Title
The Trade-off Between Bioenergy and Emissions With Land Constraints
Campus Units
Economics
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Submitted Manuscript
Publication Date
3-2013
Journal or Book Title
Energy Policy
Volume
54
First Page or Article ID Number
300
Last Page
310
Abstract
Agricultural biofuels require the use of scarce land, and this land has opportunity cost. We explore the objective function of a social planner who includes a land constraint in the optimization decision to minimize environmental cost. The inclusion of this land constraint in our optimization model motivates the measurement of emissions on a per-hectare basis. Switchgrass and corn are modeled as competing alternatives to show how the inclusion of a land constraint can influence life cycle rankings and alter policy conclusions. With land use unconstrained, ethanol produced from switchgrass is always an optimal feedstock relative to ethanol produced from corn. With land use constrained, however, our results show that it is unlikely that switchgrass would be optimal in the midwestern United States, but may be optimal in southern states if carbon is priced relatively high. Whether biofuel policy advocates for one feedstock over another should consider these contrasting results.
Recommended Citation
Kauffman, Nathan S. and Hayes, Dermot J., "The Trade-off Between Bioenergy and Emissions With Land Constraints" (2013). Economics Publications. 423.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/econ_las_pubs/423
Comments
This is a working paper of an article from Energy Policy, 54 (March 2013); 300-310. Doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.11.036.