from a qualitative instrument indicated that a majority of respondents were in favour of the decision of excluding maize for bioethanol production made by the South African Government. Findings from quantitative analysis revealed that the profitability of the bioethanol plant was largely influenced by the prices of feedstock and bioethanol.

This research was a deterministic feasibility study which ignores the risk associated with price fluctuation of raw materials and products. A probabilistic feasibility study was recommended (Monte Carlo simulation). Such economic data can also help policymakers and investors to make informed decisions.

The study recommended the need to produce bioethanol from the maize cultivated in available arable soils in South Africa, thus alleviating the cost burden of importing oil and obnoxious environmental effects.

The purpose of this study is to examine how renewable energy consumption moderates the relationship between inequality and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). The nexus between energy use and geopolitical tensions has also been explored.

This study has used distinctive data sets from 1990 to 2018 to explore the interconnections on emission, energy use, inequality and geopolitics. To do away with the difficulties related to heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence (CD), this paper uses recent estimation methods that are robust to panel heterogeneity and CD.

The results of the panel augmented mean group (AMG) estimation and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimation verify the environmental Kuznets curve. The findings show that a 1% rise in Gini inequality leads to a 0.24% rise in the CO₂ emission (AMG) method and a 0.17% rise in emissions CCEMG (method). As far as the moderating impact of renewable energy upon Gini measure of inequality is concerned, it is −0.10 AMG and CCEMG methods of estimation, respectively. However, the moderating impact of renewable energy on the geopolitical index leads to a mitigating impact on CO₂ emissions, 0.55% decline in AMG method.

This research makes a distinctive contribution by investigating for the first time to the best of the authors’ knowledge the main pillars of sustainable ecological development in the context of the BRICS nations.

Bioenergy remains the largest branch of renewable energy, and microalgae are a promising object of research among other types of biomasses whose scale for energy purposes is increasing. On the other hand, the growth of global energy production and urbanization, which results in high rates of municipal waste and wastewater generation, requires the development of integrated technologies that allow waste to be disposed of as fully as possible. Sustainable investments in the production of energy by various technologies are one of the methods to solve this complex problem. In this chapter, we study the methods of microalgae utilization of nutrients from wastewater and by-product liquid waste of sustainable investments from microalgae by hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology. Wastewater has a complex composition, and the treatment of nitrogen and phosphorus and other biogenic elements, as well as heavy metals, using biological objects is optimal and cost-effective. Also the water phase after HTL is a by-product that has limited energy value. Biofuel investments have higher growth rates and at the same time do not compete with the investments in fossil fuels. Biofuel investments' cost of seaweed fuel can be reduced through high-value-added related products, such as food and feed additives, and pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.