IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea13/150736.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Mix of Feedstock for Biofuels: Implications for Land Use and GHG Emissions

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Weiwei
  • Khanna, Madhu
  • Dwivedi, Puneet

Abstract

Increasing concerns about energy security and climate change mitigation have led to significant policy support for biofuels, particularly for cellulosic biofuels. This paper examines the short- and long-run effects of Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) on the mix of biofuel feedstocks, food, fuel and wood markets and land use change by using an economic model that integrates the agriculture, forest and transportation fuel sectors. Our results show that RFS would lead to the production of about 1600 billion liters of corn ethanol over the 2010-2035 periods, which could constitute a maximum of two-thirds of the cumulative biofuel production; the remaining mandate is met by advanced biofuels. The logging and milling residues are the primary initial providers of biomass feedstocks. After year 2025, energy crops and crop residues will play the leading role in cellulosic feedstocks production. Producing these biofuels will not cause significant land use change between and within agricultural and forest sector as compared to the business-as-usual (BAU) case. While the RFS could significantly affect production, exports and prices of crop and livestock commodities relative to the BAU case, its impacts on the forest sector is found to be relatively small except for pulpwood related products in the long term. Overall, the RFS reduces cumulative social welfare over 2010-2035 periods by $78.8 Billion relative to the BAU case.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Weiwei & Khanna, Madhu & Dwivedi, Puneet, 2013. "Optimal Mix of Feedstock for Biofuels: Implications for Land Use and GHG Emissions," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150736, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea13:150736
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.150736
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/150736/files/AAEA2013_Weiwei_V2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.150736?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xiaoguang Chen & Haixiao Huang & Madhu Khanna & Hayri Önal, 2011. "Meeting the Mandate for Biofuels: Implications for Land Use, Food, and Fuel Prices," NBER Chapters, in: The Intended and Unintended Effects of US Agricultural and Biotechnology Policies, pages 223-267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Robert H. Beach & Yuquan W. Zhang & Bruce A. Mccarl, 2012. "Modeling Bioenergy, Land Use, And Ghg Emissions With Fasomghg: Model Overview And Analysis Of Storage Cost Implications," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(03), pages 1-34.
    3. Chen, Xiaoguang & Huang, Haixiao & Khanna, Madhu & Önal, Hayri, 2014. "Alternative transportation fuel standards: Welfare effects and climate benefits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 241-257.
    4. Bruce A. McCarl & Uwe A. Schneider, 2000. "U.S. Agriculture's Role in a Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigation World: An Economic Perspective," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 134-159.
    5. Ince, Peter J. & Kramp, Andrew D. & Skog, Kenneth E. & Yoo, Do-il & Sample, V. Alaric, 2011. "Modeling future U.S. forest sector market and trade impacts of expansion in wood energy consumption," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 142-156, April.
    6. Hayri Önal & Bruce A. McCarl, 1991. "Exact Aggregation in Mathematical Programming Sector Models," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 39(2), pages 319-334, July.
    7. Xiaoguang Chen & Hayri Önal, 2012. "Modeling Agricultural Supply Response Using Mathematical Programming and Crop Mixes," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(3), pages 674-686.
    8. White, Eric M. & Latta, Greg & Alig, Ralph J. & Skog, Kenneth E. & Adams, Darius M., 2013. "Biomass production from the U.S. forest and agriculture sectors in support of a renewable electricity standard," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-74.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weiwei Wang, 2022. "Agricultural and Forestry Biomass for Meeting the Renewable Fuel Standard: Implications for Land Use and GHG Emissions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(23), pages 1-21, November.
    2. Nuñez, Hector M., 2016. "Biofuel Potential in Mexico: Land Use, Economic and Environmental Effects," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236067, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Nunez, H., 2018. "Building a Bioethanol Market in Mexico," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275921, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Chen, Xiaoguang & Khanna, Madhu, 2014. "Indirect Land Use Effects of Corn Ethanol in the U.S: Implications for the Conservation Reserve Program," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170284, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Kooten, G. Cornelis van, 2013. "Modeling Forest Trade in Logs and Lumber: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis," Working Papers 149182, University of Victoria, Resource Economics and Policy.
    6. Galik, Christopher S. & Abt, Robert C. & Latta, Gregory & Vegh, Tibor, 2015. "The environmental and economic effects of regional bioenergy policy in the southeastern U.S," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 335-346.
    7. Catherine L. Kling & Raymond W. Arritt & Gray Calhoun & David A. Keiser, 2016. "Research Needs and Challenges in the FEW System: Coupling Economic Models with Agronomic, Hydrologic, and Bioenergy Models for Sustainable Food, Energy, and Water Systems," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 16-wp563, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    8. Liu, Xuan & van Kooten, Gerrit Cornelis & Duan, Jun, 2020. "Calibration of agricultural risk programming models using positive mathematical programming," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), July.
    9. Schneider, Uwe A. & McCarl, Bruce A. & Schmid, Erwin, 2007. "Agricultural sector analysis on greenhouse gas mitigation in US agriculture and forestry," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 128-140, May.
    10. Latta, Gregory S. & Sjølie, Hanne K. & Solberg, Birger, 2013. "A review of recent developments and applications of partial equilibrium models of the forest sector," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 350-360.
    11. Johnston, Craig M.T. & van Kooten, G. Cornelis, 2014. "Modelling Bi-lateral Forest Product Trade Flows: Experiencing Vertical and Horizontal Chain Optimization," Working Papers 197898, University of Victoria, Resource Economics and Policy.
    12. Chen, Xiaoguang, 2016. "Economic potential of biomass supply from crop residues in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 141-149.
    13. Khanna, Madhu & Wang, Weiwei & Wang, Michael, 2018. "Assessing the Carbon Neutrality of Biofuel: An Anticipated Baseline Approach," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274450, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Xiaoguang Chen & Hayri Önal, 2014. "An Economic Analysis of the Future U.S. Biofuel Industry, Facility Location, and Supply Chain Network," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 575-591, November.
    15. Miao, Ruiqing & Khanna, Madhu, 2015. "Costs of Meeting the Cellulosic Biofuel Mandate with an Energy Crop with Establishment Cost and Yield Risk: Implications for Policy," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212458, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Madhu Khanna & David Zilberman, 2012. "Modeling The Land-Use And Greenhouse-Gas Implications Of Biofuels," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(03), pages 1-15.
    17. Affuso, Ermanno & Hite, Diane, 2013. "A model for sustainable land use in biofuel production: An application to the state of Alabama," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 29-39.
    18. Chen, Xiaoguang & Önal, Hayri, 2016. "Renewable energy policies and competition for biomass: Implications for land use, food prices, and processing industry," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 270-278.
    19. Chen, Xiaoguang & Khanna, Madhu, 2018. "Effect of corn ethanol production on Conservation Reserve Program acres in the US," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 124-134.
    20. Ruiqing Miao & Madhu Khanna, 2017. "Effectiveness of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program: Roles of Behavioral Factors, Credit Constraint, and Program Design," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 584-608.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea13:150736. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.