scholarly journals The Effect of Technological Progress, Demand, and Energy Policy on Agricultural and Bioenergy Markets

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montalee Kapilakanchana ◽  
Bruce A. McCarl
Keyword(s):  
Technological Progress ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Corn Ethanol ◽  
Biofuel Policy ◽  
Demand Growth ◽  
Ethanol Level ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Corn Residue

This study investigates the consequences of agricultural technological progress, biofuel policy, and agricultural demand growth on crop, livestock, and bioenergy markets, as well as resource usage and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, over data in the United States. We formed scenarios for future technological progress, demand growth, and biofuel policy and carried out a dynamic simulation. The major findings are: (1) Increasing technological progress reduces cropland for biofuel and cropland pasture for livestock but increases cropland for crop production; (2) Reducing corn ethanol requirements causes more cropland to move from cropping to pasture uses for livestock, however, lowering ethanol from corn residue has minor effects on cropland use; (3) Lowering the requirement of ethanol from corn lowers the price for most of the field crops and meat commodities, especially corn, hay, sorghum, and non-fed beef; (4) Technological progress and biofuel policy have significant effects of on GHG emissions. Increasing technical progress reduces overall GHG emissions. A lower corn ethanol level results in much larger GHG emissions as compared with the control case. This implies producing corn ethanol is effective in reducing emissions; and (5) Technological improvement is a key factor in meeting growing global demand for food and energy and reducing emissions.

scholarly journals Biofuel Expansion, Fertilizer Use, and GHG Emissions: Unintended Consequences of Mitigation Policies

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amani Elobeid ◽  
Miguel Carriquiry ◽  
Jerome Dumortier ◽  
Francisco Rosas ◽  
Kranti Mulik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Biofuel Production ◽  
Fertilizer Use

Increased biofuel production has been associated with direct and indirect land-use change, changes in land management practices, and increased application of fertilizers and pesticides. This has resulted in negative environmental consequences in terms of increased carbon emissions, water quality, pollution, and sediment loads, which may offset the pursued environmental benefits of biofuels. This study analyzes two distinct policies aimed at mitigating the negative environmental impacts of increased agricultural production due to biofuel expansion. The first scenario is a fertilizer tax, which results in an increase in the US nitrogen fertilizer price, and the second is a policy-driven reversion of US cropland into forestland (afforestation). Results show that taxing fertilizer reduces US production of nitrogen-intensive crops, but this is partially offset by higher fertilizer use in other countries responding to higher crop prices. In the afforestation scenario, crop production shifts from high-yielding land in the United States to low-yielding land in the rest of the world. Important policy implications are that domestic policy changes implemented by a large producer like the United States can have fairly significant impacts on the aggregate world commodity markets. Also, the law of unintended consequences results in an inadvertent increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

scholarly journals Reply to Comment on ‘Carbon intensity of corn ethanol in the United States: state of the science’

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 118002
Author(s):  
Melissa J Scully ◽  
Gregory A Norris ◽  
Tania M Alarcon Falconi ◽  
David L MacIntosh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Corn Starch ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Carbon Intensity ◽  
Corn Ethanol ◽  
State Of The Science

Abstract Spawn-Lee et al published a comment on our recent paper, ‘Carbon intensity of corn ethanol in the United States: state of the science.’ Their commentary is critical of our methodology and conclusions regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) life cycle analyses (LCAs) for corn starch ethanol and gives particular attention to the estimation of emissions from land use change (LUC). Several of the concerns stated by Spawn-Lee et al were raised in prior publications and are addressed in the recently published literature, thus, we respond to those points in brief and refer readers to those papers for more information. In response to their remaining concerns, we present detailed information in support of our approach for assessing LCAs of corn starch ethanol and our findings. Our original paper and the corroborating information provided here demonstrate that our methods are robust and our results are credible. Further, we hope this response contributes to constructive discussion and research on estimation of GHG emissions and LUC linked to corn starch ethanol.

scholarly journals Recent Advancements in Technical Design and Thermal Performance Enhancement of Solar Greenhouse Dryers

