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Most of the climate change models for South Africa predict a reduction in freshwater availability by 2050, which implies that water availability for sectoral production activities is expected to decline. This decline has an impact on sectoral output, value added and households’ welfare. Using a computable general equilibrium approach, this study investigates the possible impact of global change on households’ welfare. The simulation results show that water scarcity due to global change can potentially lead to a general deterioration in households’ welfare. The poor households, whose incomes are adversely impacted, are the most vulnerable to the consequences of the impact of global change on water resources in South Africa. This vulnerability can only be reduced if welfare policies that maintain food consumption levels for the least and low-income households are implemented

To reduce national oil dependency, ethanol has been given a center stage of U.S. energy sources. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program was launched to increase the volume of renewable gasoline from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2012, among which 15 billion are corn-based ethanol, while U.S. corn-based ethanol can hardly achieve this level. There is a trend that indicates U.S. importing ethanol from other countries, so a bilateral trade system has been established between U.S. and Brazil since 2003. The annual import is 211 million gallons in 2008 (USDC, 2009). Nevertheless, this amount is far away from the target, and the worldwide food shortage called us to divert our attention from fuel to food. China, as the third largest ethanol producer, has extreme ethanol growth potential with low production costs and large sources of cassava, which is a non-food feedstock for ethanol. This paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure and compare the efficiency of ethanol production in China and Brazil. To estimate the extent output can be proportionally expanded without altering the input quantities employed in each country. The output orientated method has been developed with annual ethanol production from the inputs-- land for ethanol crops, agricultural labor force and capacity of ethanol production. The DEA results show that China has been more efficient in ethanol production than Brazil since the year 2007. This means China has comparative advantage over Brazil in producing ethanol, hence U.S. can import from China instead of Brazil in the future.

Climate change is altering a wide range of human activities, including wine making. While wine may appear to be one of the most natural alcoholic beverages, it is not without carbon inputs and emissions, which contribute to the very change in climate that is altering both wine and wine making. In this paper, we use a carbon life cycle analysis to develop a model for quantifying carbon inputs in a bottle of wine. Current regulatory arrangements do not capture the carbon costs of wine effectively since most costs are externalized. We conclude with estimates of the cost of carbon under various regulatory regimes, which suggest how wine producers and consumers can reduce the carbon footprint of wine.

This paper tries to identify under which conditions voluntary certification could be an answer to the governance of sustainability at global level. The study addresses the case of biofuel sustainability certification in Brazil and the role of the EU Directive on biofuels. The case study has permitted to identify and analyze some of these factors as the degree of dependence from foreign market, the policy environment, the structure of the supply chain, the benefits and costs associated to certification as well as some unintended consequences. The research has been conducted through a case study in the state of Sao Paolo (Brazil).

Within an overall project to assess the ability of the agricultural sector to contribute to bioenergy production, we set out here to examine the economic and technological viability of a bioenergy facility in an uncertain economic context, using the stochastic viability approach. We consider two viability constraints: the facility demand for lignocellulosic feedstock has to be satisfied each year and the associated supply cost has to be lower than de profitability threshold of the facility. We assess the viability probability of various supplying strategies consisting in contracting a given share of the feedstock demand with perennial dedicated crops at the initial time and then in making up each year with annual dedicated crops or wood. The demand constraints and agricultural prices scenarios over the time horizon are introduced in an agricultural and forest biomass supply model, which in turns determines the supply cost per MWh and computes the viability probabilities of the various contract strategies. A sensibility analysis to agricultural prices at initial time is performed. Results show that when they are around or under the median (of the 1993–2007 prices), the strategy consisting in contracting 100% of the feedstock supply with perennial dedicated crops is the best one.

The commercial production of microalgae started in the early 1950’s. Especially in the last two decades, these amounts have tremendously increased. In view of growing world population and limited fossil fuels, microalgae are seen as one promising alternative source for biofuels and high value products (like proteins and ω-3 fatty acids) in different industry branches (e.g. food, feed, cosmetic and pharmaceutic products or waste water treatment). Currently, they are mainly used for food and food supplements. The potential of the small photosynthetic microorganisms for other applications were proven in lab scale experiments. There are obstacles as high processing costs, low production yields and production stability which continue to prevent the commercial use. Furthermore, without artificial lighting and heating, the production in Europe is limited from March to October. As a result, the market prices are often the bottle neck in order to sell products. There is a need for the optimisation of the processes and reactors (e.g. important growth factors, selection of microalgae species and design) to tap the full potential of the green cell factories.

