Environmental and Economic Implications of Regional Bioenergy Policy
Abstract
The unique generation, landownership, and resource attributes of the southeastern United States make the region a ripe and important test bed for implementation of novel renewable energy policy. This policy brief describes the environmental and economic implications of one policy intervention: a hypothetical region-wide renewable portfolio standard (RPS) with separate biomass targets or “carve-outs.” A study of this intervention shows that over time the dominant contributor to such an RPS would be forest biomass and that existing resource conditions would influence patterns of biomass harvesting, resulting in a spatially and temporally diverse forest carbon response. Net forest carbon storage in the Southeast would be greater with the hypothetical RPS than without it in all but the final years of the modeled time period, but when displaced fossil fuel emissions are accounted for net greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions over the period could be substantial. The methods and findings presented here are also relevant to a broader array of policies that could increase biomass demand from the region, including pellet exports from the United States to the European Union and regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
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Galik, Christopher, Robert Abt, Gregory Latta and Tibor Vegh (2015). Environmental and Economic Implications of Regional Bioenergy Policy. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31707.
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Tibor Vegh
Tibor Vegh serves as a senior policy associate with the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. He is an applied social scientist with a background in environmental planning and economics. Vegh’s applied and policy-relevant research centers on the resilience of coupled human and natural systems; the economic, social, and environmental implications within the context of coastal adaptation; and the reliance on natural systems to benefit communities in the face of uncertainty and environmental risks. Vegh is a lead or collaborator on a wide range of projects where he contributes his economic, financial, and policy analysis skills, as well as his understanding of environmental planning approaches to solve real-world problems.
Vegh’s most recent work focuses on the social and economic aspects of coastal and urban resilience and multidimensional adaptation to risks in coastal and ocean systems. He has also collaborated on projects spanning many other topics, including fisheries economics, plastics pollution mitigation, ecological restoration, ecosystem service markets, bioenergy, and more.
Vegh holds a PhD in city and regional planning with a focus on environmental planning from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He earned his master's degree in forestry with a focus on economics from Northern Arizona University in 2011 and his bachelor's degree in economics with a minor in mathematics from North Carolina State University in 2008.
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