Fueling Resistance: The Contentious Political Economy of Biofuels and Fracking

A series of concurrent pressures in the early 2000s—climate change, financial system crashes, economic development in rural regions, and shifts in geopolitics—intensified interest in alternative energy production. At the same time, rising oil prices rendered alternative fuels a more economically viable option. Among these energy sources, liquid biofuels (bioethanol and biodiesel) and natural gas derived from hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") took center stage as promising commodities and te...