Long-Term Biofuel Projections Under Different Oil Price Scenarios

John Miranowski and Alicia Rosburg

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: With rapid expansion of biofuel production, major concerns have arisen over higher food costs and competition between food, feed, and biofuel for energy-rich commodities. Most projections are based on short- and intermediate-term commodity price shocks. We estimate long-term biofuel demand and cost-minimizing supply functions for feedstock and biofuel in developed and developing countries. We assume input and output coefficients and substitution elasticities adjust over time in response to changing prices in a dynamic market environment with productivity growth. Three alternative oil price scenarios are considered for biofuel feedstock production and conversation. The price of oil puts both a floor and ceiling on feedstock price. We conclude that global biofuel expansion will be limited in the absence of government incentives and mandates, unless high real oil prices prevail. Countries and regions need large, excess feedstock supplies (price-elastic response) if biofuel expansion is to be competitive with oil or other liquid fuels.

Keywords: biofuel; biomass; feedstock price ceiling; feedstock price floor; land use change; long-term biofuel projections; productivity growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-04-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ene
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in AgBioForum 2013, vol. 15 no. 4, pp. 1-9

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/p16119-2013-04-15.pdf (application/pdf)

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:isu:genres:36119

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().