IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea14/179201.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty, Irreversibility, and Investment in Second-Generation Biofuels

Author

Listed:
  • McCarty, Tanner
  • Sesmero, Juan

Abstract

The present study formalizes and quantifies the importance of uncertainty, irreversibility, and managerial flexibility for investment in a corn-stover based cellulosic biofuel plant. Using a real options model, we recover prices of gasoline that would trigger entry into the market and compare it to breakeven entry price (long run average cost). Our analysis shows that the price premium (above breakeven) likely to be required by investors to enter the market due to the uncertain and irreversible nature of investment is substantial. Managerial flexibility (embedded by the option of mothballing and reactivating the plant) does not sensibly reduce the entry premium. Results also suggest that price volatility may greatly increase hysteresis (i.e. a range of gasoline prices for which there is neither entry nor exit in the market) in firm behavior and decrease supply elasticity. In combination all of these results suggest that, 1) policies supporting second generation biofuels may have fell short of their targets because of their failure to alleviate price uncertainty, and 2) the use of price-based instruments such as reverse auctions, either in isolation or in combination with mandates, may be warranted.

Suggested Citation

  • McCarty, Tanner & Sesmero, Juan, 2014. "Uncertainty, Irreversibility, and Investment in Second-Generation Biofuels," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 179201, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea14:179201
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.179201
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/179201/files/UncertaintyAAEA2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.179201?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Tristan R. & Thilakaratne, Rajeeva & Brown, Robert C. & Hu, Guiping, 2013. "Regional differences in the economic feasibility of advanced biorefineries: Fast pyrolysis and hydroprocessing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 234-243.
    2. M. R. Grasselli, 2011. "Getting Real with Real Options: A Utility–Based Approach for Finite–Time Investment in Incomplete Markets," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5-6), pages 740-764, June.
    3. Salisu, Afees A. & Fasanya, Ismail O., 2013. "Modelling oil price volatility with structural breaks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 554-562.
    4. Tyner, Wallace E. & Taheripour, Farzad & Perkis, David, 2010. "Comparison of fixed versus variable biofuels incentives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 5530-5540, October.
    5. Paul Gallagher & Mark Dikeman & John Fritz & Eric Wailes & Wayne Gauthier & Hosein Shapouri, 2003. "Supply and Social Cost Estimates for Biomass from Crop Residues in the United States," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 24(4), pages 335-358, April.
    6. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    7. Robert S. Pindyck, 1999. "The Long-Run Evolutions of Energy Prices," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 1-27.
    8. Blanco, Luisa & Isenhouer, Michelle, 2010. "Powering America: The impact of ethanol production in the Corn Belt states," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1228-1234, November.
    9. Metcalf, Gilbert E. & Hassett, Kevin A., 1995. "Investment under alternative return assumptions Comparing random walks and mean reversion," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(8), pages 1471-1488, November.
    10. Schmit, T.M. & J., Luo & Conrad, J.M., 2011. "Estimating the influence of U.S. ethanol policy on plant investment decisions: A real options analysis with two stochastic variables," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1194-1205.
    11. Gallagher, Paul W. & Dikeman, Mark & Fritz, John & Wailes, Eric & Gauthier, Wayne & Shapouri, Hosein, 2003. "Supply and Social Cost Estimates for Biomass from Crop Residues in the United States," ISU General Staff Papers 200304010800001493, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. Gallagher, Paul W. & Dikeman, Mark & Fritz, John & Wailes, Eric J. & Gauthier, Wayne M. & Shapouri, Hosein, 2003. "Biomass From Crop Residues: Cost And Supply Estimates," Agricultural Economic Reports 34063, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    13. Song, Feng & Zhao, Jinhua & Swinton, Scott M., 2010. "Alternative Land Use Policies: Real Options with Costly Reversibility," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61510, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Demirbas, Ayhan, 2011. "Competitive liquid biofuels from biomass," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 17-28, January.
    15. Feng Song & Jinhua Zhao & Scott M. Swinton, 2011. "Switching to Perennial Energy Crops Under Uncertainty and Costly Reversibility," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(3), pages 764-779.
    16. Taheripour, Farzad & Tyner, Wallace E. & Fiegel, Julie, 2013. "Development of Corn Stover Biofuel: Impacts on Corn and Soybean Markets and Land Rotation," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 148851, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Glenn Pederson & Tianyu Zou, 2009. "Using real options to evaluate ethanol plant expansion decisions," Agricultural Finance Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 69(1), pages 23-35, May.
    18. Gonzalez, Asa O. & Karali, Berna & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2012. "A public policy aid for bioenergy investment: Case study of failed plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 465-473.
    19. Niemann, Rainer & Sureth, Caren, 2004. "Tax neutrality under irreversibility and risk aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 43-47, July.
    20. Sarkar, Sudipto, 2003. "The effect of mean reversion on investment under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 377-396, November.
    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. Markel, Evan & Sims, Charles & English, Burton C., 2018. "Policy uncertainty and the optimal investment decisions of second-generation biofuel producers," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 89-100.
    2. Dorel Dusmanescu & Jean Andrei & Gheorghe H. Popescu & Elvira Nica & Mirela Panait, 2016. "Heuristic Methodology for Estimating the Liquid Biofuel Potential of a Region," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-19, August.

