Indirect Land Use Change From Increased Biofuels Demand - Comparison of Models and Results for Marginal Biofuels Production from Different Feedstocks

This study compares the ILUC results produced by different economic models for marginal increases in biofuel production from different feedstocks. The work is the result of a survey of marginal calculations launched by the JRC-IE during 2009, involving some of the best known models worldwid. The modellers were requested by JRC-IE to run scenarios corresponding as closely as possible to the following specification (e. g. marginal runs against existing baseline of the following scenarios): marginal extra ethanol demand in EU marginal extra biodiesel demand in EU marginal extra ethanol demand in US marginal extra palm oil demand in EU results from the different models and various scenarios are compared in this report in terms of hectares of ILUC per Mtoe of biofuels produced (marginal land use change). the EU ethanol scenarios, the total estimated ILUC (in the world) ranges from 223 to 743 kHa per Mtoe. For most of the EU ethanol scenarios the models project that the largest share of ILUC would occur outside the EU the EU biodiesel scenarios, total ILUC ranges from 242 to 1928 kHa per Mtoe all of the EU biodiesel scenarios the models project that the largest share of LUC would occur outside the EU this is not the main purpose of this report, the range of GHG emissions which one could expect to correspond to the areas of LUC reported by all the models has been rouglhy estimated. report provides deep analysis of the resons of differences between models and gives fundamental indications to policy makers on how to address the issue of ILUC in legislation.