Assessing Changes in Land and Fertilizer Use as a Result of Biofuel Production in the US

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2009
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Haverford College. Department of Economics
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The biofuel industry in the US has experienced rapid growth in recent years, in part fueled by government incentives, which has led several academics to conduct cost-benefit analyses on biofuels. In this paper, I focus in on the issue of changes in land and fertilizer use as a cost of increasing biofuel production. I first employ a model to analyze the effects of fuel ethanol production as well as several related factors on different land use types and fertilizer use. Then, I use the results of that model to illustrate the negative environmental effects of increasing biofuel production. Finally, I expand the results of this paper out into the broader cost-benefit framework. One of the important conclusions of this paper is that the negative impacts of biofuel production on the environment are important costs that should be incorporated into both cost-benefit analyses and policymakers’ decisions.
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