(537c) Impact Assessment Of Biofuel Production On Regional Economy

Production of biofuels like bioethanol, biobutanol etc. supply renewable energy to the market. With the broad scope of sustainability, not only the performance of the individual plant needs to be considered, but also its impacts on the sustainability of the region need to be evaluated as well.

Biobutanol provides a promising alternative to be used as an additive in gasoline in any proportion. It can be produced by fermentation of biomass like corn, rice straw, sorghum etc. In this work, an integrated study is conducted to assess the possibility of starting a biobutanol production facility in Southeast Texas. Furthermore, the economic impacts of this new industry on the existing regional economic infrastructure is calculated based on the supply-demand relationship depicted by a set of modified regional input-output multipliers. Two different scenarios are analyzed depending upon the change in overall demand of energy with the introduction of a new source of energy in the market, i.e. biobutanol. It was found that establishing a biobutanol production facility positively improves the sustainability of the region.