By Robert Ackrill, Adrian Kay, Palgrave Macmillan, December, 2014
In recent years, governments globally have been promoting the production and use of biofuels as a transport fuel. This has been motivated by a range of political, economic and environmental concerns, notably climate change, energy security and rural development. As a result, biofuels production and use have expanded considerably in just a few years, a development which has brought biofuels a great deal of negative attention. Whether it is the linking of biofuels with increases in greenhouse gas emissions, rising food prices, deforestation, or as a threat to vested oil interests, biofuels are being attacked from many directions. In this timely and insightful book, Ackrill and Kay draw on interviews with key policy insiders in Brazil, the EU and the US, to analyse why biofuels policies have been implemented so enthusiastically by policy makers; and the consequences they now face, given the scale of their ambition for biofuels and biofuels policies.
