IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/forpol/v83y2017icp99-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How much are wood-based cellulosic biofuels worth in the Pacific Northwest? Ex-ante and ex-post analysis of local people's willingness to pay

Author

Listed:
  • Baral, Nabin
  • Rabotyagov, Sergey

Abstract

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) provided a grant to establish a wood-based cellulosic biofuels industry in the US Pacific Northwest. Whether the industry will be sustainable depends largely on social acceptability in general and market acceptability of the biofuels among the public in particular. We conducted contingent valuation surveys of general public in the US states of Oregon and Washington to determine people's willingness to pay (WTP) for wood-based cellulosic biofuels and the factors that influence their WTP decisions. Oregon has an existing cellulosic biorefinery, while Washington's biorefineries are only being planned, allowing us to conduct an ex-ante (Washington) versus ex-post (Oregon) WTP comparison. We sent out mail surveys to 2828 valid mailing addresses between May and July of 2015 and received 757 completed surveys. We used the distribution-free Turnbull estimator to estimate the expected WTP and logistic regression to determine the relative strength of predictors on WTP. About one fifth (18.8%) of the respondents were willing to pay some premium for wood-based cellulosic biofuels. The mean WTP amount was $0.19±$0.03/gal. (95% confidence interval: $0.17 to $0.21), which equates to a 6.4% price premium on top of the market price for gasoline. Logistic regression results showed that the offered bid price, knowledge on biofuels, age and religious affiliation of respondents were statistically significant predictors of WTP decisions. No significant differences in ex-ante versus ex-post WTP were observed. We also discussed the policy implications of these results for sustainable management of the wood-based cellulosic biofuels industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Baral, Nabin & Rabotyagov, Sergey, 2017. "How much are wood-based cellulosic biofuels worth in the Pacific Northwest? Ex-ante and ex-post analysis of local people's willingness to pay," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 99-106.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:83:y:2017:i:c:p:99-106
    DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2017.06.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934117300709
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.06.009?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bang, Guri, 2010. "Energy security and climate change concerns: Triggers for energy policy change in the United States?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1645-1653, April.
    2. Winden, Matthew & Cruze, Nathan & Haab, Tim & Bakshi, Bhavik, 2014. "Integrating life-cycle assessment and choice analysis for alternative fuel valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 83-93.
    3. Joseph E. Aldy & Matthew J. Kotchen & Anthony A. Leiserowitz, 2012. "Willingness to pay and political support for a US national clean energy standard," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 596-599, August.
    4. Wustenhagen, Rolf & Wolsink, Maarten & Burer, Mary Jean, 2007. "Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2683-2691, May.
    5. Kallas, Zein & Gil, José María, 2015. "Do the Spanish want biodiesel? A case study in the Catalan transport sector," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 398-406.
    6. Aldy, Joseph Edgar & Leiserowitz, Anthony A & Kotchen, Matthew J, 2012. "Willingness to Pay and Political Support for a U.S. National Clean Energy Standard," Scholarly Articles 8832942, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    7. Brennan, Liam & Owende, Philip, 2010. "Biofuels from microalgae--A review of technologies for production, processing, and extractions of biofuels and co-products," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 557-577, February.
    8. Loureiro, Maria L. & Labandeira, Xavier & Hanemann, Michael, 2013. "Transport and low-carbon fuel: A study of public preferences in Spain," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(S1), pages 126-133.
    9. Timothy C. Haab & Kenneth E. McConnell, 2002. "Valuing Environmental and Natural Resources," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2427.
    10. Searchinger, Timothy & Heimlich, Ralph & Houghton, R. A. & Dong, Fengxia & Elobeid, Amani & Fabiosa, Jacinto F. & Tokgoz, Simla & Hayes, Dermot J. & Yu, Hun-Hsiang, 2008. "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12881, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    11. Dixon, Robert K. & McGowan, Elizabeth & Onysko, Ganna & Scheer, Richard M., 2010. "US energy conservation and efficiency policies: Challenges and opportunities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 6398-6408, November.
    12. Solomon, Barry D. & Johnson, Nicholas H., 2009. "Valuing climate protection through willingness to pay for biomass ethanol," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2137-2144, May.
    13. Baral, Nabin & Dhungana, Anal, 2014. "Diversifying finance mechanisms for protected areas capitalizing on untapped revenues," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 60-67.
    14. Jensen, Kimberly L. & Clark, Christopher D. & English, Burton C. & Menard, R. Jamey & Skahan, Denise K. & Marra, Adrienne C., 2010. "Willingness to pay for E85 from corn, switchgrass, and wood residues," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1253-1262, November.
