While energy prices, energy security, and climate change are front and center in the national media, these issues are often framed to the exclusion of the broader issue of sustainability—ensuring that the production and use of biofuels do not compromise the needs of future generations by recognizing the need to protect life-support systems, promote economic growth, and improve societal welfare. Thus, it is important to understand the effects of biofuel production and use on water quality and quantity, soils, wildlife habitat and biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, air quality, public health, and the economic viability of rural communities.
- FrontMatter
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Contents
- I: Introduction and Overview
- II: Policies Driving the Expansion of Biofuel Production
- III: Next-Generation Technologies and Feedstocks
- IV: Dimensions of Sustainability and Expanding Biofuel Production
- V: Going Forward
- Appendixes
- Appendix A: Workshop Agenda
- Appendix B: Workshop Participants
- Appendix C: Description of Agency Activities on Biofuels and Sustainability
- Appendix D: Brief Survey of State Biofuel Policies in the Upper Midwest
- Appendix E: Assessing the Sustainability of Biofuels: Metrics, Models, and Tools for Evaluating the Impact of Biofuels
- Appendix F: Selected Bibliography
- Appendix G: Biographical Information: Workshop Participants
- Appendix H: Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability