IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wsu/wpaper/skolrud-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Role of Market Structure and Federal Renewable Fuel Standards in the Growth of the Cellulosic Biofuel Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Tristan Skolrud
  • Gregmar Galinato
  • Suzette Galinato
  • Richard Shumway
  • Jonathan Yoder

    (School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University)

Abstract

This article examines the effect of the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) and market power on the growth potential of the cellulosic biofuel sector. We develop a general equilibrium model to show how changes in the regulations governing cellulosic fuel production affect the equilibrium quantity of cellulosic ethanol. We find that an increase in the cellulosic biofuel production mandate does not have any significant effect on the equilibrium quantity of cellulosic ethanol given the opportunity to purchase waiver credits at low waiver prices. In contrast, raising waiver price slightly relative to the status quo significantly increases the equilibrium quantity of cellulosic ethanol. Given the relative infancy of the cellulosic ethanol sector, the market structure may change over time. When more firms enter and market power decreases, there is an increase in the equilibrium quantity of cellulosic ethanol. As market power declines, the marginal effect of an increase in the waiver price on equilibrium quantity of cellulosic ethanol rises which accelerates growth of the sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Tristan Skolrud & Gregmar Galinato & Suzette Galinato & Richard Shumway & Jonathan Yoder, 2014. "The Role of Market Structure and Federal Renewable Fuel Standards in the Growth of the Cellulosic Biofuel Sector," Working Papers 2014-02, School of Economic Sciences, Washington State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsu:wpaper:skolrud-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://faculty.ses.wsu.edu/WorkingPapers/skolrud/wp2014-2.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Westcott, Paul C. & McPhail, Lihong Lu, 2013. "High RIN Prices Signal Constraints to U.S. Ethanol Expansion," Outlook Reports 151727, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Gallagher, Paul W. & Shapouri, Hosein & Price, Jeffrey & Schamel, Guenter & Brubaker, Heather, 2003. "Some Long-Run Effects of Growing Markets and Renewable Fuel Standards on Additives Markets and the U.S. Ethanol Industry," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10648, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Gallagher, Paul W. & Shapouri, Hosein & Price, Jeffrey & Schamel, Guenter & Brubaker, Heather, 2003. "Some long-run effects of growing markets and renewable fuel standards on additives markets and the US ethanol industry," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 25(6-7), pages 585-608, September.
    4. Ruiqing Miao & David A. Hennessy & Bruce A. Babcock, 2012. "Investment in Cellulosic Biofuel Refineries: Do Waivable Biofuel Mandates Matter?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(3), pages 750-762.
    5. Lihong Lu McPhail & Bruce A. Babcock, 2008. "Ethanol, Mandates, and Drought: Insights from a Stochastic Equilibrium Model of the U.S. Corn Market," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 08-wp464, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    6. Zheng, Qiujie & Shumway, C. Richard, 2012. "Washington biofuel feedstock crop supply under output price and quantity uncertainty," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 515-525.
    7. Gallagher, Paul W. & Shapouri, Hosein & Price, Jeffrey & Schamel, Guenter & Brubaker, Heather, 2003. "Some long-run effects of growing markets and renewable fuel standards on additives markets and the US ethanol industry," ISU General Staff Papers 200309010700001445, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. John D. Anderson & Keith H. Coble, 2010. "Impact of renewable fuels standard ethanol mandates on the corn market," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 49-63.
    9. Gardner Bruce, 2007. "Fuel Ethanol Subsidies and Farm Price Support," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-22, December.
    10. Lihong Lu McPhail & Bruce A. Babcock, 2008. "Short-Run Price and Welfare Impacts of Federal Ethanol Policies," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 08-wp468, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    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. Bai, Yun & Ouyang, Yanfeng & Pang, Jong-Shi, 2012. "Biofuel supply chain design under competitive agricultural land use and feedstock market equilibrium," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1623-1633.
