Estimates of the global indirect energy-use emission impacts of USA biofuel policy

Gbadebo Oladosu

Applied Energy, 2012, vol. 99, issue C, 85-96

Abstract: This paper evaluates the indirect energy-use emission implications of increases in the use of biofuels in the USA between 2001 and 2010 as mandates within a dynamic global computable general equilibrium model. The study incorporates explicit markets for biofuels, petroleum and other fossil fuels, and accounts for interactions among all sectors of an 18-region global economy. It considers bilateral trade, as well as the dynamics of capital allocation and investment. Simulation results show that the biofuel mandates in the USA generate an overall reduction in global energy use and emissions over the simulation period from 2001 to 2030. Consequently, the indirect energy-use emission change or emission leakage under the mandate is negative. That is, global emission reductions are larger than the direct emission savings from replacing petroleum with biofuels under the USA RFS2 over the last decade. Under our principal scenario this enhanced the direct emission reduction from biofuels by about 66%. The global change in lifecycle energy-use emissions for this scenario was estimated to be about −93million tons of CO2e in 2010, −45million tons of CO2e in 2020, and an increase of 5million tons of CO2e in 2030, relative to the baseline scenario. Sensitivity results of six alternative scenarios provided additional insights into the pattern of the regional and global effects of biofuel mandates on energy-use emissions.

Keywords: Biofuels; Indirect energy use; Emissions; General equilibrium model; Mandates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191200342X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:99:y:2012:i:c:p:85-96

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.04.045

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().