The promises and challenges of biofuels for the poor in developing countries: IFPRI 2005-2006 Annual Report Essay

"In the past several years the changing world energy situation has generated intensive discussion about biofuels, much of it promising a source of environment-friendly energy that would also be a boon to the world's farmers. At the same time skeptics argue that biofuel production will threaten food supplies for the poor and fail to achieve the environmental benefits claimed. Based on the analyses below, we conclude that in order to make a difference in the lives of poor people as both energy producers and consumers, and to make strong environmental and economic contributions, biofuel technology needs further advancement, and investments and policies facilitating agricultural innovation and trade will have to be considered." from TextBiofuels, Poor Developing countries, Small farmers,

Bioenergy and agriculture: promises and challenges

Peter Hazell.Biofuels, Agricultural research, Development, Poor Developing countries,

Production Data for the Population-Environment-Technology (PET) Model

This report describes the production data serving as an input to the Population-Environment-Technology (PET) model (Dalton and Goulder, 2001; Dalton et al., 2008). The PET model is a multi-sector, multi-region computable general equilibrium model of the global economy. We describe the procedures used to develop regional production data for the model. GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project) represents the major production data source. The document explains the structure of the data and the modifications we make to it, including modifications to the treatment of trade, physical energy quantities, and household consumption

Retailer’s Optimal Ordering Policies with Two Stage Credit Policies and Imperfect Quality

Two levels of trade credits refers that the supplier provides to his/her retailer a permissible delay period (M) in paying for purchasing items and the retailer also in turn provides a permissible delay period (N,M > N) to his/her customer to stimulate his product demand. When lot received by retailer, it may be contain some imperfect quality of goods by the causes of non-ideal production process or other causes. So retailers perform a screening process to find the imperfect items and returned to the supplier immediately. Therefore, an attempt is made in this paper to develop the retailer’s optimal ordering policies in supply chain coordination with upstream and downstream trade credits and imperfect quality. The propose paper considers two cases N ≤ M and M≤ N that is more near to real world cases. Some numerical examples are used to be show validity of this paper.Key words: Inventory; Imperfect items; Up-stream and down-stream trade credits and supply chai

Estimating Uncertainty in Household Energy Footprints

We develop a methodology to characterize and quantify uncertainty in relating consumption to production in household energy footprints. This uncertainty arises primarily from inconsistencies between national accounts and household surveys and, to a smaller extent, from using aggregated sectors. Researchers may introduce significant inaccuracies by ignoring these inconsistencies when reporting household footprints. We apply the methodology to India and Brazil, where we find the size of this uncertainty to be higher than 20% of footprints at most income levels. We expect that previous estimates for these countries may have been overestimated due to these inconsistencies. Other knowledge gaps, such as inaccuracies in multiregional input-output tables and household surveys, add further uncertainty beyond our estimates

Household Survey Data Used in Calibrating the Population-Environment-Technology Model

The Population-Environment-Technology (PET) model is an inter-temporal general equilibrium model of global scale used to project future energy demand and related CO2 emissions. It can include multiple production and consumption sectors and is well suited to incorporate a heterogeneous population structure. Calibration of general equilibrium models is usually very data intensive. In this report we present the data used in the calibration of the household side of the PET model. We include a description of the household surveys, the process of analyzing both income and consumption data, and a few illustratve results of variations in household characteristics across regions and household types

Tackling the Challenge of Climate Change: A Near-term Actionable Mitigation Agenda

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders to come to the Climate Summit on September 23, 2014 to deliver "bold pledges" to tackle climate change. This paper was prepared at the request of the Republic of Nauru, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, as part of their answer to that call. We believe the path to the global low-carbon transformation needed to tackle the climate crisis is within reach, but requires decisive political action from leaders around the world, now. This paper is unabashedly prescriptive on the need for action, but recognizes that there are multiple approaches and models from around the world that can be scaled up and adapted to national circumstances. Cost-effective technologies for a low-carbon economy are being implemented throughout the world, but at nowhere the scale and speed necessary. Emissions continue to rise. With every year of delay, human suffering, biodiversity loss, and the costs of mitigation and adaptation increase. We are running out of time

Forefinger direction based haptic robot control for physically challenged using MEMS sensor

The ability to feel the world through the tools we hold is Haptic Touch. The sensory element that will transform information into experience by remotely interacting with things is challenging. This paper deals with design and implementation of fore finger direction based robot for physically challenged people. The design of the system includes microcontroller, MEMS sensor and RF technology. The robot system receives the command from the MEMS sensor which is placed on the fore finger at the transmitter section. Robot will follow the direction in which we show our Forefinger. The path way of the robot may be either point-to-point or continuous. This sensor can be able to detect the direction of Forefinger and the output is transmitted via RF transmitter. In the receiver section RF receiver which receives corresponding signal will command microcontroller to move robot in that particular direction. Therefore the simple control mechanism of the robot is shown. Experimental results for fore finger based directional robot are enumerated

Effects of rain shelter or simulated rain during grain filling and maturation on subsequent wheat grain quality in the UK

The effects of simulated additional rain (ear wetting, 25 mm) or of rain shelter imposed at different periods after anthesis on grain quality at maturity and the dynamics of grain filling and desiccation were investigated in UK field-grown crops of wheat (Triticum aestivum L., cvar Tybalt) in 2011 and in 2012 when June–August rainfall was 255.0 and 214.6 mm, respectively, and above the decadal mean (157.4 mm). Grain filling and desiccation were quantified well by broken-stick regressions and Gompertz curves, respectively. Rain shelter for 56 (2011) or 70 d (2012) after anthesis, and to a lesser extent during late maturation only, resulted in more rapid desiccation and hence progress to harvest maturity whereas ear wetting had negligible effects, even when applied four times. Grain-filling duration was also affected as above in 2011, but with no significant effect in 2012. In both years, there were strong positive associations between final grain dry weight and duration of filling. The treatments affected all grain quality traits in 2011: nitrogen (N) and sulphur (S) concentrations, N:S ratio, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) sedimentation volume, Hagberg Falling Number (HFN), and the incidence of blackpoint. Only N concentration and blackpoint were affected significantly by treatments in 2012. Rain shelter throughout grain filling reduced N concentration, whereas rain shelter reduced the incidence of blackpoint and ear wetting increased it. In 2011, rain shelter throughout reduced S concentration, increased N:S ratio and reduced SDS. Treatment effects on HFN were not consistent within or between years. Nevertheless, a comparison between the extreme treatment means in 2012 indicated damage from late rain combined with ear wetting resulted in a reduction of c. 0.7 s in HFN/mm August rainfall, whilst that between samples taken immediately after ear wetting at harvest maturity or 7 d later suggested recovery from damage to HFN upon re-drying in planta. Hence, the incidence of blackpoint was the only grain quality trait affected consistently by the diverse treatments. The remaining aspects of grain quality were comparatively resilient to rain incident upon developing and maturing ears of cvar Tybalt. No consistent temporal patterns of sensitivity to shelter or ear wetting were detected for any aspect of grain quality