This book addresses key questions on biofuels within agrarian political economy, political sociology and political ecology. Contributions are based on fresh empirical materials from different parts of the world. The book starts with four key questions in agrarian political economy: Who owns what? Who does what? Who gets what? And what do they do with the surplus wealth? It also addresses the emergent social and political relations in the biofuel complex and, given the impacts on natural resources and sustainability, engages with questions about people-environment interactions. At the same time, the book is concerned with the politics of representation, that is, what are the discursive frames through which biofuels are promoted and/or opposed? The book analyses the institutional structures, and cultures of energy consumption on which a biofuels complex depends, and the alternative political and ecological visions emerging that call the biofuels complex into question. Across sixteen chapters presenting material from five regions across the North-South divide and focusing on fourteen countries including Brazil, Indonesia, India, USA and Germany, these topics are addressed within the following themes: global (re)configurations; agro-ecological visions; conflicts, resistances and diverse outcomes; state, capital and society relations; mobilising opposition, creating alternatives; and change and continuity. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

The world is currently faced with two significant problems: fossil fuel depletion and environmental degradation, which are continuously being exacerbated due to increasing global energy consumption. As a substitute for petroleum, renewable fuels have been receiving increasing attention due a variety of environmental, economic, and societal benefits. The first-generation biofuels - ethanol from sugar or corn and biodiesel from vegetable oils - are already on the market. The goal of this book is to introduce readers to second-generation biofuels obtained from non-food biomass, such as forest residue, agricultural residue, switch grass, corn stover, waste wood, municipal solid wastes, and so on. Various technologies are discussed, including cellulosic ethanol, biomass gasification, synthesis of diesel and gasoline, bio-crude by hydrothermal liquefaction, bio-oil by fast pyrolysis, and the upgradation of biofuel. This book strives to serve as a comprehensive document presenting various technological pathways and environmental and economic issues related to biofuels.