Bioenergy Expansion and Economic Sustainability from Environment‑Energy‑Food Security Nexus: A Review

Bioenergy could have deep effects on economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Thus, the present research aims to review the potential risks and benefits of bioenergy production and consumption. For this purpose, we follow the approach of a systematic review and collect the 105 studies on bioenergy from the Scopus database. The literature suggests that bioenergy is the largest source of replacement of fossil fuels compared to other renewable energy sources and helps to conserve the environment. However, bioenergy production targeted at forest land could have environmental problems as forests are a big source of carbon sinks and biodiversity. Nevertheless, bioenergy consumption is environmentally friendly and releases the least emissions compared to all types of fossil fuels. Moreover, the installation and operational costs of bioenergy are lesser compared to other renewable energy sources. Thus, bioenergy is a cost-effective solution to replace fossil fuels compared to other renewable energy sources. However, bioenergy production replacing the existing crops could reduce the availability of land and water for other agricultural products, which can be responsible for food shortages and rising food prices. Thus, bioenergy production could cause food insecurity with the rapidly growing population worldwide. However, bioenergy could have many other benefits from economic and social dimensions. Thus, the literature has suggested government intervention to achieve net positive benefits from bioenergy production and consumption. Particularly, the literature has suggested public and private spending on R&D activities to find better sources and technologies for bioenergy production and to improve biomass and overall agriculture productivity. Moreover, literature has suggested using marginal lands, other unutilized lands, crop and forest residues, and wastes for biomass production to reduce the pressure on forests and croplands to ensure both food security and environmental conservation.