Economic Insights Required for Using Lifecycle Analysis for Policy Decisions
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We develop an analytic and numerical model that integrates land, food and fuel markets and is
linked with a sectoral emissions model to examine how the amount of biofuel in the economy
impacts the lifecycle emissions of a biofuel under different policies. Our central finding is that the
change in GHG emissions due to a unit expansion in biofuel will vary dramatically in the amount
of biofuel in the economy and with the policy driving the expansion. The emissions from a unit
expansion in corn ethanol due to a blend mandate fall from 12 gCO2e/MJ to 3 gCO2e/MJ, as the
quantity of ethanol in the economy increases from 6 to 15 billion gallons. For an input subsidy,
emissions due to a unit of ethanol increase from 15 gCO2e/MJ to 26 gCO2e/MJ over the same
increase in ethanol. We discuss the implications of these results for lifecycle analysis.