Sustainable Energy Solutions in Agriculture

Sustainability in agriculture and associated primary industries, which are both energy-intensive, is crucial for the development of any country. Increasing scarcity and resulting high fossil fuel prices combined with the need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make the improvement of energy efficient farming and increased use of renewable energy essential.

This book provides a technological and scientific endeavor to assist society and farming communities in different regions and scales to improve their productivity and sustainability. To fulfill future needs of a modern sustainable agriculture, this book addresses highly actual topics providing innovative, effective and more sustainable solutions for agriculture by using sustainable, environmental friendly, renewable energy sources and modern energy efficient, cost-improved technologies. The book highlights new areas of research, and further R&D needs. It helps to improve food security for the rapidly growing world population and to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use in agriculture, which presently contributes 22% of the global carbon dioxide emissions. This book provides a source of information, stimuli and incentives for what and how new and energy efficient technologies can be applied as effective tools and solutions in agricultural production to satisfy the continually increasing demand for food and fibre in an economically sustainable way, while contributing to global climate change mitigation. It will be useful and inspiring to decission makers working in different authorities, professionals, agricultural engineers, researchers, and students concerned with agriculture and related primay industries, sustainable energy development and climate change mitigation projects.

Jochen Bundschuh (1960, Germany), finished his PhD on numerical modeling of heat transport in aquifers in Tubingen in 1990. He is working in geothermics, subsurface and surface hydrology and integrated water resources management, and connected disciplines. From 1993 to 1999 he served as an expert for the German Agency of Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and as a long-term professor for the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) in Argentine. From 2001 to 2008 he worked within the framework of the German governmental cooperation (Integrated Expert Program of CIM; GTZ/BA) as adviser in mission to Costa Rica at the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). Here, he assisted the country in evaluation and development of its huge low-enthalpy geothermal resources for power generation. Since 2005, he is an affiliate professor of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. In 2006, he was elected Vice-President of the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development ISGSD. From 2009–2011 he was visiting professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. By the end of 2011 he was appointed as professor in hydrogeology at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia where he leads a working group of 26 researchers working on the wide field of water resources and low/middle enthalpy geothermal resources, water and wastewater treatment and sustainable and renewable energy resources (http://www.ncea.org.au/groundwater). In November 2012, Prof. Bundschuh was appointed as president of the newly established Australian Chapter of the International Medical Geology Association (IMGA).
Dr. Bundschuh is author of the books “Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Resources for Power Generation” (2008) (Balkema/Taylor & Francis/CRC Press) and “Introduction to the Numerical Modeling of Groundwater and Geothermal Systems: Fundamentals of Mass, Energy and Solute Transport in Poroelastic Rocks”. He is editor of the books “Geothermal Energy Resources for Developing Countries” (2002), “Natural Arsenic in Groundwater” (2005), and the two-volume monograph “Central America: Geology, Resources and Hazards” (2007), “Groundwater for Sustainable Development” (2008), “Natural Arsenic in Groundwater of Latin America (2008). Dr. Bundschuh is editor of the book series “Multiphysics Modeling”, “Arsenic in the Environment”, and “Sustainable Energy Developments” (all Balkema/CRC Press/Taylor & Francis).

Dr. Guangnan Chen graduated from the University of Sydney, Australia, with a PhD degree in 1994. Before joining the University of Southern Queensland as an academic in early 2002, he worked for two years as a post-doctoral fellow and more than five years as a Senior Research Consultant in a private consulting company based in New Zealand. Dr. Chen has extensive experience in conducting both fundamental and applied research. His current research focuses on the sustainable agriculture and energy use. The researches aim to develop a common framework and tools to assess energy uses and greenhouse gas emissions in different agricultural sectors. These projects are funded by various government agencies and farmer organsations. In addition, Dr Chen has also conducted significant research to compare the life cycle energy consumption of alternative farming systems, including the impact of machinery operation, conservation farming practice, irrigation, and applications of new technologies and alternative and renewable energy. Dr. Chen has so far published 80 papers in international journals and conferences, including 7 invited book chapters. He serves as a member of editorial board for the International Journal ofAgricultural&Biological Engineering (IJABE), and was
the Guest Editor of a special issue on agricultural engineering, Australian Journal of Multi-Disciplinary Engineering in both 2009 and 2011. He is currently a member of Board ofTechnical Section