BIOFUEL AND THE
FUTURE OF ENERGY
Please click on the titles below for
each speaker's presentation.
“Economics of a New Generation of
Bioenergy Crops: Implications for Land Use and Greenhouse Gases”
Madhu Khanna, University of Illinois
Growing concern
about global climate change has led to an interest in a new generation
of bioenergy crops, perennial grasses, that can be co-fired with coal
in electricity-generating plants or converted to fuel that can
supplement gasoline. This research examines the economic
viability of two such grasses, switchgrass and miscanthus, for
electricity generation. A dynamic micro-economic model is applied at
the county level in Illinois to examine cost-effective, land-use
allocation among alternative row crops and these perennial grasses over
a 15-year period. A transportation module links power plants to least
cost production sources of bioenergy crops to determine the spatial
allocation of land depending on location of power plants. We also
undertake a preliminary comparison of the costs of using these grasses
for the production of cellulosic ethanol relative to corn and
corn-stover. Life-cycle analysis is then used to investigate the
potential for such crops to reduce greenhouse gas emissions both by
sequestering carbon in agricultural soils and by displacing fossil
fuels.
Madhu Khanna is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and
Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Her research examines the effectiveness and targeting of alternative
market-based instruments and voluntary approaches for inducing the
adoption of environmentally friendly technologies. Professor
Khanna is currently examining the economics of using perennial grasses
to provide environmental benefits, such as soil carbon sequestration
and reduced runoff, as well as bioenergy. Her research has been funded
by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, U. S. Department of
Agriculture, U. S. Department of Energy, and the Illinois Council on
Food and Agricultural Research. She was selected as a University of
Illinois Scholar for 2004-07. Madhu has served on review panels for the
USEPA and the USDA and on the Board of Directors of the Association of
Environmental and Resource Economists and is an Associate Editor for
the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
“How Biofuels Fit
into the Global Energy Market”
Severin Borenstein, UC Berkeley
Borenstein will
discuss how biofuels fit into the economics of transportation fuel
markets, from the world oil market to refining and distribution.
The business and policy challenges that would have to be met in order
for biofuels to become a dominant source of transportation energy are
formidable. Cost reduction, scalability, and fuel transportation
challenge the business economics of biofuels. At the same time,
public policy remains unsettled in relation to both climate change and
energy security. Energy security and geopolitical concerns alone
are unlikely to support consistent growth in the biofuels
markets. Without a long-run commitment to pricing environmental
externalities, biofuels in the U.S. risk becoming just another
subsidy-dependent agricultural market constantly buffeted by the
political winds.
Severin Borenstein is E.T. Grether Professor of Business Economics and
Public Policy at the Haas School of Business, Director of the
University of California Energy Institute, and a research associate of
the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. He is also an affiliated Professor in the
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Energy and
Resources Group at U.C. Berkeley. He received his A.B. from U.C.
Berkeley in 1978 and Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1983. His research
focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation. He has
published extensively on the airline, oil and gasoline, and electricity
markets, as well as on insurance, e-commerce, mining, natural gas, and
other industries. Borenstein was a member of the Governing Board of the
California Power Exchange from 1997 until 2003 and served on the
California Attorney General's gasoline price taskforce in 1999-2000.
During 1999-2002, he was co-director of NBER's research project on
e-commerce. Most recently, his research has focused on the
evolving airline industry, real-time retail electricity pricing, and
the economics of renewable energy and climate change.
“Biofuel and the
Expansion of Agriculture”
Deepak Rajagopal, UC Berkeley
Deepak Rajagopal is a
Ph.D. candidate in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of
California, Berkeley. His research interests include the economics and
policy of alternative energy especially biofuels, agricultural and
environmental policy, and international economic development. He
received his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1999 and a Masters degree
also in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland, College
Park, in 2001. He also has three years of professional experience in
engineering design and simulation of technologies like gas turbines,
micro turbines, and fuel cells at United Technologies Corporation’s
Research Center at Hartford, Connecticut. His most recent publications
include a survey of the environmental, economic, and policy literature
on biofuels, which was released as a World Bank Research Working Paper
(#4341, September 2007) and a paper on the implications of biofuels in
India, which is to appear in a special issue of the Water Policy
Journal.