Book Review: Socio-Economic Impacts of Bioenergy Production

During the last few decades, the bioenergy production has been radically promoted worldwide (EIA, 2013) as a clean and eco-friendly source of energy mainly due to the global concern of climate change, primarily attributed by the increasing emission of CO2 by fossil fuel consumptions. Although vegetable oils was first used as liquid fuels (bioenergy) in internal combustion engine by Rudolf Diesel in early 1900 (Pousa et al., 2007), the low cost and easy availability have made the fossil fuels, such as petroleum, as a primary fuel for vehicular transports. Nevertheless, the limited reserves of petroleum and its derivative had necessitated the search for cleaner and alternative source of energy (Parente, 2003; Pousa et al., 2007). Although bioenergy is considered as a versatile type of renewable energy, the large scale production of bioenergy from biomass is always under criticism as it requires large tracks of arable lands for bioenergy plantation. Hence, there is a direct conflict of interest between the food and biofuel production in the concerned societies. As a result, the present global bioenergy production is not promising and (55 EJ) (World Bioenergy Association, 2014) is still not enough to satisfy the energy demands of burgeoning global population. Hence, it is the need of the hour to maximize the bioenergy production without having any social and economic conflicts. However, the socio-economic considerations are mainly influenced by the local and regional frameworks (societal and economic) of the concerned nations, including the educational level, cultural aspects, and policies, including environmental and social targets. In this context, the book “Socio-economic impacts of bioenergy production” is a relevant and indepth analysis of the socio-economic issues associated with bioenergy production and provides suitable indicators for assessing the sustainability of such bioenergy production programs and also providing strategies for overcoming all such negative impacts in an amicable way. As editors rightly pointed out, the book “illustrates the complexity of interrelated topics in the bioenergy value chain, ranging from agriculture to conversion processes, as well as from social implications to environmental effects. It furthermore gives an outlook on future challenges associated with the expected boom of a global bio-based economy, which contributes to the paradigm shift from a fossil based to a biomass and renewable energy based economy.” Therefore, the book is targeted to a wider readers ranging from “policy makers, scientists, and NGOs in the fields of agriculture, forestry, biotechnology, and energy.” Though there are few books in the same domain, such as “Sustainable Bioenergy Production: An Integrated Approach” (Ruppert et al., 2013) and “Bioenergy for Sustainable Development in Africa” (Janssen and Rutz, 2012), addressing one or another aspects of socio-economic implications of bioenergy production, the current book provides a complete deliberations on the above issues along with solutions in a doable way. Therefore, we could appropriately say that the current book has its own perspectives, ideas, and deliberations that handle the cross cutting edges of socio-economic