Yuquan W. Zhang

MODELING BIOENERGY, LAND USE, AND GHG EMISSIONS WITH FASOMGHG: MODEL OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF STORAGE COST IMPLICATIONS

Biofuels production has increased rapidly in recent years due to higher petroleum prices as well as heightened concerns regarding climate change and energy security. However, because commercially viable biofuels are currently produced primarily from agricultural feedstocks, higher production volumes increase pressure on land resources. Thus, large-scale biofuels production has important implications for the forest and agriculture sectors, land use, trade, and net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Competition for land is expected to continue growing in the future as mandated biofuels volumes increase along with rising demand for food, feed, and fiber, both domestically and internationally. In response to heightened concern regarding impacts such as indirect land-use change and higher food prices, the U.S. policy is focusing on second-generation (cellulosic) feedstocks to contribute the majority of the mandated increase in biofuels volume through 2022. However, there has been little work exploring the logistics of supplying these feedstocks or examining feedstock mix and net GHG effects of combining renewable fuels mandates with climate policy. In this paper, we apply the recently updated Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model with GHGs (FASOMGHG) to explore the implications of alternative assumptions regarding feedstock storage costs and carbon price for renewable energy production mix, land use, and net GHG emissions. The model is used to quantify the magnitude and regional distribution of changes in the optimal mix of bioenergy feedstocks when accounting for storage costs. In addition, we find that combining the biofuels volume mandate with a carbon price policy has additional implications for feedstock mix and provides a substantially larger net reduction in GHG than a renewable fuels mandate alone.

Modeling Climate Change Impacts on the US Agricultural Exports

Climate change is expected to have substantial effects on agricultural productivity worldwide. However, these impacts will differ across commodities, locations and time periods. As a result, landowners will see changes in relative returns that are likely to induce modifications in production practices and land allocation. In addition, regional variations in impacts can alter relative competitiveness across countries and lead to adjustments in international trade patterns. Thus in climate change impact studies it is likely useful to account for worldwide productivity effects. In this study, we investigate the implications of considering rest of world climate impacts on projections of the US agricultural exports. We chose to focus on the US because it is one of the largest agricultural exporters. To conduct our analyses, we consider four alternative climate scenarios, both with and without rest of world climate change impacts. Our results show that considering/ignoring rest of world climate impacts causes significant changes in the US production and exports projections. Thus we feel climate change impact studies should account not only for climate impacts in the country of focus but also on productivity in the rest of the world in order to capture effects on commodity markets and trade potential.

US agriculture under climate change: An examination of climate change effects on ease of achieving RFS2

The challenges and opportunities facing todays agriculture within the climate change context are at least twofold: in addition to adapting to a potentially more variable climate, agriculture may also take on the addition role of mitigating GHG emissions—such as providing renewable fuels to replace fossil fuels to some extent. For the US, a large-scale GHG mitigation effort through biofuels production pursuant to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) is already unfolding. A question thus naturally arises for the RFS2-relevant US agricultural sector: will climate change make it harder to meet the volume goals set in the RFS2 mandates, considering that both climate change and RFS2 may have significant impacts on US agriculture? The agricultural component of FASOMGHG that models the land use allocation within the conterminous US agricultural sector is employed to investigate the effects of climate change (with autonomous adaptation at farm level), coupled with RFS2, on US agriculture. The analysis shows that climate change eases the burden of meeting the RFS2 mandates increasing consumer welfare while decreasing producer welfare. The results also show that climate change encourages a more diversified use of biofuel feedstocks for cellulosic ethanol production, in particular crop residues.

Climate change effects on pesticide usage reduction efforts: a case study in China

China has announced plans to stabilize its pesticide use by 2020. Yet, future climate change will possibly increase the difficulty of meeting this goal. This study uses econometric estimation to explore how climate impacts Chinese pesticide usage and subsequently to project the future implications of climate change on pesticide use. The results indicate that both atmospheric temperature and precipitation increase pesticide usage. Under current climate change projections, pesticide usage will rise by +1.1 to 2.5% by 2040, +2.4 to 9.1% by 2070, and +2.6 to 18.3% by 2100. Linearly extrapolating the results to 2020 yields an approximately 0.5 to 1.2% increase. Thus, to achieve stabilization, more severe actions are needed to address this increase. Possible actions to achieve the reductions needed include using better monitoring and early warning networks so as to permit early responses to climate change-stimulated increases, enhancing information dissemination, altering crop mix, and promoting nonchemical control means. Additionally, given that increased pesticide usage generally increases health and environmental damage, there may be a need to more widely disseminate safe application procedure information while also strengthening compliance with food safety regulations. Furthermore, pest control strategies will need to be capable of evolving as climate change proceeds. Globally, efforts could be made to (1) scale up agrometeorological services, especially in developing countries; (2) use international frameworks to better align the environmental and health standards in developing countries with those in developed countries; and (3) adapt integrated pest management practices to climate change, especially for fruits and vegetables.

Modeling Bioenergy, Land Use, and GHG Mitigation with FASOMGHG: Implications of Storage Costs and Carbon Policy

Biofuels production has increased rapidly in recent years due to heightened concerns regarding climate change and energy security. Biofuels produced from agricultural feedstocks increase pressure on land resources. Competition for land is expected to continue growing in the future as mandated biofuels volumes increase along with rising demand for food, feed, and fiber, both domestically and internationally. In response to concerns regarding impacts such as indirect land use change and higher food prices, U.S. policy is focusing on second-generation (cellulosic) feedstocks to contribute the majority of the mandated increase in biofuels volume through 2022. However, there has been little work exploring supply logistics, feedstock mix, and net GHG effects of combining renewable fuels mandates with climate policy. Using the recently updated Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model with Greenhouse Gases (FASOMGHG), we explore implications of alternative assumptions regarding feedstock storage costs and carbon price for renewable energy production mix, land use, and net GHG emissions. The model is used to quantify the magnitude and regional distribution of changes in the optimal mix of bioenergy feedstocks when accounting for storage costs. Further, combining a volume mandate with carbon price policy impacts feedstock mix and provides substantially larger net reduction in GHG.