    15. Petrolia, Daniel R. & Bhattacharjee, Sanjoy & Hudson, Darren & Herndon, Cary W., 2010. "Do Americans want ethanol? A comparative contingent-valuation study of willingness to pay for E-10 and E-85," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 121-128, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Garcia, Teresa Cristina & Durand-Morat, Alvaro & Yang, Wei & Popp, Michael & Schreckhise, William, 2022. "Consumers’ willingness to pay for second-generation ethanol in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Jåstad, Eirik Ogner & Bolkesjø, Torjus Folsland & Rørstad, Per Kristian, 2020. "Modelling effects of policies for increased production of forest-based liquid biofuel in the Nordic countries," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alló, Maria & Loureiro, Maria L., 2014. "The role of social norms on preferences towards climate change policies: A meta-analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 563-574.
    2. Winden, Matthew & Cruze, Nathan & Haab, Tim & Bakshi, Bhavik, 2015. "Monetized value of the environmental, health and resource externalities of soy biodiesel," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 18-24.
    3. Aguilar, Francisco X. & Cai, Zhen & Mohebalian, Phillip & Thompson, Wyatt, 2015. "Exploring the drivers' side of the “blend wall”: U.S. consumer preferences for ethanol blend fuels," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 217-226.
    4. Anthony PARIS & Pascal GASTINEAU & Pierre-Alexandre MAHIEU & Benoît CHEZE, 2020. "Citizen involvement in the energy transition: Highlighting the role played by the spatial heterogeneity of preferences in the public acceptance of biofuels," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2828, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    5. Lim, Seul-Ye & Kim, Hyo-Jin & Yoo, Seung-Hoon, 2017. "Public's willingness to pay a premium for bioethanol in Korea: A contingent valuation study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 20-27.
    6. Mamadzhanov, Alisher & McCluskey, Jill J. & Li, Tongzhe, 2019. "Willingness to pay for a second-generation bioethanol: A case study of Korea," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 464-474.
    7. Jens Abildtrup & Jette Bredahl Jacobsen & Suzanne Elizabeth Vedel & Udo Mantau & Robert Mavsar & Davide Pettenella & Irina Prokofieva & Florian Schubert & Anne Stenger & Elsa Varela & Enrico Vidale & , 2024. "Preferences for climate change policies: the role of co-benefits," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 110-128, January.
    8. Gracia, Azucena & Barreiro-Hurlé, Jesús & Pérez y Pérez, Luis, 2014. "Will consumers use biodiesel? Assessing the potential for reducing CO2 emissions from private transport in Spain," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182802, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Perlaviciute, Goda & Steg, Linda, 2014. "Contextual and psychological factors shaping evaluations and acceptability of energy alternatives: Integrated review and research agenda," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 361-381.
    10. Rhodes, Ekaterina & Scott, William A. & Jaccard, Mark, 2021. "Designing flexible regulations to mitigate climate change: A cross-country comparative policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Kwabena Krah & Daniel R Petrolia & Angelica Williams & Keith H Coble & Ardian Harri & Roderick M Rejesus, 2018. "Producer Preferences for Contracts on a Risky Bioenergy Crop," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 40(2), pages 240-258.
    12. Ayodele, T.R. & Ogunjuyigbe, A.S.O. & Ajayi, O.D. & Yusuff, A.A. & Mosetlhe, T.C., 2021. "Willingness to pay for green electricity derived from renewable energy sources in Nigeria," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    13. Gençer, Emre & Agrawal, Rakesh, 2016. "A commentary on the US policies for efficient large scale renewable energy storage systems: Focus on carbon storage cycles," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 477-484.
    14. Zorzeta Bakaki & Thomas Bernauer, 2017. "Citizens show strong support for climate policy, but are they also willing to pay?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 15-26, November.
    15. Kimberly Jensen & Christopher Clark & Burton English & Dustin Toliver, 2012. "Effects of Demographics and Attitudes on Willingness-to-Pay for Fuel Import Reductions through Ethanol Purchases," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-17, July.
    16. Linzenich, Anika & Arning, Katrin & Bongartz, Dominik & Mitsos, Alexander & Ziefle, Martina, 2019. "What fuels the adoption of alternative fuels? Examining preferences of German car drivers for fuel innovations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C), pages 222-236.
    17. Li, Tongzhe & McCluskey, Jill J., 2017. "Consumer preferences for second-generation bioethanol," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-7.
    18. Kruse, Tobias & Atkinson, Giles, 2022. "Understanding public support for international climate adaptation payments: Evidence from a choice experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    19. Ribeiro, Lauro André & Silva, Patrícia Pereira da, 2013. "Surveying techno-economic indicators of microalgae biofuel technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 89-96.
    20. L. Mundaca & H. Moncreiff, 2021. "New Perspectives on Green Energy Defaults," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 357-383, September.

    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:forpol:v:83:y:2017:i:c:p:99-106. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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/forpol .

    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.