IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v145y2018icp27-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heterogeneity in Preferences for Woody Biomass Energy in the US Mountain West

Author

Listed:
  • Campbell, Robert M.
  • Venn, Tyron J.
  • Anderson, Nathaniel M.

Abstract

Millions of acres of public forest in the US Mountain West are substantially degraded and are in need of restoration. Mechanized restoration treatments can improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of severe wildfire. These treatments produce some timber, and substantial amounts of forest residues that can be used to generate renewable energy and displace fossil fuels. Using the choice modeling method, this study investigates social preferences for generation of energy with woody biomass produced by restoration treatments on public forests in the Mountain West. Both multinomial logit and latent class logit (LCL) models are fit to the data and used to estimate marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for increased amounts of woody biomass energy generation and important associated co-benefits and costs. Positive and statistically significant MWTP is found for the number of homes powered with wood, the extent of healthy forests, avoiding increases in the number of large wildfires, and local air quality. Significant heterogeneity was found in respondent preferences for the attributes. The heterogeneity can be explained in part by sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics of respondents. The LCL revealed four classes of respondents with distinct preferences, revealing conflicting viewpoints toward forest management for woody biomass energy generation.

Suggested Citation

  • Campbell, Robert M. & Venn, Tyron J. & Anderson, Nathaniel M., 2018. "Heterogeneity in Preferences for Woody Biomass Energy in the US Mountain West," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 27-37.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:145:y:2018:i:c:p:27-37
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800917300204
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nakai, Miwa & von Loessl, Victor & Wetzel, Heike, 2024. "Preferences for dynamic electricity tariffs: A comparison of households in Germany and Japan," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    2. Voravee Saengavut & Chintana Somswasdi, 2022. "Preference Heterogeneity of Local Participation in Coupling Conservation and Community-Based Entrepreneurship Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Oyinbo, Oyakhilomen & Chamberlin, Jordan & Vanlauwe, Bernard & Vranken, Liesbet & Kamara, Alpha & Craufurd, Peter & Maertens, Miet, 2018. "Farmers' preferences for site-specific extension services: Evidence from a choice experiment in Nigeria," Working Papers 276175, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    4. Cerdá, Emilio & López-Otero, Xiral & Quiroga, Sonia & Soliño, Mario, 2024. "Willingness to pay for renewables: Insights from a meta-analysis of choice experiments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    5. Yanyan Ma & Xueyan Zhao, 2022. "What Affects the Livelihood Risk Coping Preferences of Smallholder Farmers? A Case Study from the Eastern Margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    6. Ugarte Lucas, Paula & Gamborg, Christian & Lund, Thomas Bøker, 2022. "Sustainability concerns are key to understanding public attitudes toward woody biomass for energy: A survey of Danish citizens," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 181-194.
    7. Jesse D. Young & Nathaniel M. Anderson & Helen T. Naughton, 2018. "Influence of Policy, Air Quality, and Local Attitudes toward Renewable Energy on the Adoption of Woody Biomass Heating Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-24, October.
    8. Oyinbo, Oyakhilomen & Chamberlin, Jordan & Vanlauwe, Bernard & Vranken, Liesbet & Kamara, Yaya Alpha & Craufurd, Peter & Maertens, Miet, 2019. "Farmers' preferences for high-input agriculture supported by site-specific extension services: Evidence from a choice experiment in Nigeria," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 12-26.
    9. Pinto, Lígia Costa & Sousa, Sara & Valente, Marieta, 2022. "Forest bioenergy as a land and wildfire management tool: Economic valuation under different informational contexts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    10. Zhao, Xiaoli & Cai, Qiong & Li, Shujie & Ma, Chunbo, 2018. "Public preferences for biomass electricity in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 242-253.
    11. Oyinbo, O. & Maertens, M. & Chamberlin, J. & Vanlauwe, B. & Craufurd, P. & Kamara, A., 2018. "Maize Farmers Preferences for ICT-based extension services: Evidence from a Choice Experiment in Nigeria," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277328, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:145:y:2018:i:c:p:27-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.