THE IMPACT OF BIOFUELS:
EMPIRICAL STUDIES
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.