State policy incentives for solar power have grown significantly in the past several years. This paper uses county level panel data to investigate whether state policy incentives are effective in increasing residential solar PV capacity. Empirical findings show that tax incentives, rebates, solar-specific mandates, and loan financing programs are important drivers of residential PV adoption. These results suggest that policy incentives play a significant role in encouraging wider use of solar energy. Results also point to a significant positive relationship between hybrid vehicle sales and residential PV adoption, indicating the importance of pro-environmental preference as a predictor of solar PV demand.

In response to energy security concerns, alternative energy programs such as biomass energy systems are being developed to provide energy in the 21st century. For the biomass industry to expand, a variety of feedstocks will need to be utilized. Large scale production of bioenergy crops could have significant impacts on the United States agricultural sector in terms of quantities, prices and production location of traditional crops as well as farm income. Though a number of scenarios were examined to study the impact of bioenergy crop production on the agricultural sector, two cropland scenarios are presented in this report. Under the wildlife management scenario, the analysis indicates that, at $30/dry ton (dt) for switchgrass, $31.74/dt for willow and $32.90 for poplar, an estimated 19.4 million acres of cropland (8.2 million from CRP) could be used to produce 96 million dry tons of bioenergy crops annually at a profit greater than the profit created by existing uses for the land. In this scenario, traditional crop prices increase from 3 percent to 9 percent (depending on crop) and net farm income increases by $2.8 billion annually. At $40/dt of switchgrass, $42.32/dt for willow and $43.87/dt for poplar and assuming the production management scenario, an estimated 41.9 million acres (12.9 million from CRP) could be used to produce 188 million dry tons of biomass annually. Under this scenario, traditional crop prices increase by 8 to 14 percent and net farm income increases by $6 billion annually.

Apesar de uma série argumentos teóricos e evidências empíricas demonstrarem que a partir de certos níveis de renda ocorre a chamada EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve), i.e., uma relação em “U” invertido entre renda e degradação ambiental (ou consumo dos recursos naturais) estudos aplicados demonstraram que para o caso do consumo de energia no Brasil, esta relação não se verifica. A melhoria na qualidade ambiental poderia, no entanto, estar ocorrendo pela troca de uma matriz energética mais intensiva na emissão de poluentes por uma menos agressiva. Para verificar este efeito foram estimadas várias EKC’s para diferentes tipos de fonte primárias de energia (petróleo, álcool de cana-de-açúcar, gás natural, carvão mineral e vegetal, hidroeletricidade residencial e industrial e lenha). Como a princípio as demandas são correlacionadas entre si, foi utilizado um modelo de regressão do tipo SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regressions). O resultado obtido confirma a hipótese de que as funções são correlacionadas contemporaneamente e que o nível de consumo da maioria das fontes de energia é crescente em função da renda (algumas com elasticidade também crescente). Outros resultados extraídos indicam que a participação das fontes renováveis tende a decair ao longo do processo de crescimento econômico; e, há um aumento exponencial nas emissões de carbono no longo-prazo (tanto originário de fontes renováveis quanto não-renováveis). ----------------------------------------------------- Although some theoretical and empirical evidences show that under some level of income the relationship between income and the use of natural resources and environmental quality is inverted U-shaped (the well know EKC-Environmental Kuznets Curve), applied studies have shown that for the case of per capita energy consumption in Brazil the EKC doesn’t applies. However, an improvement on environmental quality would be occurring be the substitution of the energy matrix to another one less intensive on pollutants. Objecting the extraction of this effect it had been done the estimation of several EKC’s for different sources of fuel (petroleum, sugar-cane alcohol, natural gas, mineral and vegetal coal, residential and industrial hydroelectricity and wood). Once those sources of energy demand are, by substitution, correlated, it had been used the econometrical technique of the regression by SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regressors). The final result had shown what was expected: the different energy sources are contemporaneously correlated and they are in most part positively correlated with income, actually some of then have increasing elasticity on income. Some simulations done indicates that the percent participation of the renewable sources of energy is decreasing along economic growth; and, the carbon emissions is exponential increasing on long-run (either renewable and non-renewable).

This study aims to determine price premiums of sustainable attributes for fresh eggs by using hedonic analysis. The sustainable attributes defined include welfare-managed egg production and recyclable packaging attributes. Welfare-managed eggs have a price premium equal to 3.57 cents per egg; while the sustainable packaging variable was not found to be significant. The strategies for egg manufactures and retailers include offering organic or welfare-managed eggs independently until consumers perceive these attributes as being different, and using sustainable packaging for each specific region of the U.S. since each state has different laws and opportunities to recycle paper, plastic and Styrofoam products. www.ifama.org