Global Gender Perspectives on Biofuel Production

Presented at the 180-Minute Symposium Biofuels Ablaze, organized by Susan E Cozzens, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA

Low temperature, authigenic illite and carbonates in a mixed dolomite-clastic lagoonal and pedogenic setting, Spanish Central System, Spain

The aim of this study was to further our understanding of the pedogenic and lacustrine modification of clay minerals. Some of these modifications are of special interest because they constitute reverse weathering reactions, rare in surface environments, and because there is not yet an accurate assessment of their global relevance in mineralogical and geochemical cycles. For this study, two sections from the Central System in Spain were selected. Both are sections through the Uppper Cenomanian-Turonian mixed clastic and carbonate succession, containing both calcite and dolomite, in the Sierra de Guadarrama. Mid-Turonian sea level fall resulted in the formation of a coastal plain environment in which extensive pedogenesis occurred around saline lagoons. The mineralogical changes that have occurred as a result of sedimentation in saline lagoons and as a consequence of pedogenesis are described. Textural relationships indicate that the dolomite cement pre-dates the calcite. Silicate minerals are represented by quartz, kaolinite, illite-smectite, illite, minor plagioclase and alkali feldspar, and trace chlorite and palygorskite. There is a positive correlation between the intensity of pedogenesis and the proportion of illite in the clay assemblage in one of the sections, indicating pedogenic illitisation. In this section, the intensity of the illitisation process increases up, reaching a maximum where pedogenesis is most intense in the middle part, and then decreases as marine influence increases towards the top of the Alcorlo Formation and the overlying marine Tranquera Formation. The clay assemblages are consistent with a slow transformation process from 42 kaolinite to illite by way of illite-smectite, taking place under surface conditions. The illitisation process has resulted in a less Fe-rich, more Mg-, and Al-rich illite than the majority of previously documented cases in the near surface. Formation of Al-rich illite is not therefore restricted to the deep subsurface. The mechanism for low temperature illitisation involves enhanced layer charge resulting from Mg2+ substitution for Al3+ (or Fe3+) and Fe3+ to Fe2+ reduction. Mg2+ enrichment may have occurred principally in saline lagoons or lakes, while Fe3+ to Fe2+ reduction occurred as a result of wetting and drying in a pedogenic environment. So far as it has been possible to establish, this dual mechanism has not previously been documented. This study indicates clearly that the dolomite and calcite are authigenic cements that precipitated in a clastic sediment, probably soon after deposition. Dolomitisation and Mg enrichment of the clay may have occurred at the same time. Seawater is the most probable source of Mg

Social and Gender Dimensions of the Biofuels and Food Debates

Volatility of prices for petroleum, biofuels, and food has had broad social impacts over the last two years and raised many questions. Drawing on experiences of countries, such as Brazil, the US, and China, this paper explores global and regional social and gender issues related to biofuel production. Differentials in opportunities and challenges for women and men are contrasted for rural and urban aspects of food security associated with biofuel production. Gender issues in production and consumption of biofuel and food crops are explored. Finally the paper proposes some policy revisions and international coordination of efforts.Title VI National Resource Center Grant (P015A060066)unpublishednot peer reviewe

Sustainable Biofuels and Human Security

Biofuel production has soared in this decade with backing from government mandates. Seeking to address global warming, promote alternatives to fossil fuels, and increase independence in energy production, many countries have been striving to become key players in the global trade for biofuels as well as increase domestic energy production. Food security and sustainability issues, however, have clouded the future for first generation biofuels. Second-generation production processes, based on cellulosic material and algae, are emerging, but they are not yet commercially viable on a large scale. The papers in this collection address the social and sustainability dimensions of the biofuel debates, including links between biofuels and food price volatility, poverty, and direct and indirect changes in land use. The papers were selected from a series of three workshops held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May and November 2008 and April 2009. The workshops were sponsored by the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program (WGGP), the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS), the Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER), and the Center for African Studies, with support from many units across campus. Generous support was provided by a Hewlett International Conference Grant, the Sloan Foundation's Industry Studies Group, the Energy Biosciences Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) Global Connect Program, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS).published or submitted for publicationnot peer reviewe

Economic Transition in China and Vietnam: Crossing the Poverty Line is Just the First Step for Women and Their Families

This paper compares the changing strategies of women and their families during the economic transition in China and Vietnam. Employment strategies to improve the family' s well-being have resulted in increased rural-urban migration by men and young women, while middle-aged, married women remain in the countryside taking care of the farms and children. Although women have been able to take advantage of new opportunities for employment in nonstate firms and their own entrepreneurial endeavors, their employment strategies are limited by increasing discrimination in hiring and layoffs. Moreover, the policy problems play out within the family in changing bargaining power, including decisions about education and health care.women, families, strategies, bargaining power,

Gender, Interdisciplinarity and Global Food Crises

Higher education plays a pivotal role in analyzing and offering potential solutions to the world’s problems, and seldom have the world’s economic and social problems appeared more critical. As the world’s population increases and faces the unpredictable effects of climate change and begins to come to terms with the possibility of peak oil and its implications, we face rising concerns about food security and global food crises. As we work to address these growing concerns it is increasingly apparent that our research must be interdisciplinary in nature. Because women play critical roles in the supply and consumption of agricultural products, these interdisciplinary efforts must also focus on the gendered dimensions of these problems. Is higher education, which has developed as a network of associations that are largely discipline specific and utilizes a reward structure that eschewes interdisciplinary contributions, prepared for the task? Can the disciplines of economics and agricultural economics successfully contribute solutions to these problems without paying more attention to gender issues? What can universities, government agencies and non-governmental organizations do to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and the utilization of gendered research

Bidding, Information and Timing in Offshore Oil Lease Sales.

In the climate of uncertainty surrounding lease sales, each firm uses seismic tests, logs on nearby wells, and other sources of information to construct an estimate of the value of a lease. The firm then determines an optimal bid using the model for a first-price auction in which the highest bid wins and is paid. Some of the information used in forming the estimate (especially the logs on nearby wells) can be expected to increase over time as leases are sold sequentially. When new data become available, firms update their prior distributions. The degree of change is influenced by the time elapsing between each sale, cumulative time since the beginning of sales, and the number of leases sold to date. These effects are summarized in alterations in the variance and the mean of the estimates. It follows that the firm, in most cases, alters the bid that would be optimal if all leases were sold at once. Terminal dates and diligence requirements may force a firm to alter the optimal rate of extraction and thus reduce the expected payoff from the lease. The government uses the information on the firm's bidding decision to determine the optimal spacing of lease sales. The assumption that the government wants to maximize the discounted expected value of the sum of winning bids results in an expression for the optimal time between sales.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161173/1/8621386.pd