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7025
Author(s):  
Shiva Gorjian ◽  
Behnam Hosseingholilou ◽  
Laxmikant D. Jathar ◽  
Haniyeh Samadi ◽  
Samiran Samanta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Performance ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Heat Pumps ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Hybrid Configuration ◽  
Vegetables And Fruits

The food industry is responsible for supplying the food demand of the ever-increasing global population. The food chain is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and global food waste accounts for one-third of produced food. A solution to this problem is preserving crops, vegetables, and fruits with the help of an ancient method of sun drying. For drying agricultural and marine products, several types of dryers are also being developed. However, they require a large amount of energy supplied conventionally from pollutant energy sources. The environmental concerns and depletion risks of fossil fuels persuade researchers and developers to seek alternative solutions. To perform drying applications, sustainable solar power may be effective because it is highly accessible in most regions of the world. Greenhouse dryers (GHDs) are simple facilities that can provide large capacities for drying agricultural products. This study reviews the integration of GHDs with different solar technologies, including photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic-thermal (PVT), and solar thermal collectors. Additionally, the integration of solar-assisted greenhouse dryers (SGHDs) with heat pumps and thermal energy storage (TES) units, as well as their hybrid configuration considering integration with other renewable energy sources, is investigated to improve their thermal performance. In this regard, this review presents and discusses the most recent advances in this field. Additionally, the economic analysis of SGHDs is presented as a key factor to make these sustainable facilities commercially available.

scholarly journals The Economic Effects of COVID-19 on the Producers of Ethanol, Corn, Gasoline, and Oil

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Schmitz ◽  
Charles B. Moss ◽  
Troy G. Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Welfare Economic ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Corn Ethanol ◽  
Empirical Estimation ◽  
Total Oil

AbstractThe COVID-19 crisis created large economic losses for corn, ethanol, gasoline, and oil producers and refineries both in the United States and worldwide. We extend the theory used by Schmitz, A., C. B. Moss, and T. G. Schmitz. 2007. “Ethanol: No Free Lunch.” Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization 5 (2): 1–28 as a basis for empirical estimation of the effect of COVID-19. We estimate, within a welfare economic cost-benefit framework that, at a minimum, the producer cost in the United States for these four sectors totals $176.8 billion for 2020. For U.S. oil producers alone, the cost was $151 billion. When world oil is added, the costs are much higher, at $1055.8 billion. The total oil producer cost is $1.03 trillion, which is roughly 40 times the effect on U.S. corn, ethanol, and gasoline producers, and refineries. If the assumed unemployment effects from COVID-19 are taken into account, the total effect, including both producers and unemployed workers, is $212.2 billion, bringing the world total to $1266.9 billion.

scholarly journals Underneath Kyoto: Emerging Subnational Government Initiatives and Incipient Issue-Bundling Opportunities in China and the United States

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Koehn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Stabilization Policies

At present, progress in mitigating global GHG emissions is impeded by political stalemate at the national level in the United States and the People's Republic of China. Through the conceptual lenses of multilevel governance and framing politics, the article analyzes emerging policy initiatives among subnational governments in both countries. Effective subnational emission-mitigating action requires framing climatic-stabilization policies in terms of local co-benefits associated with environmental protection, health promotion, and economic advantage. In an impressive group of US states and cities, and increasingly at the local level in China, public concerns about air pollution, consumption and waste management, traffic congestion, health threats, the ability to attract tourists, and/or diminishing resources are legitimizing policy developments that carry the co-benefit of controlling GHG emissions. A co-benefits framing strategy that links individual and community concerns for morbidity, mortality, stress reduction, and healthy human development for all with GHG-emission limitation/reduction is especially likely to resonate powerfully at the subnational level throughout China and the United States.

Footprint of Export-Related GHG Emissions from Latin America and the Caribbean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Li
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Trade Flows ◽  
Total Export ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Trade Partners ◽  
Composition Of Trade

To quantify the growth in GHG emissions related to international trade, we build an extensive database for export-related production and transportation GHG emissions covering 189 countries and 10 sectors from 1990 to 2014. We employ this database to quantify the contribution of production and international transportation to total export-related GHG emissions from Latin America and the Caribbean and decompose growth in these to contributions of the increase in the regions trade flows, shifts in the composition of trade partners, changes in the traded product basket, and technological progress.