    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. Wong, Kit Pong, 2011. "Progressive taxation and the intensity and timing of investment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 100-108, January.
    2. Lynes, Melissa K. & Bergtold, Jason S. & Williams, Jeffery R. & Fewell, Jason E., 2016. "Willingness of Kansas farm managers to produce alternative cellulosic biofuel feedstocks: An analysis of adoption and initial acreage allocation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 336-348.
    3. Xian, Hui & Colson, Gregory & Mei, Bin & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2015. "Co-firing coal with wood pellets for U.S. electricity generation: A real options analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 106-116.
    4. Wong, Kit Pong, 2011. "Progressive taxation and the intensity and timing of investment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 100-108.
    5. Löfgren, Åsa & Millock, Katrin & Nauges, Céline, 2008. "The effect of uncertainty on pollution abatement investments: Measuring hurdle rates for Swedish industry," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 475-491, December.
    6. Rosburg, Alicia & Miranowski, John & Jacobs, Keri, 2013. "Cellulosic Biofuel Supply with Heterogeneous Biomass Suppliers: An Application to Switchgrass-based Ethanol," Staff General Research Papers Archive 36359, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Xian, Hui & Karali, Berna & Colson, Gregory & Wetzstein, Michael E., 2015. "Diesel or compressed natural gas? A real options evaluation of the U.S. natural gas boom on fuel choice for trucking fleets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P2), pages 1342-1348.
    8. Detert, Neal & Kotani, Koji, 2013. "Real options approach to renewable energy investments in Mongolia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 136-150.
    9. McCarty, Tanner & Sesmero, Juan, 2021. "Contracting for perennial energy crops and the cost-effectiveness of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    10. Wong, Kit Pong & Yi, Long, 2013. "Irreversibility, mean reversion, and investment timing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 770-775.
    11. Maung, Thein A. & McCarl, Bruce A., 2013. "Economic factors influencing potential use of cellulosic crop residues for electricity generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 81-91.
    12. Tsekrekos, Andrianos E., 2010. "The effect of mean reversion on entry and exit decisions under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 725-742, April.
    13. Doering, Otto C., III, 2005. "Agricultural/Renewable Contributions to U.S. Electricity Usage," Energy from Agriculture: New Technologies, Innovative Programs and Success Stories, December 14-15, 2005, St. Louis, Missouri 7626, Farm Foundation.
    14. Abadie, Luis M. & Chamorro, José M., 2008. "Valuing flexibility: The case of an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1850-1881, July.
    15. White, Eric M. & Latta, Greg & Alig, Ralph J. & Skog, Kenneth E. & Adams, Darius M., 2013. "Biomass production from the U.S. forest and agriculture sectors in support of a renewable electricity standard," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-74.
    16. Mobini, Mahdi & Sowlati, Taraneh & Sokhansanj, Shahab, 2011. "Forest biomass supply logistics for a power plant using the discrete-event simulation approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(4), pages 1241-1250, April.
    17. Mei, Bin & Wetzstein, Michael, 2017. "Burning wood pellets for US electricity generation? A regime switching analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 434-441.
    18. Moon, Jin-Young & Apland, Jeffrey & Folle, Solomon & Mulla, David, 2016. "A Watershed Level Economic Analysis of Cellulosic Biofuel Feedstock Production with Consideration of Water Quality," Sustainable Agriculture Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 5(3).
    19. Bergtold, Jason S. & Shanoyan, Aleksan & Fewell, Jason E. & Williams, Jeffery R., 2017. "Annual bioenergy crops for biofuels production: Farmers' contractual preferences for producing sweet sorghum," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 724-731.
    20. Luis H. R. Alvarez & Erkki Koskela, 2005. "Progressive Taxation and Irreversible Investment under Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 1377, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Risk and Uncertainty;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:aaea14:179201. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.