Food, feed or biofuels -- how is biofuel production impacting our food supply and what does the future look like? Read this fascinating interview with one of our leading experts in the field.
Day 2: A Sustainable World
Celebrating Biology Week 2016
Natural resources, such as fossil fuel reserves and land available for agriculture are limited. In response to declining fossil fuel reserves, the use of biofuels is increasingly being explored.
Most biofuel is produced by fermentation of sugar cane, maize, soy and rapeseed, instigating the ‘food versus fuel’ debate - these crops could be used for food or the land used for biofuel feedstocks will not then be available for agriculture. Therefore, next-generation biofuels, such as algae, cyanobacteria and lignocellulosic feedstocks, that don’t need arable land, are being developed and have the potential to replace the hydrocarbon products of fossil fuels.
Today, we present a selection of our top articles on sustainability research and offer an expert opinion on the the-food-versus-biofuels-debate.
The Food vs. Fuel Debate
Blog Posts
"Biodiesel fuels and sustainability"
Read our blog on how about cutting-edge technologies are being used to create biodiesel from sustainable sources such as plants, algae and other microbes.
Read our Top Sustainability Articles
Read our collection of reviews, editorials and research articles, covering sustainability research.
From Biotechnology for Biofuels
- Bioenergy and African Transformation
- Indirect land use changes of biofuel production – a review of modelling efforts and policy developments in the European Union
- Sustainable bioenergy production with little carbon debt in the Loess Plateau of China
- Butanol production from food waste: a novel process for producing sustainable energy and reducing environmental pollution
From BMC Plant Biology
- Identification and functional analysis of the geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthase gene (crtE) and phytoene synthase gene (crtB) for carotenoid biosynthesis in Euglena gracilis
From Environmental Sciences Europe (part of Springer Open)
- Sustainability criteria: their indicators, control, and monitoring (with examples from the biofuel sector)
- Microplastics in the aquatic and terrestrial environment: sources (with a specific focus on personal care products), fate and effects
For more sustainability articles, visit our website and access thousands of open access articles!
Biology Week 2016 - A Sustainable World has been curated by Helen Whittaker and Srimathy Sriskantharajah.