Agave and Opuntia Species as Sustainable Feedstocks for Bioenergy and Byproducts

Currently, Mexico is facing an energy transition, therefore updated policy regulations pertaining to the sustainable use of biomass are needed. In particular, policy that favors the sustainable use of biomass to produce energy and bioproducts to privilege climate change mitigation is needed. This review describes the use of maguey (Agave spp.) and nopal (Opuntia spp.; also known as “cactus”) for biofuel production, especially in marginal areas. Emphasis is given on documented case studies discussing features of production and cultivation for both maguey and nopal, in addition to their potential for fuel production. Environmental and social sustainability issues in terms of waste value and new opportunities as bioenergy feedstocks and byproducts are also discussed. Although the paper does not deeply describe aspects of biomass transformation, such as bioprocess configurations, it gives characteristics of production in addition to cultivation. Agave and Opuntia species may represent a suitable feedstock for biofuels, bioproducts, bioenergy and biorefineries, especially in dry lands (semi-arid and dry sub-humid), deforested areas, agroforestry systems and agricultural semi-terraces known as metepantle in Mexico.

Systematic review on effects of bioenergy from edible versus inedible feedstocks on food security

Achieving food security is a critical challenge of the Anthropocene that may conflict with environmental and societal goals such as increased energy access. The “fuel versus food” debate coupled with climate mitigation efforts has given rise to next-generation biofuels. Findings of this systematic review indicate just over half of the studies (56% of 224 publications) reported a negative impact of bioenergy production on food security. However, no relationship was found between bioenergy feedstocks that are edible versus inedible and food security (P value = 0.15). A strong relationship was found between bioenergy and type of food security parameter (P value < 0.001), sociodemographic index of study location (P value = 0.001), spatial scale (P value < 0.001), and temporal scale (P value = 0.017). Programs and policies focused on bioenergy and climate mitigation should monitor multiple food security parameters at various scales over the long term toward achieving diverse sustainability goals.

Birds and Bioenergy within the Americas: A Cross-National, Social–Ecological Study of Ecosystem Service Tradeoffs

Although renewable energy holds great promise in mitigating climate change, there are socioeconomic and ecological tradeoffs related to each form of renewable energy. Forest-related bioenergy is especially controversial, because tree plantations often replace land that could be used to grow food crops and can have negative impacts on biodiversity. In this study, we examined public perceptions and ecosystem service tradeoffs between the provisioning services associated with cover types associated with bioenergy crop (feedstock) production and forest habitat-related supporting services for birds, which themselves provide cultural and regulating services. We combined a social survey-based assessment of local values and perceptions with measures of bioenergy feedstock production impacts on bird habitat in four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the USA. Respondents in all countries rated birds as important or very important (83–99% of respondents) and showed lower enthusiasm for, but still supported, the expansion of bioenergy feedstocks (48–60% of respondents). Bioenergy feedstock cover types in Brazil and Argentina had the greatest negative impact on birds but had a positive impact on birds in the USA. In Brazil and Mexico, public perceptions aligned fairly well with the realities of the impacts of potential bioenergy feedstocks on bird communities. However, in Argentina and the USA, perceptions of bioenergy impacts on birds did not match well with the data. Understanding people’s values and perceptions can help inform better policy and management decisions regarding land use changes.

Multidimensional Aspects of Sustainable Biofuel Feedstock Production

Bioenergy is becoming increasingly relevant as an alternative to fossil fuels. Various bioenergy feedstocks are suggested as environmentally friendly solutions due to their positive impact on stream health and ability to sequester carbon, but most evaluations for bioenergy feedstocks have not evaluated the implications of bioenergy crop production holistically to date. Through the application of multi-objective optimization on 10 bioenergy feedstock rotations in a Michigan watershed, a Pareto front is searched to identify optimal trade-off solutions for three objective functions representing stream health, environmental emissions/carbon footprint, and economic feasibility. Various multi-criteria decision-making techniques are then applied to the resulting Pareto front to select a set of most-preferred trade-off solutions, which are compared to optimal solutions from each individual objective function. The most-preferred trade-off solutions indicate that a diverse mix of rotations are necessary to optimize all three objectives, whereas the individually optimal solutions do not consider a diverse range of feedstocks, thereby making the proposed multi-objective treatment an important and pragmatic strategy.