THE IMPACT OF BIOFUELS:  EMPIRICAL STUDIES




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Please click on the titles below for each speaker's presentation.


“U.S. Agriculture’s Role in a Greenhouse Gas Emission Mitigating World: An Economic Perspective”
        Bruce McCarl, Texas A&M University


One of the motivations for pursuing biofuels is that they offset greenhouse gasses.  This presentation explores the greenhouse gas implications of alternative biofeedstocks for biofuel production.  It also examines the mix of biofeedstocks that would arise at alternative levels of liquid fuel, coal, and greenhouse gas offset prices.

Bruce McCarl is a Regents Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association. He has been involved with cost benefit modeling of biofuels, greenhouse gas mitigation, climate change along with agricultural, forest, and natural resource policies for over three decades, during which he has been funded by many agencies. Among other activities, he recently was Lead Agricultural Sector Modeling Economic Analyst on the U.S. Government appraisal of Proposed Renewable Fuel Standard Rule; lead author on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group III, Agricultural Mitigation Chapter; and Principal Investigator on two USDOE grants on biomass.  Dr. McCarl is author of over 183 refereed articles, of which over 40 relate to biofuels and climate change.





“Modeling Future Prospects for Food and Fuel: Biofuels and Global Agricultural Growth”
        Siwa Msangi, International Food Policy Research Institute


In recent years, bioenergy has drawn attention as a sustainable energy source that may help cope with rising energy prices, but also maybe provide income to poor farmers and rural communities around the globe.  Rising fuel prices, growing energy demand, concerns over global warming from GHG emissions and increased openness to renewable energy resources, domestic energy security, and the push for expansion into new markets for crops in the face of world trade outlooks are all factors driving interest in expanding bioenergy use.  In this paper we explore the potential for a “food-versus-fuel” tradeoff if the adoption of agricultural crop-based biofuel production were to expand rapidly, worldwide. In our scenarios we examine the role that yield-enhancing crop technologies could have in softening the impacts, as well as that of 2nd generation lingo-cellulosic technologies. We look at the availability of calories for food and use it to project likely malnutrition impacts, and implications for food security. We also draw some implications for land and expansion of irrigated area, which has implications for environmental impacts and water use.

Siwa Msangi joined IFPRI in August 2004 as a post-doctoral fellow within the Environment and Production Technology Division, and leads the global modeling work done with the IMPACT-WATER model, focusing on the major socio-economic and bio-physical drivers affecting agricultural production and trade, and their impacts on nutrition, poverty, and the environment. Dr. Msangi has a research background in natural resource management, with a focus on surface and groundwater policy, and has interests in quantitative dynamic economics, empirical agricultural production analysis for environmental policy, and the application of dynamic game theory to the study of user behavior in water markets and other natural resource settings.  A Tanzanian national, Siwa has also studied Agricultural Economics at the University of California at Davis, International Development Policy at the Food Policy Research Institute at Stanford University, where he also received an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering.





    “Biofuel: Its Future and Its Impact on the Environment”
Bruce Babcock, Iowa State University


Corn-based ethanol will continue to dominate U.S. biofuels production and consumption unless the current set of government incentives is altered.  One alteration that is consistent with the policy direction that California is attempting to take is to base incentives on the magnitude of the net greenhouse gas reduction achieved by different biofuels.  How far current incentives will have to be altered to change the way corn-based ethanol is produced and to bring cellulosic ethanol into production are estimated using net greenhouse gas reductions for ethanol produced from Corn Belt corn. 

Bruce Babcock is a Professor of Economics and the Director of the Center
for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University.  Professor Babcock's primary research interests are analysis of agricultural commodity markets, the development of innovative risk management strategies for farmers, agricultural and trade policy analysis, and the impacts of biofuels on U.S. and world agriculture. Professor Babcock is a native of southern California. He received his B.S. in economics of resource use and his M.S. in agricultural economics from the University of California at Davis, and his Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California at
Berkeley.