Political economy of bioenergy in developing countries : a case study of Punjab, India

• Main Author: Singh, Nadia
• Other Authors: Singh, Pritam ; Le Roux, Sara
• Published: Oxford Brookes University 2018
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.758031

Bioenergy projects have been widely promoted across the world since the beginning of the 21st century. These green energy developments are being hailed as a panacea to the energy crisis facing humanity. In the last few years, the global energy sector has been engulfed in a multi-pronged crisis comprising of declining oil reserves, irreversible ecological damage owing to indiscriminate use of fossil fuels as well as widespread energy poverty across many developing countries. Bioenergy imperatives were endorsed as a solution to this multi-dimensional crisis in the global energy sector. It was believed that biofuels would provide an alternative to fossil fuels and also offer a means to solve the issues of energy access and poverty facing many developing countries of the world. A large body of scholars began to promote bioenergy as the “fuel of the future” due to its many desirable properties. However, in recent years a number of sustainability challenges associated with production of bioenergy have emerged. In view of these challenges, it is increasingly uncertain how far bioenergy would provide a sustainable energy alternative. There has been little research on the purported local level benefits of bioenergy projects. This thesis contributes to this critical, yet under researched area by developing an eco-socialist framework to inform sustainable bioenergy imperatives across developing countries. Eco-socialism combines the key principles of Marxism and Ecology. This paradigm of sustainable development is based on the conglomeration of biological egalitarianism with the ideals of social justice. An eco-socialist framework was employed to evaluate the opportunities and constraints of bioenergy developments through in depth case study research. The case study was located in Punjab, India. The case study was based on participatory field based research, employing multiple methods of investigation. The findings from this research aim to provide theoretical generalisations and serve as an “exemplar” on the conduct of people centric bioenergy policies in developing regions of the world.