Perspectives on economic performance in biofuels: An overview
2010
Kobayashi, H., Wako Univ. Machida, Tokyo (Japan)
Biomass should act an important role in the development of renewable energy sources. The paper considers biofuels for transport from an economic standpoint of view. Their profitability, environmental performances and impacts on agricultural markets are discussed based on literatures, the author's case studies, theoretical illustration and empirical evidences. The author concluded: (1) biofuel production of first generation technology is difficult to be profitable taking into considerations of feedstock prices normally given in the agricultural markets, (2) literatures and some scientific evidences suggest that environmental benefits made by the first generation biofuels are still unclear particularly in the case that we count the impact through land use changes, (3) biofuel production, in the reality, is heavily supported by the government, and the relating policies could be categorized in agricultural supports such as export subsidies and deficiency payment-like schemes, (4) some econometric analyses providing possible impacts on food prices in the coming future are misleading because they seem to have failed, in most cases, to evaluate proper value of price elasticities in long-run supply functions.
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