The Global Impacts of Biofuel Mandates

Hertel, Thomas W.; Tyner, Wallace E.; Birur, Dileep

doi:10.5547/issn0195-6574-ej-vol31-no1-4

Cited by 198 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 30 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Biofuels have been advocated as a promising alternative to the use of fossil resources in the rapidly growing transportation fuels sector [2,3]. Defined as fuels produced from renewable resources such as plant and woody biomass, consumption mandates and fiscal incentives have been enacted to encourage a transition to biofuels [4]. For example, the European Union (EU) Renewable Energy Directive requires that biofuels comprise 10% of member states' liquid fuels market by 2020 [2].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commercial Biomass Syngas Fermentation

2012

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Abstract:The use of gas fermentation for the production of low carbon biofuels such as ethanol or butanol from lignocellulosic biomass is an area currently undergoing intensive research and development, with the first commercial units expected to commence operation in the near future. In this process, biomass is first converted into carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H 2 )-rich synthesis gas (syngas) via gasification, and subsequently fermented to hydrocarbons by acetogenic bacteria. Several studies have been performed over the last few years to optimise both biomass gasification and syngas fermentation with significant progress being reported in both areas. While challenges associated with the scale-up and operation of this novel process remain, this strategy offers numerous advantages compared with established fermentation and purely thermochemical approaches to biofuel production in terms of feedstock flexibility and production cost. In recent times, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology techniques have been applied to gas fermenting organisms, paving the way for gases to be used as the feedstock for the commercial production of increasingly energy dense fuels and more valuable chemicals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commercial Biomass Syngas Fermentation

2012

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“…Of course, when reductions are expressed in percentages, units will not matter. Hertel, Tyner, and Birur (2010) use a computable general equilibrium model built upon the standard Global Trade Analysis Project modeling framework. To jointly meet the biofuel mandate policies of the United States (15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015) and the EU (6.25% of total fuel as renewable by 2015), they find that coarse grains acreage in the United States rises by 10%, oilseed acreage in the EU increases dramatically by 40%, cropland areas in the United States increase by 0.8%, and about one-third of these changes occur because of the EU mandate policy.…”

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confidence: 99%

Welfare Impacts of Alternative Biofuel and Energy Policies

Cui

Lapan

Moschini

et al. 2011

American J Agri Economics

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An open-economy equilibrium model is derived to investigate the effects of energy policy on the U.S. economy, with emphasis on corn-based ethanol. A second best policy of a fuel tax and ethanol subsidy is found to approximate fairly closely the welfare gains associated with the first best policy of an optimal carbon tax and tariffs on traded goods. The largest economic gains to the U.S. economy from these energy policies arise from their impact on U.S. terms of trade, particularly in the oil market. Conditional on the current fuel tax, an optimal ethanol mandate is superior to an optimal ethanol subsidy.

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“…Economic theory suggests global competitive markets will restore prices to their long-run equilibrium trends after any agricultural price shocks due to increased biofuel demand or other shocks (Figure 3) (Zhang et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2010). As an example, using a world-market economic model, the rapid growth in biofuels will trigger a sharp rise in crop production at the expense of pasturelands and forests (Hertel et al, 2010). Further, Balcombe and Rapsomanikis (2008) found oil prices determine the long run equilibrium of both sugar and ethanol prices in Brazil.…”

Section: Current Research Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%