Economic Sustainability of Bioenergy Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Driven by policies to address persistent increases in fossil fuel prices and their environmental impacts, biofuel production and use has grown rapidly over the last decade-and-a-half. However, market conditions that supported the large increases in biofuels have changed. Technological developments have led to significant increases in oil production in the United States, and the high level of production is expected to continue for two to three decades. In addition, the global oil price has dropped by about 50% since the third quarter of 2014. These changes have implications for the production and use of biofuels, and their sustainability relative to fossil fuels. This Special Issue of Agriculture will focus on the economic sustainability of biofuels. Topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Case studies of the economic sustainability of existing biofuel supply chains (and crucial supply chain components, such as feedstock production) at the local to global scale, including approaches for translating measures of economic sustainability across scales.
2. Empirical evaluation of the impacts of different factors on the economic sustainability of biofuels based on the recent history of the market.
3. Perspectives on the short- to long-run evolution of biofuels’ economic sustainability, considering future paths of market factors (e.g., crude oil prices), technologies, and policies.
4. Understanding the interaction between economic sustainability and other legs of the economic–environment–social sustainability tripod in the context of biofuels.

Dr. Gbadebo Oladosu
Guest Editor

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