IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/isu/genstf/201501010800001019.html

Uncertainty and Time-to-Build in Bioenergy Crop Production

Author

Listed:
  • Dumortier, Jerome
  • Kauffman, Nathan
  • Hayes, Dermot J.

Abstract

Over the last years, the cellulosic biofuel mandate has not been enforced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The uncertainty surrounding the enforcement of the mandate in addition to high production and harvest cost contributes to farmers’ hesitation to plant bioenergy crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus. Previous literature has shown that under uncertainty and sunk cost, the investment threshold is further increased because of the value associated from holding the investment option. This warrants the use of a real option model. In this paper, we extend previous literature by applying a real option model to bioenergy crop production in the United States. We show the spatial allocation of switchgrass under biomass price and agricultural return uncertainty. The empirical model identifies the counties in the contiguous United States that are most likely to change to switchgrass production. Our preliminary results indicate a very small share of land in switchgrass production even at high biomass prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Dumortier, Jerome & Kauffman, Nathan & Hayes, Dermot J., 2015. "Uncertainty and Time-to-Build in Bioenergy Crop Production," ISU General Staff Papers 201501010800001019, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:201501010800001019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d78d91ab-6ee7-415d-8c09-62eb5296407a/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    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:isu:genstf:201501010800001019. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Curtis Balmer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiasus.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.