AGEEB

Analysis of Global Economic and Environmental Impacts of a Substantial Increase in Bioenergy Productions

Duration: 09/2007 - 09/2010
Award Amount: $209,900 out of $659,783

Participants
Purdue University: Qianlai Zhuang
Purdue University: Wally Tyner
Purdue University: Thomas Hertel

Project Objectives
The goal of this research is to develop realistic assessments of the economic and environmental impacts of regional and global policies designed to stimulate bioenergy production and use. We will build on the unique strengths of GTAP to analyze economic impacts of alternative bioenergy policies at regional and global levels. We will use the TEM model to help develop the land supply curves and to validate environmental consequences of these policies and check their feasibility from the environmental and land use perspectives. The following outputs will be accomplished during the study period:

1. Build and incorporate an explicit biomass energy sector within the GTAP analytical framework and data base. While GTAP has already been used for many environmental, energy, and climate change studies, there is at present no explicit biomass sector in GTAP. For future analyses, it will be imperative to have biomass sectors so that biomass for energy interactions can be incorporated with other land uses and so that biomass energy products will play in the energy markets like other energy products. Thus, all the production, substitution, consumption, and trade possibilities that currently exist for the other sectors will exist for biomass-based energy.
2. Examine changes in production, prices, consumption, trade, economic well being, etc. due to any policy or technical shock applied to the model. For example, we will be able to evaluate impacts of renewable fuel standards in the U.S. and E.U. In addition, we can couple GTAP with micro-level models to obtain estimates of the impacts of these shocks on household poverty in certain regions.
3. Assess the trade effects of bioenergy policy scenarios at regional and global levels. Analyzing the trade effects of bioenergy policies is a challenging task. The GTAP data bases and models provide a unique foundation to support this task.
4. Evaluate environmental impacts of alternative policies for bioenergy development. We will use the TEM model and its capabilities to:
   
   1. Help develop land supply curves for new lands, which will, in turn be used in the GTAP analysis
   2. Asses environmental consequences of policy scenarios,
   3. Check feasibility of alternative ways of producing bioenergy,
   4. Determine validation of alternative methods of producing bioenergy

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Poster for DOE-BER workshop-2008 Poster