Environmental Impacts of Large-Scale Biofuels Production and Use

Our future energy options are increasingly being decided based on their environmental and health impacts. My research informs decision-making about the risks, externalities, and uncertainties of large-scale agricultural biofuels. The projects reported in this thesis aim to support the U.S. and other governments in approaching biofuels in a pragmatic way, with a clear understanding of both the limits of supply and the consequence of their use. While by no means exhaustive, the research undertaken by my co-authors and I attempts to address some of the most pressing issues surrounding the increased production and consumption of agricultural biofuels. In the following chapters we look at the complete agriculture-to-energy journey, beginning with a renewed assessment of where we currently stand (resetting expectations of agricultural yields in Chapter 2), where we are going (contextualizing use mandates in Chapters 4 and 5), how we might get there (extensification in Chapter 3 and intensification in Chapter 4), and finally what may happen if and when we arrive (climate impacts in Chapter 3, land-use impacts in Chapters 3 and 4, and air quality impacts in Chapter 5). Although the policy-relevant issues motivating my research are grounded in a single class of fuels and the environmental science questions of our time, my core research methods hold relevance for broader energy and agricultural issues in any era.