Energy costs are a major concern for supermarket operators, since they typically represent the third largest operating expense after the cost-of-goods sold and labor. Supermarkets may also be some of the largest customers of electricity in an area and have a high "base load" (stable) demand. In...

Climate change has the potential to drive transformations in natural resource access, availability, and use that will have significant, far‐reaching impacts worldwide, not only for those of us living today but also for future generations. As economists we are being called upon to assess the...

This paper outlines the economic surplus approach to economic impact assessment and how it may be applied to natural resource management (NRM) projects. Three challenges confront NRM impact assessment: measurement, attribution, and valuation of non-market impacts. While various methods for...

This paper compares environmental and profitability outcomes for a centralized biorefinery for cellulosic ethanol that does all processing versus a biorefinery linked to a decentralized array of local depots that pretreat biomass into concentrated briquettes. The analysis uses a spatial...

Sustaining natural resource stocks especially those underpinning the capacity to produce food is key to most definitions of sustainable development. Yet troubling evidence has surfaced of instances where the rural poor were forced to sacrifice long-term sustainability for the sake of near-term...

Advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol are of great interest for their potential to supply a significant portion of U.S. fuel needs plus advantages over corn grain-based ethanol. The sustainability of agriculture-based advanced biofuels depends on how farmers would respond in providing...

This paper compares environmental and profitability outcomes for a centralized biorefinery for cellulosic ethanol that does all processing versus a biorefinery linked to a decentralized array of local depots that pretreat biomass into concentrated briquettes. The analysis uses a spatial...