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“The Role of Industrial Symbiosis in Promoting Bio-fuel Feedstock Uses for UK Food and Fibre Production”

A seminar by

Tony Jackson

Senior Lecturer in Town and Regional Planning

School of Social Sciences

University of Dundee

Wednesday, 30 April 2008, at 12.30-13.30,

in McKinnon Building 67.202 (Moot Court)

Abstract

The UK Government has promoted bio-fuels as a major contribution in tackling global warming and realising its sustainable development objectives.  However, there is now clear evidence that first generation bio-fuels suffer from serious eco-inefficiencies.  UK bio-fuel policy instruments, far from supporting development of sustainable energy alternatives, may in fact be adding to habitat loss, damaging carbon sinks, and deepening the problems of global hunger.  To ensure that bio-fuels ameliorate rather than aggravate the problems of resource management, the technological fixes available need to be combined with greater awareness of their wider ramifications.  Had policy-makers applied the principles of industrial symbiosis rather than adopting a silo mentality when shaping a policy with respect to bio-fuels, they could have avoided many of these unintended detrimental consequences.