Biofuels and Sustainability

Biofuels and Sustainability: Life-cycle Assessments, System Biology, Policies, and Emerging Technologies presents the current progress and challenges related to the sustainability of biofuels. Addressing a wide range of issues, the book examines the methods and technologies, policies for sustainable biofuels, impacts of advanced fuels, recent advances, and future research prospects. Reflecting new developments, emphasis is given to new biological/biochemical approaches that offer the most efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable strategies for biofuel production. Divided into five parts, the first provides an overview of biofuels, the need for alternate fuels, carbon footprints, life cycle assessments, environmental aspects, various generations of biofuels, biofuel production from lignocellulosic material, and artificial intelligence in biofuel production. Part 2 examines the various methods and technologies for biofuels production, with case studies from the USA, UK, and Brazil. Part 3 explores the policies for sustainable biofuels, including current standards, with applications from the USA, European Union, Asia, and Africa. Part 4 analyses the impacts of advanced fuels in the decarbonization of transport, climate change mitigation, sustainable agriculture, and water resources, with perspectives from developed and developing countries. Finally, Part 5 critically reviews the recent advances and future research prospects related to termites, insects, metabolic engineering, microorganisms, and bioreactors. - Provides carbon footprints and lifecycle assessments of biofuel and bioproduct production from 2nd and 3rd generation feedstocks and compliance with the international standards - Highlights the emerging applications of systems biology in biofuel and bioenergy production, including biomimetics and protein engineering - Analyzes the sustainable production of biofuels at various stages, such as feedstock production, biomass pre-treatment and novel bioprospection - Explains the technological challenges of biofuel production, designing novel bioreactors, and value-added processing of biofuel residues - Discusses and analyses biofuel and bioenergy policies from various countries and various regions of the world