    2. Chen, Xiaoguang & Khanna, Madhu & Onal, Hayri, 2009. "The Economic Potential of Second-Generation Biofuels: Implications for Social Welfare, Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Illinois," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49484, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Jacinto F. Fabiosa & John C. Beghin & Fengxia Dong & JAmani Elobeid & Simla Tokgoz & Tun-Hsiang Yu, 2010. "Land Allocation Effects of the Global Ethanol Surge: Predictions from the International FAPRI Model," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(4), pages 687-706.
    4. Luchansky, Matthew S. & Monks, James, 2009. "Supply and demand elasticities in the U.S. ethanol fuel market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 403-410, May.
    5. Paul W. Gallagher, 2009. "Roles for evolving markets, policies, and technology improvements in U.S. corn ethanol industry development," Regional Economic Development, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Apr, pages 12-33.
    6. Povellato, Andrea & Bosello, Francesco & Giupponi, Carlo, 2007. "A Review of Recent Studies on Cost Effectiveness of GHG Mitigation Measures in the European Agro-Forestry Sector," Natural Resources Management Working Papers 10268, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Szulczyk, Kenneth R. & McCarl, Bruce A. & Cornforth, Gerald, 2010. "Market penetration of ethanol," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 394-403, January.
    8. Miljkovic, Dragan & Shaik, Saleem & Braun, Dane, 2012. "Impact of biofuel policies on livestock production in the United States," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 817-831.
    9. Gallagher, Paul & Shapouri, Hosein & Brubaker, Heather, 2007. "Scale, Organization, and Profitability of Ethanol Processing," ISU General Staff Papers 200703010800001439, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Amani Elobeid & Simla Tokgoz & Dermot J. Hayes & Bruce A. Babcock & Chad E. Hart, 2006. "Long-Run Impact of Corn-Based Ethanol on the Grain, Oilseed, and Livestock Sectors: A Preliminary Assessment, The," Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) Publications (archive only) 06-bp49, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    11. Fagundez, J.L.S. & Golke, D. & Martins, M.E.S. & Salau, N.P.G., 2019. "An investigation on performance and combustion characteristics of pure n-butanol and a blend of n-butanol/ethanol as fuels in a spark ignition engine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 521-530.
    12. McPhail, Lihong Lu & Babcock, Bruce A., 2012. "Impact of US biofuel policy on US corn and gasoline price variability," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 505-513.
    13. Gallagher, Paul W., 2009. "Roles for Evolving Markets, Policies, and Technology Improvements in U.S. Corn Ethanol Industry Development," ISU General Staff Papers 200901010800001495, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    14. Bai, Yun & Ouyang, Yanfeng & Pang, Jong-Shi, 2016. "Enhanced models and improved solution for competitive biofuel supply chain design under land use constraints," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(1), pages 281-297.
    15. Fapri, 2007. "Economic Impacts of Not Extending Biofuels Subsidies," FAPRI-MU Report Series 42189, Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI).
    16. Mazumder, Diya B., 2014. "Biofuel subsidies versus the gas tax: The carrot or the stick?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 361-374.
    17. Fagundez, J.L.S. & Lanzanova, T.D.M. & Martins, M.E.S. & Salau, N.P.G., 2020. "Joint use of artificial neural networks and particle swarm optimization to determine optimal performance of an ethanol SI engine operating with negative valve overlap strategy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    18. Madhu Khanna & Amy W. Ando & Farzad Taheripour, 2008. "Welfare Effects and Unintended Consequences of Ethanol Subsidies," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 30(3), pages 411-421.
    19. Serra, Teresa, 2011. "Volatility spillovers between food and energy markets: A semiparametric approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1155-1164.
    20. Gallagher, Paul W. & Shapouri, Hosein, 2008. "Biomass Crop and Ethanol Supply from Agricultural Lands in the United States with Methodology, Estimation Results, and State-by-State Simulations," Agricultural Economic Reports 308485, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cellulosic Biofuel; Renewable Fuel Standards; Waiver; Market Structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy

    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:wsu:wpaper:skolrud-1. 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: Danielle Engelhardt (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecwsuus.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.