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Understanding the revised land use changes and greenhouse gas emissions induced by biofuels

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  • Alexandre Gohin

Abstract

We analyze two puzzling results released by the California Air Resource Board who recently revises its land use changes and greenhouse gas emissions induced by biofuels. First the absolute reduction in the US average soya biodiesel estimate is much greater than the reduction in the US average corn ethanol one. Second the EU canola biodiesel estimate is twice the US canola biodiesel one. We find that these two puzzling results are mostly explained by some weak initial economic data. In both cases, the underestimation of the oilmeal production values biases upwards the carbon emission estimates. We then recall that any economic analysis is only worth the quality of the supporting data. The current focus on unobserved elasticity values to assess biofuel impacts is not sufficient.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Gohin, 2015. "Understanding the revised land use changes and greenhouse gas emissions induced by biofuels," Working Papers SMART 15-08, INRAE UMR SMART.
    • Handle: RePEc:rae:wpaper:201508
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    File URL: http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/208914/2/WP15-08.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Scott, Paul, 2014. "Dynamic Discrete Choice Estimation of Agricultural Land Use," TSE Working Papers 14-526, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    2. Alexandre Gohin, 2014. "Assessing the Land Use Changes and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Biofuels: Elucidating the Crop Yield Effects," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(4), pages 575-586.
    3. Alexandre Gohin, 2014. "Assessing the Land Use Changes and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Biofuels: Elucidating the Crop Yield Effects," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(4), pages 575-586.
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    5. Carpentier, Alain & Féménia, Fabienne & Koutchadé, Philippe, 2014. "Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in micro-econometric agricultural production choice models: a random parameter approach," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170614, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Panichelli, Luis & Gnansounou, Edgard, 2015. "Impact of agricultural-based biofuel production on greenhouse gas emissions from land-use change: Key modelling choices," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 344-360.
    7. Alexandre Gohin, 2014. "Assessing the land use changes and greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels: elucidating the crop yield effects," Post-Print hal-01209050, HAL.
    8. Alla A. Golub & Thomas W. Hertel, 2012. "Modeling Land-Use Change Impacts Of Biofuels In The Gtap-Bio Framework," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(03), pages 1-30.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    biofuels; land use changes; models; data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models

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