Fin de Siècle, Gilded Age, or Belle Époque

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shearer West
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Belle Epoque ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Sexual Perversion ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Belle Époque

This chapter considers the origin and significance of three terms widely used to characterize a decadent periodization in Britain, the United States, and France: fin de siècle, Gilded Age, and Belle Époque. While these terms were used loosely, and in some cases retrospectively, to describe the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, they also highlight dominant social narratives of the period. These decades witnessed unprecedented economic growth, rapid technological progress, and relative peace following such crises as the Franco-Prussian War in Europe and the Civil War in the United States. However, the cultural products of decadence were more likely to emphasize millennial doom, nervous exhaustion, sexual perversion, and scientific failure, while the decadent style was seen as a novel way of expressing how it felt to live in an era in which the pace of modern life brought with it febrile cultural, social, and political change.

“Russian” Spengler and the Destiny of World History in Russian Philosophy in the Beginning of the 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Vladimir A. Kudryavtsev ◽  
Alexandra I. Vakulinskaya
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Russian Philosophy ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Ideological Influence ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Factor ◽  
In The Beginning

This article deals with the history of Russian philosophers ‘acquaintance with the ideas of O. Spengler, set forth in his work “The Decline of the West”. The authors point out that the initial orientation of Russian thought towards Historiosophy, problems of history and ontology became the key factor of Spengler’s popularity in Russia. The article considers and analyzes critical and methodological approaches to the theory of cultural and historical types by O. Spengler and N. Ya. Danilevsky within the framework of Russian philosophical thought. The authors pay attention to the ideological influence of the United States as the country which adheres to the ideas of the Enlightenment, as well as to German thinkers, who visited this country in the early twentieth century. It is concluded that the global scenario of the human civilization development, that used to be the mainstream of its formation before the events of the beginning of this year, is unsuitable and untenable. The authors insist on the important role of the theory of cultural and historical types supported and developed by Russian emigration representatives, and focus on the importance of the religious factor in the process of cultural revival.

A Tool for Designing Policy Packages To Achieve India’s Climate Targets: Methods, Data, and Reference Scenario of the India Energy Policy Simulator

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deepthi Swamy ◽  
Apurba Mitra ◽  
Varun Agarwal ◽  
Megan Mahajan ◽  
Robbie Orvis
Keyword(s):  
Energy Policy ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Note ◽  
Reference Scenario ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Climate Targets ◽  
Effective Manner ◽  
Business As Usual

India is currently the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) after China and the United States and is set to experience continued growth in its population, economy, and energy consumption. Exploring low-carbon development pathways for India is therefore crucial for achieving the goal of global decarbonization. India has pledged to reduce the emission intensity of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 33–35 per cent relative to 2005 levels by 2030 through its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), among other related targets for the renewable energy and forestry sectors. Further, countries, including India, are expected to respond to the invitation of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Paris Agreement to communicate new or updated NDCs with enhanced ambition and long-term low-GHG development strategies for 2050. To design effective policy packages to support the planning and achievement of such climate targets, policymakers need to identify policies that can reduce GHG emissions in a timely and cost-effective manner, while meeting development-related and other national objectives. The India Energy Policy Simulator (India EPS), an open-source, system dynamics model, can enable an integrated quantitative assessment of different cross-sectoral climate policy packages for India through 2050 and their implications for key variables of interest such as emissions, GDP, and jobs. The tool was developed by Energy Innovation LLC and adapted for India in partnership with World Resources Institute. It is available for open access through a Web interface as well as a downloadable application. This technical note describes the structure, input data sources, assumptions, and limitations of the India EPS, as well as the setup and key results of its reference scenario, referred to as the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario in the model. It is intended as an update to the first technical note on the India EPS (Mangan et al. 2019) and accounts for the changes incorporated into the model since the first version.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document